All Forum Posts by: Sean McKee

@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. 

@Jason F. I'm able to get $60 in Cicero for an outside spot.  For a garage I'd charge $100 separately if it wasn't included already in the rent.

@Caleb Johnson I couldn't agree more! Being a landlord sucks. LITERALLY everyone blames you for anything and everything that goes wrong.  At best your viewed as a necessary evil. It definitely gets you down until the 1st of the month swings around and then you suddenly remember why you went down this path in the first place.  It's a cost of doing business, not everything you do in life was meant to be pleasurable.  

@Eric James I couldn't agree more. They know it will take months for it to get before the supreme court. This will buy them the time they need. I think we need a definitive answer from the Supreme Court that can hopefully end this back and forward argument. I sincerely hope they pick the pace up with distributing rental assistance.

@John Underwood The name is Landlord Credit Bureau . As of right now they only report to Equifax.  Your tenants have the option to opt in. If they don't opt in it won't report their payments. However if they pay late, you can activate it and will open a trade line with Equifax. From that point on their payments will be reported. They will send out emails on your behalf.  They are relatively new, founded in 2012. There are still situations in which collections agencies will be better suited(ie. they won't let you report damages). I think Experian also had a program that allows credit reporting, but I have not researched it.  I wish I had a better understanding of both credit reporting and collection agencies before I had an issue.

Hello BP!

  The CDC stated that July 31st was the last extension of the moratorium and many states had already moved in that direction. I personally thought that this was a once an a lifetime event and the end was finally near. 

Then the announcement of yet another extension of the CDC eviction ban came last night. It's more "targeted" this time, and aims to protect renters in areas hit hardest by the delta variant. I've now started to doubt myself that this is truly the end.  We might not ever see another outright ban on evictions again, but what other restrictions of property rights might be enacted in the future during times of economic stress? This in my opinion is no longer about COVID. While COVID is certainly a serious health issue, many people have adapted and moved on. This is a deeper rooted issue regarding housing affordability and history of resentment towards landlords/housing providers that started long before COVID.  This isn't going away in the next few years. 

 Over the past year and half I have learned that I need other tools to encourage good behavior besides the threat of eviction.  I now subscribe to a credit reporting site that will allow me to report late payments.  As long as you screened right, most tenants complied with the terms of their lease despite the national and local moratoriums.  For those that choose not to, I now have one more tool that I can use to point them in the right direction.

Due to all the events that have happened are you positioning yourself differently going forward? Are you increasing your criteria? Looing at different markets or investment strategies?

@Izzy Zeigler as you already now know Chicago requires you allow them to break lease with a reasonable sublet. Since you have plenty of time I'd just let them out of it and find a new tenant.  It's better than getting a text after you inquire about the rent and they reply "I don't live there anymore".

@John Warren, @Jason Albasha, @Brie Schmidt- Do you know if this is in the new Cook County RTLO? I don't recall seeing it.