All Forum Posts by: Mike Day

I haven't seen a deposit fee before, but when you add everything up, this is not abnormal. Other property managers would just charge a fee for every lease on move-in instead of a deposit fee on move-out. I'd probably ask them if they'd lower the maintenance threshhold to $250 so they don't try to make a bunch of money by doing unnecessary maintenance. This is probably not the cheapest manager in the world, but if you have reason to believe they'll do a good job, these fees look okay.

Hey Erica. At least in Indiana, you have to honor the existing leases. If you want the tenants out, you'd have to buy them out or wait until the end of their lease. But I'd suggest giving a local lawyer, property manager, or someone like that a call to see what things are like in your area.

I'm looking to fix, buy, and hold. Sending a PM.

This is a really good point. I believe it pays to set up the property as if you were showing it to a potential buyer instead of an appraiser. Meet them, be very nice to them, and mention all the things you've fixed and all the property's wonderful features. I've found appraisers can be ridiculously wrong, especially if they don't know the area and compare your property to the wrong comps. If all else fails, begging may help. I'm serious. A few years back I had to jump through all kinds of hoops to get a property to pass an FHA appraisal. To show that a furnace worked, I literally sent the appraiser a picture of a piece of paper blowing in the wind from the furnace, and he agreed to let it pass instead of charging for a second appraisal, basically because I begged. Never underestimate the powers of friendliness, insistence, and begging.

Agreed. Also, many people working with a property manager may want to bring in their own maintenance (project manager) as it reduces the incentive for property managers to overcharge you or find unnecessary maintenance tasks to do - provided you find a good project manager who is interested in your long-term success.

Hi Camron. Not sure if you're going to get a straight answer here since you're touching on sort of a gray area practice. You can usually get a residential loan if your intention is to live in the property for 12 months. People do change their minds. Sometimes they may have a strategy to take out multiple residential loans and change their minds again and again. Lenders probably care about this to greater or lesser degrees. I can tell you the ones I've worked with are pretty insistent about residential loans actually being used for residences, though I don't see what they'd have to gain for actually prosecuting someone for loan fraud over this. There should be no issue with house hacking as long as you're living in the property.

What do you do, Amanda? I invest in Indianapolis as well and am looking for deals on under market multi-family properties. :)

Hi Philip. It's possible. You'll likely have to put down 25% on an investment loan, so you'll be looking at properties priced $60k or less. I don't know if those are available in your part of New York, but they definitely are in the Midwest and the South. For your first purchase, it's a good idea to stay close to home since long-distance land-lording has its own set of headaches and lessons to learn. Good luck!

Considering you live there, my first step would be having a talk with the guy. Engage him in a conversation and politely mention that you believe you are smelling smoke coming from his apartment and would like him to please stop.  From what you have described, I don't think he will stop, but if you begin with that first step, you've at least left open the possibility of him realizing his mistake and correcting it without threats which are going to cause the relationship between you and the tenant to sour, make your living situation miserable, and encourage him to trash his unit or create other problems. Considering he has already lied to you, I'd expect the worst from this tenant. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but tenants do not care about the degree of painstaking care you have put into making the unit perfect. You take pride in your property, but bad tenants could care less about undoing all your work and trashing your place. Speaking from experience, the type of tenant who lies and breaks rules will probably pay their rent late at some point. When that happens, evict without mercy and hope for a better tenant next time. I think you're going to have a tough time with this tenant, and you should focus on minimizing major damage until you can get him out. But who knows, maybe a simple request will turn everything around.

Arm & Hammer sells a product to remove pet odors - it's a powder that you sprinkle on the carpet and then vacuum off. I've had success removing pet odors with it. If I were in your situation I'd give that a try, and if it doesn't work, like others have said already, you're gonna have to replace the carpet and pad as the urine has probably soaked through. :(