All Forum Posts by: Stacey Mollinet

We use Kin Insurance for a STR in Bradenton, Florida. They have been great. 855-717-0022

I was also very impressed with Courtney Grandstrand from Goosehead insurance in Bradenton.  (941) 877-0994 [email protected]  She is a broker and worked really hard to get us coverage.  She was quick to respond and had lots of options for us.  Unfortunately she had to piece together 3 different companies to get us full coverage which ended up being more expensive than Kin insurance.  

@Angelika Roerig  I self managed two units that are 10 and 15 minutes from my house.  The rest are more than two hours away or in another state so I have property managers for those.  I didn't need software to manage just two units.  I would market with Facebook marketplace, KSL classifieds (which is a local site similar to Craigslist), Zillow, and Rentler.com.  They usually rented pretty quickly.  I have used RentPrep.com for the screening and I charge the fee to the applicants.  RentPrep also has some good resources if you need them like a Rental Application and a Move In/Move Out checklist.  I definitely recommend doing a Move in/Move Out checklist with repair prices listed.  It has saved me with damages more than once.  I usually sign the lease with them when I take the deposit, which could be several weeks ahead.   I need to have at least some of the deposit and the lease signed in order to stop showing it to other people.  The full deposit is required before moving in.  My first ever tenant talked me into letting them move in with a partial deposit that they would finish paying over the next several months and I'll never do that again.  I give them the keys on move in day.  I was burned once by taking someone's word for having put the utilities in their name, so now I either call the utilities and check or if they have a login I have them pull it up on their phone to show me.   

When I have worked with insurance claims in the past, they generally depreciate items based on the condition or age, so your roof might be fully depreciated already unless they happened to be 50 year shingles. On some furnishing items that were ruined in a flooded basement, it was replacement value, but not all policies are written that way. It might be worth a call to your insurance agency to see. We got a lot more on a wind claim in 2011 than we expected, though. They gave us 30% of the cost of a roof since only part of it was damaged. We ended up patching it instead of replacing it so we pocketed the rest. 

I have properties in Cleveland, Ohio and get many calls and texts every day asking if I am interested in selling. I am not interested in selling!  Before I sold other properties in Cleveland, I spoke to a few of the callers and found that they would offer much lower than I eventually sold it for on the market.  I am an investor and will not ever be interested in selling to them for the low price they want it at. 

I get 3-4 calls or texts per day per property. I can let them go to voice mail, but the calls interrupt me. My married daughter and married son have even gotten calls and texts about selling. Being on the do not call list doesn't help with these kinds of calls. 

How do they get my number?  Where is my phone number listed so I can get it off the list?  For those of you who make these calls regularly, does it actually pay off?  Do you realize how much you are bothering owners?  There has to be another way to do this than bothering innocent people.  This is my exasperated self asking for help in getting these calls to stop. 

@Lance Jorgenson I took a good landlord class with the Utah apartment association which helped me learn what to do. The best thing is to charge an application fee to cover a background check. Also have a requirements list that they get with the application - rent can be max 30% of income, max number of people in unit, full deposit required before moving in, no drug or sexual convictions, no bankruptcies or evictions in the past 5 years. Call and check references - confirm job and talk to current landlord. The first to apply and qualify gets the unit. I show those units I manage close to me. A no show is an auto rejection. The market is tight and it fills pretty quickly.  Make sure utilities are in their name before giving them keys. I also give a $5 discount for paying before the 1st and a $5 discount for either depositing it in my account or auto depositing. Totally worth it. 

I self managed my two rentals that were close (within 15 minutes) and have a property manager for my properties that are far away (one two hours away and the others out of state). If you do the screening right so you have good tenants that pay rent on time, there’s not much to manage. There’s time needed up front to show it when it’s vacant. Once it’s rented though, there’s an occasional repair but not much to do normally. 

I would ask to mail him a business check for my documentation. Venmo has a clause in their user agreement that says they could reverse the charges if they detect it was used for business purposes, although it would be more a risk to him than to you. You are required to issue a 1099 if you pay him more than $600. If you want him to sign something, you could email an agreement and he could scan it or take a photo of it and send it back to you. Then you wouldn’t need to drive to where he is. You might want to do a weekly video progress update.  About 10 years ago, I had an out of state contractor that told me things were progressing when nothing was going on. Once I figured it out and threatened to sue him, I got a local property manager to check on him weekly. 

@Thomas Taylor III - After rehab, the total price with a lot of the work done myself was around $250,000.   Total rent averages about $2550 a month, but that's with higher vacancy than I hope to have this year.  With full occupancy, it would be close to $3000 a month rent.  I got a good deal on it.

@Tyler Anderson - Brittany Von Arx is a great realtor and helped me a lot.  She lives in Vernal and helped me look at properties all over the basin area.  

Would you be able to self manage it? That would give you some room to lower the price. Yes I think you might get more people interested. My brother self managed a vacation rental near soda springs, Idaho while living in Highland, Utah, 3 hours away.  He used smart home technology, sensors, digital door locks, an online thermostat, and outside cameras so he could keep an eye on the comings and goings of his guests. He hired a local woman to clean between guests and he visited periodically with his family. He only owned it for two summers before selling it to move to the east coast, but ended up with it fairly full his second summer. The first summer, he kept the price lower than market so he could get some good reviews that would help people have confidence to book. I have read that listing a vacation property on multiple platforms helps increase occupancy as does dynamic pricing.  Have you looked into vacation rentals in nearby communities to see their occupancy rates? Maybe in Liberty, Wolf Creek, Morgan or Mountain Green?  My husband and I think there would be a market for short term rentals near Snowbasin and Powder Mountain in the winter as well as Pineview reservoir in the summer.  To some degree, if you are using it to vacation yourself, it may be enough to break even. 

I’m interested in this, too, and following for other answers.