All Forum Posts by: Kyle J.

If you obtained this information from pulling their credit and you’re going to reject them, you need to provide them with an Adverse Action notice.

If you used a service to pull their credit, they likely have a form letter you can use. If not, here’s some more info on Adverse Action notices and what they should include:

FTC: USING CONSUMER REPORTS: WHAT LANDLORDS NEED TO KNOW

Rental Rejection Letter: 3 Sample Forms for Landlords

If you don’t have the properties under contract, what exactly are you presenting to the investor? If you’re just telling them an address, there’s not much value in that, in my opinion. 

@Rick Oaks You want all adults who will be residing in the residence to be named on the lease, with joint and several liability. That way, they’re all collectively, and individually, agreeing to the terms/conditions of the lease, and to be responsible for the payment of rent.

Think of it this way...if things were to ever go bad (e.g. rent were to stop being paid, they were to damage your property, etc), would you rather have one person to be able to go after or three?

@Raghu Kontakts  You will not be able to buy tax deed properties using the formula "Picking only those that can be bought at 70% of After repair value minus ~15k expenses."  

You can't do a full inspection of these properties, so there's no way to come up with an accurate rehab estimate.  (Most the time you can't even see the inside.)  And while there's things you can do to ROUGHLY estimate the rehab costs (and I mean ROUGHLY estimate them), there is no way you that can guarantee that your rehab budget will be under $15k on a particular house.  

That's just the nature of tax deed auctions.  You're taking a gamble.  

I evaluate the comps in my market for all of my rentals every year and raise the rent accordingly. I do it every single year. I did it last year (2020), and I expect to do it again this year. 

I don’t raise rents for things like people working from home, fluctuations in a tenant’s income, etc. It’s strictly based on an analysis of the fair market rent for the areas where my rentals are located.

And in my area, rents have been climbing every year quite substantially. So I raise the rents each year to keep up, and to avoid falling too far behind. 

You can always read the note to see what the terms are, but I doubt the lender required you to only make payments as long as you were employed.  So yes, they can still require you to make payments.  

And as far as qualifying for a mortgage in retirement, you can still do that.  Here's a couple articles on how that can work depending on your specific situation:

How to get a mortgage during retirement

Getting a Mortgage After Retirement

I would not do it.  There is no advantage to the landlord of a lease that long.  It does not guarantee you will not have vacancy, and it certainly does not "guarantee cashflow". 

In reality, tenants can (and do) move whenever they want as they lose jobs, get new jobs, expand or decrease their family size, have a serious illness in the family, or just want to live somewhere else.  And when they do, we can't stop them from breaking the lease and moving.  In fact, in pretty much every state, landlords are required to mitigate their losses and make a reasonable effort to re-rent the unit. 

But you know who can't break the lease?  The landlord.  So for four years, the tenant can leave at anytime they want, but you're stuck with them with no ability to re-assess the market and raise the rent accordingly (even if there's a big spike in market rents).  Doesn't sound like a great deal to me. 

Personally, the longer I am in the business the more I realize shorter leases are more advantageous to landlords.  (I will actually only offer a one year lease initially and then only go month-to-month after that.)  I would never offer longer than a one year lease.  And my month-to-month tenants have been with me, on average, of 5 to 8+ years.  So I must be doing something right. 

Just my two cents.

@Fred Cannon  If the payment was to you, you're the one that should get the 1099.  Sounds just like how the Housing Authority reports rent payments made on behalf of the tenants.  (I get a 1099-MISC from them each year for rent subsidy payments made on behalf of Section 8 tenants.)  And like Will said, it gets treated the same as any other rent payment from a tax perspective.

Zillow now charges in some markets to list rental properties. You may not have been charged last time either because: 1) they weren’t charging in your market at that time yet, or 2) your first listing with them is free even once they do begin charging. 

To answer your other questions:

- No, you do not have to use their rent payment service.

- Yes, you can upload your own lease.

- No, they’re not going to call prior landlords, but you can see what the credit/background check does include here: Zillow Rental Applications FAQ

I only use Zillow to list properties for rent (I don’t use their other services). And, in my market, it works great for that. Some people have a problem with Zillow charging to list rentals on their site. I don’t because I don’t expect a business to provide me a service for free. (Though obviously I liked it better when it was free.) 

Plus, in my market, Zillow just works better than the other available options. However, if you don’t want to pay, just know that there are other free options out there (e.g. Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, etc).

How well those other options work (or even if they work) in your particular market is something you’ll have to figure out if you decide to go down that road. 

I don't allow it (nor am I required to in my state).  And my lease agreement expressly prohibits subleasing or assigning the lease without my prior written consent.  In fact, if the tenant were to actually do so without my prior written consent, the act of doing so can be grounds for me to terminate our lease agreement.