All Forum Posts by: M Marie M.

I'll agree with @Russell Brazil about buying a primary residence, but I'll throw in what does your future fiance/future wife want?

Will the Mrs be happy if y'all are renting and you have this income property out there? Depending on what's going on she may totally be on board but whether or not she'll be a partner in your RE goals is something to factor in.

I heard about this on NPR and wondered how it would look going forward.

It helps to know what is a felon. I was on a federal grand jury for over a year and for us, a felon was defined as someone who was incarcerated for 12 months or more. Doesn't matter what the crime was, vandalism or putting incorrect information or leaving something off on your mortgage application. I'm also in an area where people get arrested as part of protesting, and sometimes getting arrested is the highlight of protesting.

So yes, some discernment is needed in the process. But checking out an individual's story might slow down the process for someone with a record, possibly allowing applicants without a record to finish the process faster.

This part is another area of problems. In DC there are a bunch of homebuying programs that come with a bunch of strings, such as non-equity type deals lasting so many years. I'd be curious as to what the city expected and got for its 90K and are those obligations transferred to a new owner, as it may come to bite you later.

As others have stated there is a difference between old houses labeled "historic" and as I've discovered different jurisdictions have different understandings of what historic means and how much it is enforced, even sometimes in the same city.

I currently own 3 old homes (1874, 1876, 1920something), one supposedly in an historic district. I haven't encountered any knob and tube stuff, but ugly butt iron pipes in inconvenient spaces do seem to be something that keeps showing up.

Gad.

Instead of gift how about at "Welcome Package" "Welcome Kit" "Orientation Package/Kit" "Move In Package/Kit", because it looks like the words "gift" and "present" have too much personal baggage attached to them.

I love the idea of a welcome package and the idea of incentives. My tenants are fairly easy (provided we are not taking about the water heater) and I've given them stuff, you may call them gifts. The biggest one I can remember sending was the big package of Tilex (I LOVE Tilex) because I noticed on my annual visit mold in the bathroom. It sorta helped. 

Gifts I've sent have been of the cleaning variety. There is nothing in the lease expressly about cleanliness, but I would like to encourage cleaning. I just wish there was a cheap gift to encourage decluttering that wouldn't mean building more closets or another shed, which I'm sure they'd fill up with more crap.

Considering I didn't give much thought to buying the place it is a small miracle that I do make a small profit . But I'm not so much into the profit from it, as I am writing the trip off to Florida to check up on it on my taxes. I love tax deductions. My husband makes me happy not with expensive little shiny rocks, but with donation receipts from donating some of our stuff to charity (Goodwill). That's how much I love tax deductions.

I like owning it. It does come with its problems, like the tenants screwing up the hot water heater, or disabling and tossing out the smoke alarms (this is why I need to check in everyso often). Using Cozy.co to collect the rent has helped a whole lot, and my parents (who live not far from the place) help with repairs. Trouble occurs when the hot water heater dies and nobody bothers to tell me until weeks later and then it is rush, rush to fix it.

@Michael Tucker you already have one property, work on that and get some more. BP helped me bring my one rental into the 21st Century when some people on the forums were talking about property management tools.  I'm happier. My tenants' are happier.

With a guru you only get one point of view, here at BP you get many views and experiences. I found it helpful to learn about wholesaling and other RE things, but I have very little interest in engaging those things. Stick with buy and holds and go for the BRRR. That's what I say but I'm biased.

Welcome to BP.  I'm sure you'll make connections and learn a lot here.

I still think of @Bob Miller as my Realtor in Ocala who is an investor. I found him helpful as a out of town/state investor. Give him a call. So far I only have one house in Ocala so I don't know how much of help I could be.

This morning I stopped to here a story, part of a series (I think) that NPR's Morning Edition is doing on housing. "Welcome To Rent Court, Where Tenants Can Face A Tenuous Fate" and of course it sides with the tenant. I was semi-pleasantly surprised to hear from Bread for the City a charity in my neighborhood, which sometimes helps renters who show up to rent court.

Though they try to apply the story nationally, it's about DC's Landlord- Tenant Court. I learned a little something about the court that I didn't know before. The court would prefer landlords and tenants work out some agreement on their own, according to the report. 

They do get the side of a landlord, someone who sounds old and crusty, and the solution in the story was cash for keys.

@Eric ,

A quick way of finding the ground rent (if it is registered) is to go to SDAT (Google "SDAT MD"), select a county via the drop down menu, then I like to choose "STREET ADDRESS" and hit "Continue".

One the next screen plug in the house number and in the next box the street name (ex. Pratt ) without the direction or Ave or St. Hit "Next" 

You will then get a screen for the property. In brown letters look for "View GroundRent Registration". Click on that and there should be something if there was a ground rent registered. Try also "GroundRent Redemption" on the off chance that the rent was redeemed. If there is no ground rent or if it never was registered, you'll see "There is currently no ground rent registered with this department for this property" in red.