All Forum Posts by: Steve Tom

The property is for rental, not for sales.

I have just visited it and the condition is great. The current tenants have bene really taking great care of it. I thank them for that.

One of the potential tennat contacted me but insisted on communicating with her through her gmail account, instead of Zillow. I gave her a lis tof prescreen questions, but she never answered any of them. instead, copied the same respond she had sent previously.. which was aske to contact her through gmail only. Is that normal?

Thanks everyone.

The current tenants are very tidy and organized. In fact, they paid on time and have been very good on keep the house in wonderful shape. But they decided to buy a house South of Austin, so its time for them to move on.

Currently a few of the propsective tenants are from out-of-state, but will be in Austin area on certain dates. Therefore, they have requested to tour the property while they are here. These few just requested a tour and have not filed an application. I will need to ask them some questions to screen them first, I supposed, before accepting them to tour the place.

Hello,

I am using Zillow to list my property for rental. Since we used to use realtor, this is our first time and we are a little confuse on the proper ways to screen clients.

1. Shall I list the minimum credit score under property overview?

2. I have stated that current tenants are still living on the property and it won't be available until next month. However, several prospect tenanst already requested a tour. A few even submitted application. Shall I ask those requesting tour also submit application first?

3. Do i give priority to those who have submitted applications?

4. Since the current tenants are in the process of moving out, I only listed the property with previosuly used pictures, some are old. Shall I actualyl wait for the tenants to move out, and retake new pictures and post them?

Thank you.

Hello fellow landlords.

My new tenants have been at the rental for over a year. They are quiet and nice. So far there has not been any complains or issue until today. 

The rental unit has an original dishwasher. It is 15 years old but was rarely used all these time. But assuming due to plastic components and its age, the tenants informed me today that for the last few uses the dishes are not as clean, and they also noticed there is now rust left on the silverwares.

It is an old dishwasher, but is otherwise functional. They even willing to look for a replacement (not sure if they will pay for it and then take away with them after the lease expires next year).

if the dishwasher is fucntional, should i replace it? I can replace it and leave it for the next tenants. or argue with them that it is funcational and does not needs to be replaced. (I am leaing toward replace and so i don't have to do it again for a few more years, but wife wants to save money.)

Thank you.

Thanks! That make sense. I will keep the utilities until their move in date, then transfer to them when the lease starts.

Hello.

After fixing up the house, my realtor was able to find a couple as prospect tenants. They want to move in early September, and are willing to pay for the August's rent even if they won't be at the house. 

The question is who is responsible for the utilities for the month of August? I don't mind mowing or paying for the utilities, just to be a little fair since they are not living at the property yet.

Thank!

Thanks guys. The paint was a month shy of 5 years, so I am out of luck.

I was given the advice to not interfere with the tenants too much, so actually I have not done any inspections, up until the time to move the tree. Another lesson there.

Thank you Patricia.

You are right and I have learnt a lot from this. I will adhere to the lease contract from now on. As a first time landlord I thought it would be better to keep a friendly relationship, hence allowing late payment and moving the trees. Learned my lesson now.

With new paint (eggshell instead of flat), the walls should be easier to deal with in the future. 

As a first time landlord I am still trying to learn everything that comes with it. This is a long story, so please bear with me.

My tenants recently moved out. Over their stay of three years, we were trying to do it right by not increasing rent (we even started the lease a hundred below market rate), allowed them to be late on payment (sometimes three weeks late), or split the rent in two when they have difficult time on paying. If i stick by the lease them, they would have been fined for $1700 as penalty for late rents over the three years period.

One time they cracked the toilet and instead of having them paid for it, we only required them to cover half of the cost. We thought since they have kids, we should treat each other nicely, just to maintenance a good relationship between us.

On the lease it stated that they have to keep the house in good condition.

A few months before the end of their stay, they mentioned the yard was too small. We decided to help them and moved the medium size fig tree from the middle of the yard to a corner. It was not small task as we did it ourselves. However, while moving the tree we saw the yard was not well maintenance. Sprinkler heads broken, areas of the yard were totally dead (They later admitted they placed things on the grass so a 9 feet x 5 ft section only had dirt left, and the grass around the fence gate were gone due to traffic of dragging the trash and recycle bins. Also they did not used the sprinkler system at all for the time they were there.)

So ok, we told them they have to sod those areas.

Before they moved out, we decided to upgrade the sprinkler system, so the next tenants would have easier time using it.

Once they moved out, the next day I have gone back for a walk through (I had to work on the day they moved out and wife was sicked). They did hired a carpet cleaner, and sod the bare spots on the lawn. However, lawn was not mowed (as requested) because they think the lawn was too soft after placing the new sods on some spots, and some of the Window sills were patched but did not painted. The door guide for a sliding door closet was also broken, and some piece of hardware was still attached to the ceiling. Two Roman Shades had paints that won't come off.

Worst of all, most of the walls have smudges and dirt. I tried to clean them myself with soap and water, vinegar, cleaners but couldn't get those smudge and dirt spots out at all. I later learned they only use maid to clean the house, so that was why the walls were not cleaned. They only used touch up paint of nail holes they have patched, but even the color of the paint was off.

We had to clean the stove as well as they were food particles on it. (shouldn't the maids have cleaned that?)

We have spoken with several realtors and they all wanted us to repaint the walls before listing.

I can fix the door guide (only $5), replaced the Roman Shades with mini-blinds ($8 each because if I ma installing new Roman Shade it would be a lot more), I patched the ceiling myself ($1), mowed the lawn by avoiding those few spots with new sods without any issue (even after it rained), cleaned all of the windows, and bought paint ($13) and repaint the sills ourselves.

My question is, shall I deduct from the security deposit for having to repaint the walls? I understand when people mentioned normal wear and tears, but dirt and smudge that couldn't come out would be consider that too? I want to be fair, but as first time landlord, was I being overly too nice to them in the first place? Maybe ask for partial responsibility? Or left them go and eat it as my first lesson?