All Forum Posts by: Scott Shuster

People don't usually put up a "Beware of Dog" sign for no reason...they either think there's a potential for a bite - thinking that posting a sign will ease their liability in case of a bite, or animal control has mandated they must have the sign up (usually more than 1 though - here in Wilmington, you must have 4 in plain view) in the case of an animal being deemed potentially dangerous....also they told you outright they are planning on breaking your lease by half a year....may want to get the ball rolling on these folks.  Take a pic of their faces when you let them know that you are the owner not just the handyman

First off - don't beat yourself up too much, could it have gone better?  Maybe, maybe not...time will tell.  Maybe the woman you talked to thought what you had to say was great and is figuring out how to get there to check it out.  Worst case scenario she doesn't call back and you're on to the next one, and one step closer to your tenant.

What you can do is get yourself better prepared to steer the conversation for the next call.  Put together some bullet points of the important stuff (which you should have in the listing - 3x rent, credit/background check, pet policy if allowing them, move in date/date available, length of lease etc...), print out a few copies so that you can check off that you talked about each bullet point with each prospect, put their name on the checklist and take notes on what their answers are.  That way you have something that you can keep applicants separate for your decision on who to choose.  Tenant screening starts in that first phone call, you may decide after that first phone call that you are wasting your time with said applicant.   Anticipate what prospective tenants may ask questions about, and beat them to the punch.  That way you can steer the discussion where you want it to go - if you give the answer before they can ask, it turns into a statement instead of a negotiating point.  Have a written set of requirements that you apply to all that wish to apply so you can avoid a discrimination claim. 

Sounds like you've read through some of the posts about screening tenants - some may translate to your situation some may not, give it a re-read and it may hit you like a ton of bricks that - that is just the question I need to ask - write it down in your bullet points.

Sounds like things are pretty crazy with moving out and whatnot, but do get your pictures together as soon as you can, even if you have to shuffle the mess from the kitchen - take your pics, and then move all the mess back into the kitchen to take pics of the living area...I'm sure that'll be a PIA, but will take your mind away from not having the pics up in the first place and ultimately feeling self-conscious about not.  

You mentioned not having a lease ready yet, but do you have your application ready yet?  I only ask because you didn't mention it in your post...the lease you can put together on legal zoom or a lot of different online vendors in not a lot of time, but you need the application to get to needing the lease.

Pretty sure I'm starting to ramble but, you mentioned that you felt like your mind was blank during your conversation - I like to let the call (unknown #) go to my voicemail that I record asking prospects to leave a message with their name and phone #, then call them back when I am in a position that I can put all my focus into that conversation.  You are the one in the drivers seat in this situation, you are deciding if you are going to let the prospect live in YOUR house...most likely the person on the other side of the phone is going to be worrying about what stupid things they said!

 https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/52/topics/737...

Good Luck!!

What about buying Apple in '98 at approximately $6 a share?  I mean if we are just picking random companies out of thin air....

 You hit the nail on the head....I'm not encouraging you to get married and go into debt yada yada yada - in fact I commend you for not...too many of my friends HAVE gotten married because it was the convenient, easy thing they were "supposed" to do.  Only to decide it wasn't for them and now are in hell trying to pick up the pieces.  Also have many friends that are in the situation you keep bringing up that are married and now hate their spouse, but with no good exit in view, and then throw the children into it to boot - and they're the one who suffer the most.  Marraige should be something that you both WANT to do - it's the only chance it has to work!!  Aside for a couple responses, no one here is advising you to get married...only to look out for yourself!!

Take the marriage portion out of it all...If you keep your house separate from a joint ownership, you have one less piece to put back together/fight about.  If you get a new place together, that will be you guys starting equally (maybe, maybe not - % of down payment, portion of new mortgage payment, on and on) and from that point on, the chips will fall where they may, but YOUR property is intact - with you, where it started.  However you got to the point of owning it free and clear, don't you think it best to keep it that way?  

If you can't afford the new payment without them, that's fine...at least you can recognize that before hand, and can form your plan around it, exit strategy included.  My advise either way - new place or your place, is to formalize that exit plan beforehand...written, and legally binding.  So in case it does go bad, you have your ducks in a row already and there isn't anything to quibble over.  Awkward conversation?  Yes...but if you can't have that conversation, what chance do you two have on survival as a couple?  Better to have the cards on the table.

You have something that MANY on this chat form wish to have - a free and clear property...this isn't a no big deal situation like you have mentioned it to be quite a few times.  What if your area has a big upturn in value?  Now your 150k house is worth 300k and you decide to split?  Are you really ok with losing that much more?  Or are you gonna wait it out for the sake of keeping the equity of your house that she has piggybacked onto?  Either way you are giving away your right to make that final decision.  And in the case that happens are you REALLY going to care what she wants or thinks is "fair".   What happens when you don't think its fair?

Don't want to get into a new place?  That's fine too, but what is her objection to paying you rent as her form of carrying her own weight?  How is it any different than paying on a new mortgage or however you work things out selling her 50% of the decision making responsibility.  You can "charge" her a under market rent and its a win win.  If that money doesn't "matter", use it to fund some kick *** vacations.  

IMHO - Like I said before, this has much less to do with the property than you think...

If there is no difference, why put your cashflowing asset at risk?  I say it that way because in one of your first posts you spoke to ownership rights in case it were to go bad - probably meaning that you feel the actual decisions (sell or re-buy out) would be yours....I know that's how I would feel.  In this situation you are the only one with something to lose.  Most of the posts here are trying to get that point across.  AKA knowledgeable person says - the stove is hot don't touch it, right after, of course, the unknowing person has to see for themselves, throws a hand on the stove and gets burned.  The difference is that you will be giving that decision making right away, unless you do a 51%-49% split, but good luck explaining that one - just like the prenup discussion.

I went through a similar situation with an ex (no marriage) of my own, we had been together for over 5 years, living together for 4 1/2 of those years, had everyone telling us that we should get married and all that mess, and thank God I did NOT listen to them and did NOT have her name on any of the documents or bills associated with the house...that conversation went over like a big, wet fart (Step Brothers (2/8) Movie Clip - Job Interview (2008) HD - YouTube) in church, but we still made it another 4 years. 

My advise - take it as a grain of salt - set yourselves up for future success...make a clean transition into this new chapter of your lives together - find a new place to live aside from your rental property, keep your property rented and keep collecting that money - hell, use it to pay your portion of the new place.  That way the new place will be yours together instead of the place that was yours, and now is ours.  Leave that mess for when/if you are married.  Worst case scenario - which should be considered because like you had alluded to - who knows if you, or her, decide one day - this isn't working, I want out...you still have something to fall back on.  Hopefully it all works out and you don't have to go through any of it, but wouldn't it be a lot better to not have to go through the what is mine, what is yours with your free and clear property?

Hate to add this last part cause I don't know your entire situation, but since I don't know you from Adam, do consider what is the underlying reasoning behind her (I'm assuming from the OP) bringing this up?  Hopefully she is the type that wants to pull her own weight, but in my experience this may be her subtle way of saying, we've been together for 4 years...time to either sh1t or get off the pot....but that is a decision to be made by y'all - get married or don't makes no difference to me.  Make no mistakes this isn't a business decision, but a life decision.  Best wishes on all of it!

PS - THE STOVE IS HOT!!!

fraud in the inducement

n. the use of deceit or trick to cause someone to act to his/her disadvantage, such as signing an agreement or deeding away real property. The heart of this type of fraud is misleading the other party as to the facts upon which he/she will base his/her decision to act. Example: "there will be tax advantages to you if you let me take title to your property," or "you don't have to read the rest of the contract-it is just routine legal language" but actually includes a balloon payment.

Easy answer, don't commit fraud!  Good business will help perpetuate more good business....as opposed to being tied up in court and having to worry about if your "weasel clause" is going to hold up.  Keep in mind that you just posted on a public forum a question about how you can get away with screwing someone else over essentially...thinking that a clause on on contract is gonna save you from committing fraud is NOT a good idea!!  

Fraud is fraud....do yourself a favor and do the deal right so that you can sleep at night.  If you have to commit fraud to get it done, it isn't the right deal, move on to the next one.  Think of the implications to whoever the fraud is being committed against...would you want that to happen to whoever you care about the most?  Integrity is everything and once called into question, very hard to restore.....

IMHO

If you're looking for a devils advocate, I would say tear out the old tile and existing backer down to the studs for the walls at least and start fresh.  I have tiled over the existing tiles on the shower floor without issue...knock on wood.  I agree with Will that if insisting on tiling over the existing walls you will need to rough up what's there to ensure a good bond, definitely agree there will be lots of dust and little pieces of tile to clean up/pull out of your arms, legs and any other exposed parts of your body...be sure to protect your eyes and wear a mask!!!  

Personally, 9 out of 10 times that I have tried to cut corners (as you put it yourself "sloth" being the main reasoning not to tear out), I have wound up having to fix the corner that was cut along with all of the unintended results of cutting said corner.  Nothing is less "sloth" than having to do the same job twice.  Not to mention having to buy the materials twice....

 Also just because you haven't done something before (pan) doesn't mean that you CAN'T do that task, just means that you may need to do a little research on how to do that task correctly.  Then the next time it comes up you know what you need to do and have the confidence to get it done.  

Best of luck, whichever way you choose to go!  

Thanks everyone for the responses...always great to hear from others point of view.  

@Alexander Felice - point taken about holding firm. Hadn't thought of it as they were pushing to see what they could get/how far from asking price I would go.

@Sam J Mrofcza - Exactly what I'm trying to avoid!

Without writing a full on book about this, just listed a property, currently listed for a little more than a week with all right interest on Zillow etc...first round of viewings went well with lots of compliments on the house.  A few took applications.  The last folks of the day start out the conversation in the garage before even seeing the house with - are you opposed to a multiple year lease/would you consider a lower price for this?  I told them that I wouldn't change the price, but would consider adding the lawn maintenance for a 2 or 3 year lease.  The Mrs. loves that idea....

They love the house, take applications and let me know that they have a few more houses to look at and will get back to me.  I explain the process for moving forward - credit/criminal/income verification etc...within about a half hour, they are calling asking about where to drop off applications.  After reading through, they look pretty good and pass everything pertinent on the checks, and I send them an email that I'm ready to move forward and can collect deposit and once that clears the bank that I will take it off the market, and did they want to do a 2 or 3 year lease with the landscaping included as we had discussed.

I get a voicemail stating that they would like to move forward, but only a one year lease, maybe a second year option and when can I get the deposit to you?  At this point, I change from speaking on the phone with them to exclusively by email, so to have records of what was communicated.  I explain that I was confused by the sudden shrinking of the lease term and if they could explain.  

They reply that since I wouldn't come down on the price, that they didn't see the advantage to them of doing multiple years since they are new to the area and want to be sure they like it before committing to an extended period of time.  

I told them that I understand their thinking, but my concession was to add the landscaping and explained that on a 1 year lease this will not be possible, but I could assist them finding a lawn service if they didn't want to do the work themselves.  Since it was after banking hours on a Saturday, that they should consider the options and get back to me on Monday, and we would take it from there.  

Monday morning comes and I get the email stating that they were going to pursue a different property, but thank you and sorry for any inconvenience.  Then last night (about 13 hrs later) I get another email from them saying that they have changed their minds, and now want to move forward if the home hasn't been leased yet.

I haven't responded back yet...my issues are

- Kinda feel like they were going for the old bait and switch hoping that I would add the landscaping onto the 1 year lease.

- If the not having the landscaping included was a deal breaker is this a sign of future actions?  My worry isn't so much about the rent being paid and paid on time, but the headache factor...

They scored 804 on smartmove, no outstanding CC balances/0 missed payments, no evictions, no disqualifying criminal history (just a speeding ticket).... 

With the listing being so new still, would you just be patient and move on from them to the next prospects or is a bird in hand better than 2 in the bush, as none of the other prospects have returned applications.

Thank you in advance for any wisdom!!

My stress release...bought it when I graduated high school, pulled the motor within a year with dreams and aspirations (too many budweisers) of making it "faster and so cool!!"....reality set in and it sat for 10 years in different places - Mom and Dads garage, storage units and whatnot.  Then worked on it for the last 5 years here and there.  Finally got it back running in April of 15.