All Forum Posts by: Guevara M.

I have a 1 bedroom, 1 bath condo coming up for rent and have a 19 year old female who is relocating for college that is interested in my property. She has no rental history due to living at home with her parents. How do you guys feel about renting to a young college student and being a first time renter? I’ve put a lot of money into renovating my place so would like to try and keep it from being ruined if possible. 

I spoke a little more with the parent and she told me that the daughters grandmother is in charge of the trust fund and gave me her contact info for any questions I might have.  Since I've never dealt  with anything like this what questions should I be asking the grandmother about the trust fund?  The parent stated that she did not know much she had in there but she knew that it was enough for at least 4 years of college.  They will be down next month for college orientation and they would like to have everything in place by then so that when she moves down she has a place ready to go to.  Any help on this would be much appreciated.   

I’m going to have my property available to rent soon and received and email from a parent letting me know that they are very interested in the place for their daughter who will be attending college in the area. They are from out of town about 6 hours away. Seems like the daughter has no rental history and not sure how to deal with payments through a trust fund. The mother did state she could be on the lease as well if needed. Any of you dealt with this before?

In late 2017 my brother was offered to purchase a house from his wife's family for them to live in for about half of what it was appraised for. He had been renting for a few years so decided to go ahead and purchase it and have the house completely renovated since it was pretty outdated and old. Issue was that his credit was not that great at the time so my dad offered to help him out and pretty much purchase it and my brother would be paying the mortgage, taxes and any other fees associated with it just as if he had the loan in his name. His plans were to work on his credit and then take it off my dad's hands as soon as he was able to. As of now the home is almost complete, it has been completely renovated from inside and out. My brother has paid for everything out of pocket and sometime this year he would like to take the loan off my dad and put it under his name.

Some questions I have are is it possible for my brother to purchase the home from my dad for more than what it was sold for without having to pay capital gains? Example is my dad purchased the home for $40K and my brother put $25K into renovating it can he purchase it for $65K if the house appraises for more and avoid capital gains? Also when my dad go's to do his income taxes should he be including it as investment property? Any way to recoup some of the money my brother has put into the home? It's basically a new house, everything has been redone. All electrical, plumbing, HVAC, spray foam insulation, energy efficient windows, etc...He does have all the invoices and receipts from the contractor doing all the work. They do plan on meeting with a CPA about it but just wanted to get them some info to be a little better prepared for when they meet.  Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks.  I already added all these books to my amazon cart.  Will be purchasing later this afternnon. 

Can anyone one recommend a good first book to read for someone who is wanting to try and become a real estate agent?  My wife is planning to start taking the real estate classes in the next couple of months at a local college but she really doesn't know anything about real estate.  I'd like to find her something to read to give her a little insight and some understanding of becoming a real estate agent, to inspire her or anything that will help her.  She wants to try and read a book or books before starting her classes to have some knowledge and not go into it blind and I want to help her as much as I possibly can.  She's excited and scared about trying a career change but she's ready to give it her all.  Her plans are to start part time since she gets out of work by noon and then transition into a full time agent within 6 months or less if possible.  So if there are any books that you guys recommend for her to read first please let me know.  Thanks.   

Are there any podcast or YouTube channels of anyone you guys would recommend following and learning from?  Something that she can gain a better understanding of the business and do's/don'ts of the field.  Anything that will guide her in the right direction and not learn any of the bad habits before she starts taking the classes online.  I'd like her to get more familiar with the real estate field as an agent and not what they show on TV everyday.  The failures, the success stories, etc...  Basically anything that will help her become a pro in this field if she chooses to go down this path. I'd like for her to be able to transition from part time to full time within 6-12 months.    

Thanks for the advice.  We are still in talks about it.  I do have a really close friend who is a successful agent here in my town and has been doing it for a very long time.  Do you think it's a bad idea to see if she would mentor my fiancé or at least give her some sort of guidance?  My fiancé can most likely keep her job for now since she usualy gets out of work around 1:30 pm.   

Thanks for all the advice.  I think it is best for to not enter the unit anymore unless it's for an emergency.  As far as packages that are sitting at the door is it ok if I were to open the door and place them inside for her or should I just pick them up and hang on to them till she gets back into town and have her pick them up?  The office closes at 5:00 and most deliveries are after that time so I feel like I should do something to help with the packages but want to make sure I don't do anything that would possibly become an issue.

The topic came up between my fiancé and I and got me questioning myself if I'm doing more than I should be as a landlord.  I rent a small 1 bed/1 bath unit to a young lady who moved from out of state.  She has no family here.  She's been a great tenant and always pays on time.  Her job has her gone from home a lot of times either off shore or just out of town and when she is gone she will ask me if I can stop by the unit to check up on it or grab her packages or adjust her thermostat so the a/c is running like crazy.  The property is only about 5 minutes from my home so I really don't have any issue in doing it but my fiancé has asked why am I'm doing these things if they are not on our lease agreement.  I look at it as providing good customer service considering she has paid on time without any issues.  Her lease is coming up in a few months and I'm hoping that she will stick around on a month to month basis.  She keeps the unit really clean and straight.  So my thinking is that if I can help her out then maybe that will help to keep her in my unit.  But if this is something I shouldn't be doing then I'd like to know and fix it. 

Also, since the lease is between my tenant and I would it be an issue if I had allowed my fiancé to go check on the unit if I am not available?  Not sure if I could get in trouble by a legal standpoint considering she is not part of the lease agreement.