All Forum Posts by: Nina Ning

I'm in process to rent out my first rental to college students.  I'm looking for a lawyer or maybe online legal service to review my lease agreement for college rental property. I got hold of one lease agreement from north California and made some changes.  I'd like to have a lawyer to take a look before I send to tenants. Can anyone recommend a RE lawyer from California or any online legal service I can use with a reasonable cost?

Thanks Nina

@Will Gaston Thanks for your advise! Yes, I'm renting to students. I think their proof of their enrollment to the colleges are quite sufficient for screening purpose. I'll also give a call to their previous landlord just as an additional check.  It's interesting that only two girls (will graduate next summer) renting my 4 bedrooms and they are not planning to add more roommates.      Nina

This is for my first rental. I used a lease agreement I got hold of as a base and made some minor changes. Do I need a lawyer to look at?  If so, do they charge by hours and how can I find one ?  I'm in LA area.  Thanks Nina

@Will Gaston Sorry I think my question wasn't clear. Regarding the screening of potential renters, I'm planning to use Zillow platform to do credit check, background check including eviction history. I'll ask for the proof of their enrollment to the colleges and I'll talk to their previous landlords. Is there anything else I should do to screen the renters? Thanks Nina

@Will Gaston Thanks for your guidance! As far as putting them on one lease, it makes totally sense! That's what I'm asking too and they do come as groups.  I also can see why you don't ask for guarantors. Since most of them don't have much credit history, I'm thinking to ask for proof of their student status and also check with their previous landlords. I'm using Zillow rental manager so that'll include credit check and eviction history. Is there anything else to screen the tenants? Thanks again! Nina

I just starting out in REI. I'm using Zillow to post my property and hoping to use their Application and screening tool to process applicants. since I only currently have one property, I'll just pick an electric payment to collect rents. Nina

@Will Gaston   I just posted my student rental on Zillow and got some calls from college students. A couple of questions: do you have students call the utility services to put the services under their names before move in? How about internet? Then do they call services to remove their names when they move out of the rental?   Another question: One person called that they can only rent till May when the school ends. I was wondering if I rent to those, what about the 3 summer months? For your one year lease rental, do they normally sublet the rooms if they don't stay during summer time? Let's say they don't stay for summer but they signed one year lease until August 1st and they are not going to come back after summer, what are they gong to do with June and July, which are the last two months on their lease?  Another scenario, if the lease ends on May 30th, are you able to rent to a group starting June 1st? 

Thanks, Nina

@Michael Plaks Great link you added! I'll study it through.

Thanks 

Nina

@John Morgan The only thing is if my rental income is not very high then I probably don't need to accelerate the depreciation just let it run through 27.5 year consistently to offset rental income on taxes. I have been hoping to use cost seg to offset W2 income. But it seems it's not promising. Thanks, Nina

@Nicholas Aiola  Thanks for the reply! I read a little more about Cost Segs and found out if you have AGI around $150K and not a real estate professional, you couldn't even offset the RE losses against W2 income. You can only carry those losses over  next years to offset any passive incomes. This is quite discouraging. But I guess this is the rule. Thanks, Nina