All Forum Posts by: Mike Redick

My understanding of NYS law is that I can only evict for lease violations or non-payment of rent...

Yes, actually... 

I think this all comes down to the PM. I had him manage the rehab and it took two months, during which he didn't list the units. 

This is why I hired a property manager! (Albeit one I should have vetted better...)

A little backstory, I bought the house in June and in November my property manager finally found a tenant through a charity that helps homeless people find homes. I was already not sure about this PM and have a thread on here where the consensus is that I should probably find a new one and do a better job of vetting... but until I get a chance to do that he's still the PM. 

Apparently the tenant has a girlfriend (or wife, not sure) that is pregnant.

Now on to the problems: Within a week of the tenant moving in I started getting calls from neighbors. Police asking neighbors about who lives in my property, police showing up at my property several times... and then one neighbor calling me complaining the guy was in  the street screaming at 4am. Just got another call now that my tenant was outside shoveling snow and started swearing and shouting at the neighbor.

Apparently neighbors have called the PM and he's very rude to them. After the first incident he told me he spoke to the tenant and the cops were called because she fainted in a store due to her medication and pregnancy... 

I went to the police station and filled out a FOIA for all police calls ti my property, and basically the cops had been there three times in less than a month. All three were basically domestic disturbance calls. One was made by the wife, but when the cops showed up she said it was a reaction to her medicine and she didn't need their help anymore. Another was for a medical transport van reporting she wouldn't get out of the van, but again that had resolved by the time she showed up. In all cases they report hormonal issues because of pregnancy and medication interaction.

So not sure what I can, or even should do. I can't evict legally in my state, and I'm not sure I would evict a pregnant woman anyway! But I don't want my tenants to bring the neighborhood down and cause lots of problems with the neighbors. 

I still need to meet with my PM to see what, if anything, he's doing about this but I don't even know if neighbors are calling him anymore due to the initial rudeness. Maybe I can talk to the charity and they can work with him somehow? Any other thoughts?

 I did ask and he said it could take two months, however that was not including the remodeling. It's just now nearing the two month mark...

I had other property managers say one month but they sounded like they were "hard selling" to me so I didn't really trust it. One also charged based on time spent rather than a percentage of rent collected which was worrisome...

 How long would you expect it to take though? 1300sq ft each unit, both replaced carpet with vinyl flooring, replaced some windows and repainted the lower... a few other minor repairs.

I searched for reviews and interviewed the options. I've seen this one recommended in my area on these forums but a few people in  the thread had complained there weren't a lot of good options in my area...

He is a licensed Real Estate Agent, although I'm not sure what other avenues they use. (He may have told me but I don't remember.)

What other components should I use to vet PM's? 

I closed on my first pure rental property, a two-family home, back in June and unexpectedly had both tenants move out by the end of July. So with some remodeling to do and needing new tenants I decided to hire a property manager sooner than later.

I interviewed a few companies and settled on one, and while I can't find a lot of reviews online at least this one didn't have any negative reviews unlike the others I talked to.

So I had him do the remodeling, which was basically just repainting and replacing the carpets with vinyl flooring along with a couple minor repairs, which took two months total for both apartments. I was a little frustrated with that, but having never done a remodel before I don't know how long that kind of work would normally take.

The work was finished on both units in mid-September and he let me know he was going to start showing them. A couple weeks later I googled to see the listings and couldn't find any, when I asked him about it he said he had shown it to someone and was waiting for the application. A week later the potential tenant backed out and my PM finally created listings on the various apartment search sites. 

Now we're heading into November and I still have no tenants... and my misgivings about the process have kept growing all this time. I had my handyman there to do some more work in the last couple weeks and he was there while the PM was showing the place. According to my handyman he was doing a good job trying to sell the apartment so that gives me some hope.

The bottom line though is that I really have no idea what to expect with the process. Is this par for the course? I'm thinking I should have handled the "remodel" as maybe property managers don't usually do that part and that's why it took so long?