All Forum Posts by: Miche Crise

I too have considered the STR option and feel https://www.airdna.co/ has been a great resource for due diligence. This resource provided me key metrics such as rent price, competing locations around my city and vacancy rates. They also give you a little for free without having to pay any money.

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@Anthony Wick you could add to your lease that their usuage needs to reflect the usage of an average person. Again, hard to prove which side is using what, but at least it's in there to keep them from doing something so silly. You could also add a monthly fee per dependent. I considered that option as it doesn't make sense to charge two adults the same in rent as a family of five if that rent includes water.

@Tami R. May I ask who you use for your attorney and accountant?

I have a duplex in Windsor Heights.  In my experience given the amount of usage is variable between different people it's hard to do a charge back unless you have trackers on the fixtures.  For this small multifamily I haven't found it cost effective to go to that length.  I ended up raising rent as I also didn't want to have to have to deal with how to bill the tenants for the water every month.  As I hadn't heard of a great systemic way to pass along these monthly expenses.  I was fortunate to have the acquired tenants in one unit leave after the first year.  This replaced a family of five sometimes six with just two adults.    I now earn about an extra thousand per year simply from having new tenants, not to mention the extra rent I am also able to collect.

At my level you meet every tenant and knowing them on a more personal level makes it harder to execute.  Though the alternative of hiring a PM would still be more costly.

To charge or not to charge, that is the question... I'm trying to be less empathetic when it comes to most business decisions. I also try to enforce the lease as letting things slide is a slippery slope. I wondered how many others have the same problem. When you have a great tenant who has always paid rent on time or early, has never had any complaints or issues, do you pass along repair expenses? Especially an expense over something silly they did on their part outside of normal wear and tear? Would it matter that you already knew this tenant won't be a long term tenant because they are actively looking to buy a home? This hundred dollars for instance wouldn't break you, but over time will add up, right? What are most people's perceived best practice in this case? First one should slide for a good tenants, and problem tenants enforced immediately?

To charge or not to charge, that is the question... I'm trying to be less empathetic when it comes to most business decisions. I also try to enforce the lease as letting things slide is a slippery slope. I wondered how many others have the same problem. When you have a great tenant who has always paid rent on time or early, has never had any complaints or issues, do you pass along repair expenses? Especially an expense over something silly they did on their part outside of normal wear and tear? Would it matter that you already knew this tenant won't be a long term tenant because they are actively looking to buy a home? This hundred dollars for instance wouldn't break you, but over time will add up, right? What are most people's perceived best practice in this case? First one should slide for a good tenants, and problem tenants enforced immediately?

If there are subsequent events where would be the best place to find and track those events?  I was unable to make it last night, and see this event didn't make it on the Social Club Calendar of events. 

I am currently working with Red Rock Mortgage in West Des Moines.  Depending upon how many properties you have financed at the moment it may be time to start working with a portfolio lender.  It is hard to say if small banks or large banks are the way to go from an interest rate standpoint as in my experience there isn't much consistency there.  For SFHs I haven't had to work with anyone that requires more than 15% down, as finding lenders willing to take a little less upfront have not been hard to come by here.