All Forum Posts by: William Murrell

Welcome from Wilmington, on the coast of NC!  Good luck in RDU.  It's a great area.

I did and I found one, but I was hoping someone on here was an active member or had some more information.

Hard to say, but it wouldn't hurt to ask.

You should definitely go up on the rent.  It's nice to have a great tenant you get along with, but you're in this to make money first and foremost.  You can either go up all at once and give him a lot of notice, or break it into several smaller raises over time.  I think you should go with the former.

@Rick H.  absolutely there are tons of great "bikers," as in motorcyclists, out there.  I wasn't saying that a biker is bad, but that nobody would rent it (motorcyclists included) because even a harley rider would have to leave his bike in the street.  Or as you mentioned, park it in the house!  

You can also look in their car when they show up to see your property to sometimes get an idea.  "Oh yeah, I keep a very clean house and will keep this house in tip-top shape!" they'll say.  And then you look in their car and there's a foot and a half deep pile of old Burger King wrappers in the passenger side floorboard.  

Zillow isn't always accurate, so it's possible that he's doing something shady but unlikely.  

Good tenant screening and a strong lease.  Read Brandon's "The Ultimate Guide to Tenant Screening" here on BP for a good start.  

Getting a good tenant reminds me of a term we use for buying high quality tools: "pay for quality and you only cry once; buy cheap and you'll cry a lot."   My point being: put in the effort upfront and spend a bunch of time making sure you put the right tenant in there in the first place and you'll be a lot happier in the long run even though it takes a lot of work upfront.  

Do credit checks, employment verification, reference checks, rental history checks, etc. and make sure you don't skimp on this part.  This way you know you're at least starting off on the right foot.  

And keep a strong lease that you go over with them in detail so that they know what is expected of them.  This will prevent a lot of headaches.  Check out the BP podcasts on tenant selection.  They're great.  Good luck!

Right?  It's totally odd.  You pull up and it's a cute little bungalow that looks like it would rent easily.  But the house is right up against the sidewalk along the front of the house, right up against the line on the right side, and right up against the line on the left side too.  And then they built a big porch on the left side that is technically not on the property.  It does have a big backyard, but to get to it you have to drive on the abandoned lot beside it which is owned by another person.  And the road it's on is only two cars wide, so you couldn't park a car there either.  Totally weird.  

Too much risk for me.  All it takes is for an angry son or daughter to say "you took advantage of mentally ill mom" and you could find yourself struggling to prevent your deal from being invalidated.