All Forum Posts by: Ryan Dao

Quote from @Travis Timmons:

I totally agree...I usually go month to month on my leases and sometimes wonder, "what's the point?" The thing is, though, if they want to leave and ignore the terms of the lease, they're likely going to do it anyway. I'd rather skip to the part where they are gone. 

I view a lease like I view insurance - I don't have health insurance to solve a $2800 problem; I have it to solve a $280,000 problem. A lease is the same thing - it's there to protect me from serious offenses. I'm willing to let the little things go...lose the battle, win the war regardless of what the lease says. I try to keep small issues like this in perspective. I can find a new tenant and pay for the basic turnover items relatively quickly. What I don't want to deal with is an eviction, squatter, tenant that trashes the place, etc. 

All of that is far easier when I am talking about your property and your tenant though. I can be pretty level headed when solving someone else's problems that have zero financial and emotional investment from me.

And it's nice to talk with someone who is objective in this situation rather than make choices based on my emotion. The point about the lease being insurance is a good point - penny rich dollar poor. Thanks for the advice!

Quote from @Travis Timmons:

I'm probably in the minority here, but I don't like holding tenants hostage. If they want out of a lease, I let them out of the lease. If it were me, I'd send a text message mentioning something to that effect. I bet that he'll respond. Just kind of a "no big deal, I'll let you out of the lease as long as you pay until the end of the month that you leave" type of message. If he wants to stay, that is fine too. 

I get in my head regarding tenants and tell myself stories that are not true all the time. He has paid up to this point and your biggest problem is that he is unresponsive. Don't borrow worry...you don't have a problem yet.

That makes sense... honestly, that's a good point and something I'm considering - my issue is that would make signing a lease rather pointless as a tenant could just break it whenever they want without consequence.

However, youare correct, I don't have a problem yet... the problem is that this lack of communication is night-and-day as opposed to before. I actually wouldn't mind letting him out the lease as long as he pays his utilities and maybe a fee (my lease doesn't have this lease break clause... this has taught me a lesson in adding it now)

Hello all, I have an international student as a tenant and I haven't been able to get ahold of him in the past week. He doesn't have an SSN.

A couple weeks ago, I found a post on the university's housing page of him stating that he is looking for a place to move immediately, I wanted to bring it up to him because we had a discussion about me being a little overbearing. I also noticed that his communication with me has been decreasing drastically up to the days leading up to his disappearance. 

The problem is he is in the middle of his lease with 3 more months to go. The last time we spoke, he texted me that he was having medical issues and asked me for the address of a hospital nearby, which I gave him. Yesterday, I called the hospital, another hospital near his university, and some other nearby hospitals just in case, and they said they had no one with his name in the record.

His roommate also brought up some concerns that he hasn't been in the house for the past couple of days and was asking me to do a wellness check, which I am doing today. 

He paid this month's rent so he currently doesn't owe me anything. I want to give him benefit of the doubt but I can't help thinking that he is trying to break the lease given the clues that I have been given. 

My next step is to call his employer/university professor and see if he's been coming into work. If he has, it would mean he is breaking the lease and if not, that would mean he is missing somewhere (should I file a missing persons report in this case?)

I want to be prepared in the upcoming month in either situation, whether he is sick somewhere that I don't know or trying to break the lease without me letting me know.

My question: Is the best course of action for March be to file an eviction (assuming I don't hear back)? How would I do that without an SSN? I have his F1 visa, work information and employer contact.

And an additional bonus question: I don't think I handled the situation with the Facebook post well by not bringing it up, what would you do in this situation?

Quote from @Ken Livingston:

I am sure that your agents dislike having their time wasted and will do much less for you if they know that is the case. Using two agents in the same area and pitting them against each other is wasting all three of your time. Vet the agents and stick with the one who you find more credible and efficient. 

   This in just my opinion and was suggested to me when I had two in the same area. 

 Hello Ken, thank you for your response. Sorry I wasn't clear, I meant the interactions between a seller's agent and the buyer's agent, not multiple buyer/seller agents competing against each other.

Quote from @Michael Dumler:

@Ryan Dao, are you referring to a buyer's agent working with a listing agent? Or referring to working with multiple agents as a buyer? If it's the latter, I don't advise. 

If I'm a buyer agent working with a listing agent on a deal, I'm not necessarily worried about the listing agent. I'm solely focused on achieving/meeting my client's needs and goals. That being said, I also manage and educate my client's expectations. Likewise, if the listing agent is experienced, they have properly educated and managed their client's expectations. Are you seeing a theme here? It's about managing all parties' expectations. When both agents have done their jobs, negotiation isn't as heated as you may think. Moreover, gathering all pertinent information/details about the property is not that nuanced. If the property is owner-occupied, most sellers will provide a property disclosure highlighting all defects they may or may not know about the home. Furthermore, this is why an inspection is usually conducted. 

Negotiations get heated when egos get involved. Needless to say, work with an agent who isn't full of themselves. 

Thanks for the reply! Just to clarify, yes I did mean a buyer's agents' interaction with a seller's agent and vice versa. I just wanted to know what goes on between the two individuals.

Hello BiggerPockets agents!

As a client, I've always been curious about what's on my realtor's mind when faced with the opposing agent.  What do you think about when thinking about the other agent? Doesn't matter if you are seller or buyer, I want your insights

Here are some other topics/questions that can help form your answers, but obviously feel free to deviate:

- In your dealings with opposing agents, how important is the information exchange and how do you typically manage it?

- Have you ever faced a disagreement or dispute with an opposing agent? How was this situation handled?

- How do you approach communication and negotiation with an opposing agent? How do you view the opposing agent in these scenarios (good, bad, friend, foe, etc)

- Have there been instances where you felt the need to verify claims or information provided by the other agent? How did you handle it?

Quote from @Joe Felix:

Unfortunately my loan officer does not deal with 203k he said their too complicated to deal with

Let me know if you need an experienced renovation loan officer. I have someone in mind who is able to hold your hand throughout the entire process as he did for my first loan. Philadelphia only 

Thank you all for the words of wisdom! I will definitely do that!

This past weekend, I closed on my first ever property! I still remember my first post on BiggerPockets, and wanting to share to everyone my aspirations. It has been a while but I never gave up on my mission to buy a property. So excited to share it with you all!

Just wondering if anyone has advice/guidance for someone who is just starting out as a landlord? 

Hello, I'm in the market to buy my first real estate investment property. I've been looking at this one for a while. It's a quadruplex.

The price is amazing for the area (Philadelphia). But the issue is that I'll be inheriting tenants and I'm doing an FHA loan (most likely an FHA203k). Three out of the four tenants are non-paying and from what the listing agent told me, it may be hard to get into the units for an appraisal.

Basically, the tenants have power over the landlord/owner as opposed to the other way around. Owner doesn't want to deal with them either - doesn't want to make repairs and wants to tack the responsibility of evicting/removing the tenants on the buyer.

I've been reading some old BiggerPockets posts and it seems that Cash4Keys before closing doesn't seem viable. I run the risk of losing a lot of money if the deal falls through. 

But I also can't close with the tenants in the units (because FHA requires owner occupancy). So my issue is that I need to C4K all four tenants at once to make repairs after closing, but I need to do it in a way that guarantees all four tenants will be gone at the time of closing. 

I would love to hear thoughts from all of those experienced real estate investors (and even the unexperienced ones!). Would you take this deal? And if so, what would you do to make it work? Does this seem like a deal with too many red flags where only a 75% price concession would make it worth it?

Thank you all!