All Forum Posts by: M Marie M.

Okay. I had a nice long talk with the tenant about credit and finances. I'm going to try to help the tenant clean up their credit, but I'm going to sell this rental. They are unaware that they can challenge some old debts and can probably clear up some debts for less than what is owed. They'll have to be proactive to clean up their credit, so my assistance won't be more than advice. 

Unfortunately, the tenant seems too .... disorganized for me to offer anything. So heck no, I'm not going do owner financing, even if I knew how to. 

I'm not in a rush. So I'm not a motivated seller, and I'll be tossing those offers to buy the house in the recycle bin as I normally do. But later this year, I will be selling, and trying to get the most out of this that I can.

@Charlie MacPherson I looked at the NACA site, and they don't have anything in the Ocala FL area, where the rental is.

Well @Dan Weber, my goal is to not be a Florida landlord. I live in DC and have a rental in Maryland. My parents who are getting older have been managing aspects of the Florida rental, but they are bad managers. A lump sum would be nice, and so would not having to think about the rental. Most of the time I don't think about it, the rent automatically shows up in my account, but everyso often something costing $500-$1000 pops out of the blue. 

Also I think the market is getting too.... I don't know, and my spidey sense is telling me to get out. I'm more willing to let the FL property go than the MD one.

Don't get me wrong. I like the monthly income. I'm a federal employee and this side income is really, really nice with the shutdown.

@Jaysen Medhurst the rent is $500. I know I could charge more, much more. But getting a new tenant who would pay the going rate for the area, I'd have to repair somethings I've been avoiding..... another reminder of why I want to sell. There are a few things that will probably go klabooey in the next few years because they are nearing the end, and I don't want them to be my problem. Anyway, I'm unfamiliar with all that's needed to do owner financing, which is why I'm not pursuing it.

This has been giving me some ideas though. 

I am going to sell my Florida rental this year. 

My tenant wants to buy it. Great, except their credit is horrid. Like maybe a 530 FICO score horrid.

Ever since switching from having my mother demand rent to automating it with Cozy.co 2-3 years ago, rent collection has not been a problem. Since then their credit is good with me. So, I said I would look into options for them to purchase. Okay, so this is me looking into options.

If I understood owner financing better I would do that. But I don't. The house is worth about $50K, as is, so I'm not sure if it would even qualify for a mortgage.

So what would you suggest?

Urban areas are more likely to have more renters than homeowners as there tends to be more moving around. Even the January 2018 article you cited mentions other cities such as New York, another tenant friendly landlord hostile municipality with horrid taxes, that has 65.1% renters vs homeowners. According to the RentCafe press thing the Baltimore Sun article was about, Newark, NJ has the highest of large cities at 74.3%, and I've heard the taxes in NJ are stupid crazy. Suburban America, small town America, the boonies, are different.

So compared to other urban areas run by people who engage in helping-the-poor theatre, not really checking if their policies and efforts are actually effective, Baltimore is normal. Boston has high taxes, Baltimore has high taxes. Crime, depends on the area.

Maybe for you, the answer is no. It is not worth the hassle. Other municipalities have their own quirks. College Towns have turnover and inexperienced tenants. Rural areas don't have a lot of takers. Like stocks, assess your tolerance for risk and yadda yadda yadda.

Baltimore City has decided my tiny little place needed to be inspected, but it isn't the city that inspects, but a home inspector who is okayed by the city.

A municipality just showing up at one's door and demanding entry for inspection seems like a violation of the tenant's 4th Amendment rights. Demanding the landlord violate the tenant's privacy and let a third party in without the tenant's permission also seems to violate the tenant's rights to privacy. Even the city where my Florida tenant's lived (when the city was going to fine me for my tenant's junky yard) limited their inspection of ordinance violations to the parts of the yard that could be seen from the street/sidewalk. So that was fixed with a privacy fence, so whatever problems could not be seen from the street... or the neighbor who was complaining about my tenants and the other neighbors, was no longer a problem.

I can foresee problems with future inspections, should I get tenants with complications. Those complications would be pets that the tenant is fearful will run out, or fear that the 3rd party with damage something (fire fighters when they barged into my house to inspect a smell, left marks on the wall and trudged in boots where we don't allow shoes) or something else. I'll be curious if all the rentals in Baltimore actually get inspected by January 2019. I doubt it, but it will be telling what the results are in the end. I suspect that it will be unevenly applied and enforced and just more proof of how corrupt the city is.

Also the $180 I paid to the home inspector will factor into the next tenant's rent. Sadly cities don't realize or acknowledge that these various costs they apply to rentals ultimately burden the renter. The more tenant friendly a city becomes, the more incentive it provides for landlords to not take a chance on vulnerable tenants and leave them for other landlords who know how to play the game and are willing to play games that harm vulnerable tenants more.

I used Cohen and Forman Lawfirm in Baltimore for a property I got at auction.

@Miriam Po yeah, my name is quirky, so yeah. But in regards to your question, depends on how close to Washington St. A house I was looking at was once owned by someone who worked for the university in some STEM related job (they moved, and the house sat on the market, and then foreclosure) on Cross st. But in my observations of scrub wearing pedestrians, I haven't spotted any on Cross St. I've seen them in Camden Crossing.

If it is in a bad neighborhood, then why? Why are you considering it? Would you recoup the price of renovation if it is a flip? If you are considering making it a rental I would suggest imagining having to go there at night. Still want to be there?

Thankfully plumbers are using pvc and other plastics these days so if you upgrade, you'll be upgrading to something not worth stealing.

-M

I'm in Pigtown and I'm not familiar with Remington. 

To me, it's which part of Pigtown are we talking about? I see Cross street as a dividing line. The areas west of Cross are a little .... idk. I haven't really seen my target renter population west of Cross, my target being Med School people.

Unfortunately, my rental has been more of a tax write off this year because of some poor construction chickens coming to roost. So watch out when it comes to rehabs.

"Ask Jeeves" still works?

I found a good like new washer on Craigslist, out of a newly bought house (new owner wanted something different) but for most appliances, when accounting for delivery, the price savings for the used product wasn't low enough to make it worth it. Even with that washer, I had to wait till the seller slashed the price in half. There were other places, depots I guess, closer to DC in MD that were selling lots of used washers and dryers via Craigslist, so try Craigslist.

I've seen appliances at Second Chance but they didn't look like anything I wanted to mess with.