All Forum Posts by: Rachel N.

I would worry mainly about the $7500 in collections and the 7 months of rent up front. Job isn’t an issue... but like the previous poster said, lots of other red flags!!

This helps a lot, thanks for the advice, everyone!

JJ Conway, they didn't say why they wanted to switch to month-to-month, it's a small place and they have told me many times that they like it, but they might be hoping to move into something bigger. I know from my own experience, too, that it's harder to find tenants in the middle of the winter - better in the summer when people are looking to get settled before the schools start... 

I have good tenants whose lease is up for renewal soon, and they were asking about moving to a month-to-month situation. My instinct is to insist on a full year renewal, even if it means losing them as tenants, because even if they give a month's notice, if they left, say, in November, it might not be the most convenient time of year to get a new tenant easily, but I wondered about the experiences of people on the forum with this issue. Any thoughts? 

Glad it was useful! There are also a few Facebook groups, which we aren't allowed to post links to on here, where people look for housing at UCF. I think one is called UCF Housing - moderated and the other is called UCF and Full Sail Subleases Roommates Off Campus Housing Apartments - Orlando. Those might be good just to get an idea of what people are looking for and offering in the area close to UCF - rooms in some of the larger apartment complexes, for example, are much more expensive close to the university, but I do see people offering rooms in houses, too, so it should help give you an idea of the area.

I don’t know how you’d find a rent to own, but that might be possible as well. Really, you can’t go wrong investing within 10 miles of UCF, as long as you go west (University, Aloma, Colonial) or north-south (Alafaya to Oviedo or Waterford Lakes).

Will you be at UCF? If so, I think you could definitely invest in the areas within a few miles of there. If you’re looking for rental properties, you could house hack while renting out rooms to students. One of my rental condos is close to Full Sail, a big animation university about 10 minutes from UCF, and between the two schools would be a good area to search. Lots of condos. Good growth potential.

I have seen that brokers sometimes charge their agents, and the agent passes the cost on to you, while other agents pay the fees themselves. If that’s the case, though, the agent ought to have given you a disclosure with the paperwork when you first made your offer— the agent I work with does that, and it’s also in the neighborhood of $300 rather than what you’re talking about.

Hi @PeTika!

Greetings from down the road in Orlando! I have no negotiation advice to give because it sounds like he's not interested - if he really were interested, he would be able to find the key to get in his own property. I would just check back with him every few weeks and see if he's changed his mind, and maybe identify other places in the area with different owners. Persistence is a good thing, but on the other hand, you don't want to get so attached to the idea of this house that you're willing to buy it at a disadvantage to you (like without seeing it, or if it needs more work than you predicted, etc). If cash is what he's after, could you refinance or get a HELOC on your primary residence?

Unrelated to that, I really enjoyed reading this blog post by a fellow Jacksonville member and thought maybe you might find it useful:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs/8290/64353-no-...

I closed on a Hubzu property this year. It took about a month longer than the original scheduled closing date because the owners (a bank) had to make sure they had proof of the deed in lieu of foreclosure of the person who had given it up. I wasn’t crazy about all the extra fees but it went pretty smoothly otherwise. We used their title company and had to do a separate municipal lien search, because that wasn’t included. It was actually through an Internet search to learn more about Hubzu that I discovered Bigger Pockets (through other forum conversations about them).