All Forum Posts by: Sean McKee

@Darrel Hernandez- I did a similar thing. I did a refinance and HELOC. It is a sound strategy that allows you to time when you want to use the money. The downsides are the variable/higher interest rates and the shorter loan duration. Also a lot of banks won't do HELOCs, I had a difficult time finding one to do it.

I have one thermostat for the entire building and that keep in one unit. I used a basic one from Home Depot. This mostly does the trick. I did however have a tenant knock it off on accident ( I didn’t properly close it). They definitely can get in them if they really wanted to. They are more a deterrent and honestly if they are trying to break in them, they aren’t good tenants. They have higher quality ones or Landlord thermostat that are auto reset to certain temperatures. So you could put a case lock over the landlord thermostat. That should stop most people.

I have thought about these, but have not had a good reason to do it yet. Congratulations on your purchase.

Older homes definitely are a sharp learning curve.  I've only bought homes built around the 1900s. Electric and plumbing are the biggest headaches I've encountered. The key is to find these old homes that have been a least partially updated.  If all the major systems need complete overhauls (HVAC, electric, plumbing), I'd pass on it unless it could be bought at like 60 cents on the dollar.

@Melissa S Vrobel- You will likely lose them as a tenants, unless they are willing to buy it.  A 350+ rent increase will be a sticker shock to them and they likely won't understand it. There's a good a chance they might be offended and get angry.  This is all ok and part of the business. Unless you can afford the monthly losses and the appreciation will more than offset the losses, I would not advise to keep losing money. Losing money drains your resources and leaves you exposed to economic shocks, like an eviction moratorium or leaky roof. And the worst part is that nobody will care that you were a nice landlord and spent the last 5 years renting at below market rents to your tenants.

@Krista Olen- I actually have an iguana. He requires a massive cage. I had this professionally constructed and looks appealing and is in a separate room. I would NEVER allow a tenant to have one, especially in my smaller units.  He can absolutely leave a very disgusting mess if I don't clean up after him, feces and skin he sheds.  He requires a rather complex lighting system, that I could see being a fire hazard with less than careful tenants. I'm sure he could cause some damages, mainly from knocking stuff over/climbing on stuff. I got the appeal, but a lot of people are terrible at taking care of reptiles.

You should require them to show you the cage they will be using to make sure it isn't unsightly(future showings). Ensure they know how to properly set up the heating lights to avoid fire hazards. Ideally limit small reptiles that can fit inside a 50 gallon tank , stick to herbivores. I also had a bearded dragon when I was a kid. I was careless and allowed worms to get out....they turned into beetles. My parents were not pleased and I'm sure you as a landlord would be even more so.

Never underestimate the power of people to royally screw up with even the most simple of pets.

@Mitch Jones- I think a lot of this is going to depend on where you are investing. While the CDC moratorium was far reaching, there were states/cities with significantly more restrictive local bans on evictions. I think markets that were fairly landlord friendly before the pandemic won't see much of a change. Places that were tenant friendly before the pandemic are a different story. There was a lot of pent up anger at landlords in general, COVID just put a spotlight on it and gave them the political clout to enact further restrictions. So the solution for landlords operating in these areas is to have strong knowledge of the law, increase tenant screening/rent collection procedures, and to make sure the deal is worth all the additional hassle.

@Mel Park you can 100% percent manage your own properties.  It seems like you already know your criteria and what your tolerance is. I do a hybrid approach; I use a combination of virtual assistants , NestEgg(Online maintenance manager), brokers, lawyers, lockboxes to handle most of the property management. This has been cheaper than a regular property management and reduces how much time I spend involved.  I still have to deal with some of the more complicated stuff, but overall it saves a lot of time than trying to everything myself. I will say this approach probably won't work if you live more than 1 hour away from your properties. You need to be around to bring stuff back in order from time to time.

However, I now will only take on deals that support the cost of a regular property manager. This will give me the option to turn it over in the future should I feel the need.

Bottom line is eventually you will need to turn some of the property management task in some capacity as you grow.

@Jonathan Klemm- I didn't read the exact details, at this point I'm beyond exhausted with all the extensions.  To my knowledge it is not actually that targeted as it still covers 85 to 90% of US. But it prevents evictions for nonpayment of rent in counties with high transmission rates of the delta variant.  If the rates drop below a certain threshold for two weeks, the protections go away.  I think this was the general concept. The point is it's still very broad and was definitely a stall tactic.

I oddly have not had an takers on signing up with Landlord Credit Bureau.  But I had a number of people start paying a few days early and reaching out to make sure payment was received. The nice thing is you don't need them to opt in to start reporting if they pay late.

I definitely did not make it through COVID unscathed, but I was able to avoid having tenants go 13 months without paying. I had issues with 2 units and they both left after a couple months. My properties are in C Class areas (Cicero and Little Village). Given that Class C and below took the brunt of the delinquent tenants, I consider myself very lucky. My fingers are crossed this ends in the next few months.

@Dientse Tsai I came to the exact same conclusion. I literally found it by luck, I had almost given up when I stumbled a crossed it on Google.  The only other way I know to credit report "directly" is by sending it to collections.   Which frankly won't have the same kind of impact as Landlord Credit Bureau has, since LCB is an actual trade line.  So I believe your company name will show up and it shows if they paid late or are past due.  Collections goes in a different section, and shows up under the debt collectors name. So future creditors might not know exactly what the debt is for.

I hope they can get their name out there more.  If COVID had not happened, I probably would not searched as hard as I did. I can't say for certain, but I suspect it would have saved me thousands of dollars if I had it implemented earlier.

@Dick Rosen I'm glad it wasn't that bad in Phoenix.  Illinois 's ban was more strict than the CDC's.  You couldn't get even evict squatters, hold overs, or people materially violating their lease. I had one tenant in May just refuse to pay because I wouldn't renew her lease. Lucky I caught the tail end of the moratorium in Illinois, and she conveniently left after 2 months.