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All Forum Posts by: Stephen Beckwith

Stephen Beckwith has started 3 posts and replied 7 times.

Post: Novice landlord in need of serious advice

Stephen BeckwithPosted
  • Rental Property Investor
  • Posts 7
  • Votes 1

Sorry or the long post. TLDR at the bottom.

I am by no means a professional landlord. My wife and I have one rental property in Baltimore, MD, which we only decided to rent out because we bought in 2006 at the height of the bubble and we needed to move, and selling would have meant taking a substantial loss. We rented it out successfully for quite a few years while we were still in MD, but a couple years ago we moved to TX, making it much more difficult to manage. We wanted to sell when we moved away, but it would have been a 5 figure loss that we didn’t want to take, so we thought we would try to continue renting it. We had a handyman that we trusted who took care of a lot, and we would use craigslist to find tenants. In July of last year, our tenants leases (we rented rooms individually, with separate leases) were all up at the same time and we were having a really hard time finding tenants. We looked into selling again, but we were still underwater and would have lost probably 10k. At that point our handyman, Angel, came to us with seemingly great deal. He said he would take over the payments and management of the house until the mortgage was completely paid off at which point we would sign the title over to him. If at any point he failed to make a payment, the house would be ours again. We figured what the hell, sounds good to us.

So Angel finds a couple tenants and begins to pay the mortgage. All seems to be going well. Cut to the middle of last month, Angel calls us out of the blue and says he wants out of the deal and that April will be the last mortgage payment he will make, because managing the house is too big a pain for him. We’re like ok, the housing market is red hot, we can probably just sell it and at minimum break even, probably even make a small profit. He had even repainted the whole house and remodeled the bathroom. The tenants are on month to month leases, so we reach out and tell them we are selling the house and they have 30 days. One of them is like cool, and he finds a new place and moved out after a week. The second one, I’ll call her Sharon, stops communicating with us and blocks our phone numbers. We then find out that she has moved her girlfriend and her gf’s kid into the house and has put locks on the interior doors (so far I don’t think she has changed the lock on the exterior doors, but that may have changed by now). She still hasn’t paid her April rent, and I am pretty sure she has no intentions of vacating or paying any rent anytime soon. We did a background check and she has a ****ing INSANE police record. Charges like kidnapping and assault on a police officer among many many others. Like, we’re talking legit sociopath here. Real scary stuff.

Meanwhile, my wife made some calls to friends and found out that Baltimore has apparently recently passed a bunch of bills because of Covid, limiting a landlord’s ability to evict their tenants. So the process will likely take many many months. Making it more difficult is that the house is not registered as a rental, and in order to register it, we have to get an inspection, but we can’t get into the rooms to do the inspection because of the locks. My wife and I cannot afford to pay the mortgage on the house for more than a month or two, and the bank has denied our request for forbearance.

So my question is: is there anything else I can do? Any way I can expedite the eviction? Has anyone been in a situation like this before? We are stressing the f out. Please help.

TLDR; we have a tenant in Baltimore who is refusing to move or pay rent and we won’t be able to evict her any time soon. What can we do?

@Mark Miles

Hey thanks for the great response! That answers a lot of my questions. Truth is, I just read LOVE the property. It was built in the 1700s, made of stone, and used to belong to a very prominent family in Jersey City. It's simply one of a kind. But there is no way it would fetch enough rent as a long term rental as renters would not appreciate its character and history, and I don't want to fix and flip. It's not about the money for me, it's simply about the property. So if an STR wouldn't work I'll probably just stay away.

I’m an inexperienced real estate investor living in Texas, and I’ve come across an opportunity for a very unique home in Jersey City, that I think could be a good short term vacation rental. It is steps from Hoboken and a short train or bus ride into Manhattan. But I don’t know much about the vacation rental market in the area. It’s a 3 br home with a detached garage that (with a lot of work) could potentially be converted into extra living space. It has parking for two cars, which is extremely rare in the area. I haven’t worked out all the numbers, but I would likely need to clear 6-7k monthly to make it worth it. I know there are some weird tax laws in Jersey regarding vacation rentals. Has anyone been doing vacation rentals with success in this area? If so, any advice? TIA!

Post: Is it worth it to get a real estate license?

Stephen BeckwithPosted
  • Rental Property Investor
  • Posts 7
  • Votes 1

@Jon Reed

Thanks for the reply! So does that mean you are liable and can face legal actions if it can be proven that you did not act in the seller’s best interest? I never even considered that aspect, so thank you.

What about the money saved from not having to pay an agent upon selling? If you are flipping 2-3 houses a year, couldn’t that add up to a pretty significant amount?

Post: Is it worth it to get a real estate license?

Stephen BeckwithPosted
  • Rental Property Investor
  • Posts 7
  • Votes 1

@Michael Lee

That makes sense. Thanks again for the response!

Post: Is it worth it to get a real estate license?

Stephen BeckwithPosted
  • Rental Property Investor
  • Posts 7
  • Votes 1

@Michael Lee

Thanks for the reply!

In what ways could it potentially harm my production as an investor?

Post: Is it worth it to get a real estate license?

Stephen BeckwithPosted
  • Rental Property Investor
  • Posts 7
  • Votes 1

I am just starting out and still in the educational phase, but my goal is to acquire 10 buy and hold rentals over the next 10 years. I would also love to do some fix and flips, but that is still up in the air.

My question is, do you think it’s worth the time, currently 180 hours in Texas, to get my license? If so, is there any reason to wait until I have some deals under my belt or should I just go for it?