All Forum Posts by: Stephen Shelton

it sounds good to me, but then it's not my money on the line 😇

Being married as opposed to "living together" doesn't matter in this day and age because getting married is what people a century ago called "dating".  Can 3 of them pay for the rent if one person leaves?

Can the building handle 4 adults? Are you on an aging septic system that can't handle 4 adults?

Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought it was common for laws to forbid aggressively limiting the number of people who can live in the building. i.e. if you have 3 bedrooms and 2 people can fit in each bedroom then you have to allow 6 total residents.

I would put only 1 person on the lease so that you only have to perform legal action against over person should anything go wrong.

Diagonal from one of my properties is a house that has to have at least 6 millennial living it. It might even have more. I peeked in the windows during its renovation and the layout was weird and some rooms were tiny like 8x8. The tenants seem so stereotypical: my tenants complained that one squawed at them for having an old truck, I smell pot flowing from the property a lot, they rarely do yard work so it looks bad, act like a much of hippies, and have a rock band! Another neighbor got in a screaming match with them (but she's like that 😄) So I hope yours aren't like these!

Thanks. I close next Friday the 28th.

Do the living pants have an odor or is it just the burnt parts?

I wonder who started to reply only to stop one they realized we'd wonder why they knew 😅😅😅

I don't doubt that is the law, especially in California, but I have a philosophical problem with the idea that what tenants do is simultaneously none of my business and 100% if my business. 

For example if this tenant had not paid their rent then California would tell me to kick rocks and let the tenant stay until the sun goes supernova. If they grow pot then suddenly I'm responsible? It's makes no sense.

It seems that the party responsible in the eyes of the law is the party with the deepest pockets.

It reminds me of the slip-n-fall lawsuits that really demonstrate this. Example: my local grocery store strip mall recently cut down the trees in the little green spaces at the end of the parking areas. Turns out an elderly lady walked through, tripped on a root, and sued.

While I emphasize with the lady, I wouldn'thave given her a penny. How do you live for 70 years and not know roots affect the ground under a tree? Also, why was she walking there in the first place?

I can see the landlord/tenant relationship is more intimate than usual commercial transactions, but this is overboard...

...except for the fact that I now know about the tenant being the landlord's daughter. He had to have known therefore that means he enabled her.

And I don't mean to excuse being a lazy landlord renting to 💩 humans. I would definitely catch this in my own, but what if it wasn't such a blatant visual issue? What if I saw a punch mark in a door; would that mean I could/should be fined if the tenants are a couple and one was beating the other?

 😅😅 He's nearly 12 pounds now and solid muscle. He's like a feline pitbull. 

OK, crazy thought, but is it possible the buyer has died or become incapacitated?Have you tried stalking social media sites under their name to see if they are alive and well?

It's a good thing the tenants didn't murder someone otherwise he'd be facing a life in prison. 😌

It's almost like the government is looking for a way to raise revenue by fining what they believe to be the party with deep pockets instead of going after the people who actually broke the law. Unless the governmentcan prove in court that a landlord actively knows criminal activity is occurring they need to STFU.

I know what goes on in my properties to the extent that no one ever truly knows another person. I'd certainly see 479 marijuana plants in mine, but I shouldn't have to. My philosophy as a landlord is that the property is effectively the tenants' property while they are paying me to use it. If they are breaking the law then that should be on them, of course this is California where entrepreneurship is basically illegal and I shouldn't opine further on that, but a landlord should not be a babysitter. Tenants are adults for crying out loud.

Heck, if I grow marijuana in my own house does my landlord, THE COUNTY,  get held responsible? Property tax confirms that a private individual does not own the property so why aren't the elected leaders in the county held to the same standard as the person who "owns" this house?

Back in 2014 I found 2 properties that I went back and forth on. Across the street from the property I ultimately did not buy was a vacant house with all of the "I'm a foreclosure!" It looked to have the benefits of the house I bought in 2014 with the better location of the other. Sadly it was not for sale and was just sitting to rot.

FFWD to December 2018 and it's the-economy-has-recovered prices I found a "meh" of a house at the right price in a good location. My inspector examined the attic in 3 places and found 3 places with big termite damage.

Defeated, I decided against it and while in the yard my real estate agent checked for anything else in the area. Found one. We drove over and it was that house left to rot from 2014! Went inside for the first time and immediately said wow.  Unlike the tenure house I could not stand and palm the ceiling.  It's a 2/2 but the bedrooms are big, it has a garage, the kitchen is dated but in great condition.

The main issue is that it has a back porch that was turned into a family room/extra room combo that is not in good condition. Worst case I destroy it and it's still a song house!

The best part is that House #3 was initially rented by 2 brothers who kept meticulous care of the house.  One brother moved away, and had returned and wants to rent a house from me come mid-March.

I hate to jinx it, but everything seems to be working out here. Most bizarre is that to compensate for the low price my agent is doing an aggressive time schedule, and my inspector (who is family) just happens to be inspecting the property across the street tomorrow and put me in his schedule!

I'm not much of a paranormal guy, but damn if this house doesn't seem like it's been waiting for me.

It's closer to me than my other properties that are close themselves!

$75 is a bargain. In one of my properties an outlet connected to a light switch failed and it was a simple issue with the wires in a wire nut not being twisted together.

I fixed it myself, but it cost be hundreds if not thousands of dollars into the future because during that trip I found a little black puff of a kitten in the yard and I estimate that's what he's going to cost over the next 15 years.

BTW why didn't you stop by to see if it was something simple before calling a pro? A lot of electrical gremlins have the potential of being easy fixes with a few cheap tools. Is this a long-distance property?

As for who should pay I say do whatever your history has established. Is anything in your lease? I typically do my own repairs so if out of the blue I charged my tenant they'd wonder what was up. Yes repairs under (I think my lease says $100) are supposed to be handed by the tenant, but I like doing them and if I suddenly charged it could cause a trust issue. Also they'd be less likely to inform me of small issues until they become big issues.

I was worried too because Gillum was buying low-info votes with taxpayer money with a fury. Thankfully he lost, but I'm worried about the *TOTALLY REAL* ballots they keep "finding" in South Florida: "Gosh look at the 200 ballots for Gillum I found behind the Cap'n Crunch in my kitchen cabinet!"

On the other hand I was hopeful that real estate would be a casualty of Gillum win. When "The Recession" lost his job about 2 years ago property prices have gone through the roof.  As a Buy-N-Hold-N-Rent investor, high property prices are death. Call me selfish, but a collapse in real estate would help me immensely.

But I'm glad we didn't get a governor who wanted an income tax and obscene levels of obnoxious regulations.