All Forum Posts by: Olivier M Ouedraogo

Brandon is a smart guy, but not everything he says is the best option.

I don't believe in building a business on dishonesty. If you are the Landlord, protect yourself by establishing boundaries and rules from the very beginning. Give the tenants one number or email for ordinary questions or maintenance requests, then give them separate instructions for reporting emergencies. Hold them to it. If you live on the property with the Tenant, let them know that you'd love to interact like normal neighbors, but the Landlord-Tenant relationship needs to stay separate and communicate through email, phone, or whatever.

I've heard this advice before but I am pretty against it.  If you truly feel like you don't want them to know you are the owner stay out of it and have a PM handle this for you.  A lot of the reason people don't want the applicants to know they are the owner is that they are afraid of conflict or don't know how to say no.  On the flip side I tell people I am the owner and self manage and I think this gives me an advantage.  I go over the qualifications up front so the folks looking for a private landlord to look past their flaws need to look elsewhere.  Local management companies are known to be non responsive and aggressively raise rates so I feel I can charge slightly above market and have no problems filling vacancies just so they can have a more personable yet business relationship with their landlord.  

I never have my spouse on my leases and she is 100% hands off where the tenants are highly unlikely to meet her.  I do like to say I have to run things by her as well if I need to buy time and think but realistically she trusts my judgement.  

People back out of deals all the time, especially recently with the rate increases.  Better to lose the earnest money then to lose tens of thousands of dollars.

How much more would that have added to the budget? I always try and negotiate after inspections, even if it came back perfect. Never close at the same price you locked up a property for! 

Technically you have no contingency to back out when it comes to inspections. If you do back out you aren't owed your EMD and you can open yourself to be sued by the seller(In my area what it'd be). Will they actually sue you probably not but it is a risk. If you are financed then I'd ask the lender to send a loan denial. If you are cash then start a dialogue to see if the seller would cancel if they received the EMD. Worst case is you'll tick some people off. From the bids it seems like the first 2 would be doing a rent ready type rehab. The 3rd GC is a flipper so he probably replaces everything since a buyer will be buying it rather then renting it out. There is a middle ground on properties if you are BRRR'ing them you don't want to do the bare minimum but you also don't want to overdue it. With the 2 GC's not providing a scope of work I would be concerned, maybe network with a few other GC's then make a decision