All Forum Posts by: Robin Evans

@Nicholas Boccella

Agree with @Jose Jacob. We are in Ohio and can say no to Section 8 voucher holders. We have three tenants who are on Section 8. We inherited all three tenants. Two were already on and one applied recently. We were worried when our tenant decided to apply for Section 8. Our property is old, not up to date at all but passed the inspection easily. If for some reason you didn't pass the inspection, they will give you chance to fix it. If your property is up to date, you don't have too much to worry about. Once they are on, rent is guaranteed from the government.  That is why our other tenant is not in a hurry to find a job, lol. If they have no income, Setion 8 may even pay it all if your rent amount is up to their standard. Here in Ohio, 2 bed standard is $ 750. Hope this helps! 
 

 Thank you for your input! He says he is willing to pay rent and any late fees. Should we put this in an agreement? 

Lesson learned! Their income met our criteria at the time but they didn't have long enough employment history. He then keeps changing jobs and she left hers to stay at home. We were under some pressure at the time to rent it out due to the coming mortgage payment. The question regarding Fair Housing, we did implement the same late fee rule to all our tenants without any exceptions. But our lease doesn't have grace period or say how long Landlord will let Tenant late on rent before evicting them. How long do you usually give them? And to start eviction, how many days of notice do you need to give tenants before the process? Thank you!

Dear BP freinds we are now facing a tough situation of collecting rent. One tenant has been paying rent via auto pay on a platform we have agreed on. Somehow this month's rent first got deposited into our account and three days later it got pulled out. I informed the tenant and he explained that when bank returned the money, his other auto pays drained his account so he doesn't have money to pay rent. He doesn't have a stable job because he is a veteran and his disability makes him harder to maintain jobs. His wife takes care of two children at home with another one coming on the way. They are having a hard time financially now. He has a claim with VA to increase his disability pays and it takes a couple more weeks before he can receive the increase (quote). By then he should be able to pay this month and next month's rent plus late fees. Meanwhile he is also applying for a program that can help veterans with rent and also in the process of starting college that once started, VA will also give housing allowance. He has been renting from us for about 9 months and has been a good tenant. Last time he changed jobs and couldn't make timely rent, he notified us in advance and was willing to pay late fee plus rent.

This is a duplex and the other side's rent can pay the mortgage in full. We are paying a fixed utility expense of $ 284 every month. Other than that, the property is quite new needing low maintenance. We have a bit  reserve in the account to help pay the utilities. We are one-year old landlord and this is the first time facing the tough situation, especially with veterans. Evicting is absolutely our last resort.
Do you guys have any similar experiences? What are some better ways to deal  with the situation other than evicting? Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

 That is awesome! We just purchased a duplex to house hack too! Question is what can you count as operating expenses? Everything spent on the side you are renting out is definiately operating expenese.  We are doing some renovation work on the side we are going to live in. Can those expenses be counted as well?  Property tax? Split it in half as operating expense? What about our side's utilities? Thanks for your input!

 We did give her a 6-month notice in person and she did sign it. My question is without a lease signed between her and us, will the old lease work if we have to evict her down the road?  Should we still sign a month-to-month lease (ends the end of 2022) with her using the old lease provisions just in case of future eviction? She has not caused any more issues so far, lol. 

That is my concern too because it is hard to foresee the appraised value. We are thinking of getting private money to buy a duplex all in cash. Then rehab and cash out refi down the road and pay them back. I was trying to see how the numbers work out by the tools on Biggerpockets but not sure which tool I should use. If I use Brrrr tool, for the purchase loan details, if I select "cash purchase", I can't include the cost of interest paid to private lenders. It doesn't seem right if I choose the other way.  Any input on that?
By the way, what interest rate sounds fair in today's market for private money lenders? Thank you for your input!