All Forum Posts by: Patrick L.

I used to be very active on here and although I stopped actively buying 4 years ago I still have a large number of rentals in the St Pete area.  I am looking for suggestions for an exceptional property manager in the area.  I have been self managing with a couple of employees that handle all maintenance and rehabs but I've been busy with other business interests so I am considering outsourcing the management.   I have mostly single family plus some small multis in the 2-5 unit range, 40+ properties with 50+ doors.   If you know an amazing property manager in the area please let me know.  All of my properties are in South Pinellas and prefer someone based in St Pete with experience in South St Pete (about half of my properties are in that area, the other half are north St Pete, Gulfport and Pinellas Park) 

That would be a terrible idea.  Have you ever lived through a large renovation?   It's dirty, noisy and makes parts of the house unlivable.   You had the choice when you bought it to either leave it vacant and do your renovations or put a tenant in there.   Now there's a tenant in there you need to wait.   We only do emergency renovations with tenants in place, like if we have to replace plumbing under a slab.     If it isn't broken, then wait. 

I looked up those Portland fees for removing tenants, crazy.   Any termination of occupancy without cause  (even on an expired lease or month to month tenancy) or increase of rent of more than 10% and you have to pay the tenant between $2,900 (studio) and $4,500 (3 bedroom) for "relocation costs".    I'd stay well clear of super liberal cities when investing.   

Unfortunately home inspectors aren't usually very useful.  They roll through their basic check lists and look for trivial things so they can make a list.  Some are much better than others but at the end of the day they aren't qualified to tell if you your HVAC system or water heater are going to fail.  They should have caught the missing smoke detectors and lake of outlets in the bathroom because those are the trivial items that are usually on their checklist.    For the major systems they will generally tell you the age if it's available and you can base your decisions on that (if you have a 12 year old HVAC system or water heater expect to replace it soon).   

Unless you have unbiased boots on the ground I don't understand investing in a market you aren't familiar with.   You paid more from the property than any of the local guys and your costs to repair and manage will be higher than theirs because they can either do things themselves or have people in place already.   On a $400k+ deal I would have hopped on a plane for the weekend and gone out to the property  and laid my own eyes it because pictures don't tell the entire story.  I'd also spend some time walking and driving around the immediate area to make sure it is what you think it is.   I see out of state investors come into my market and pay stupid prices and it makes me laugh because I know those are often the people that are going to be selling to me at a discount in a few years because they have no idea what they're getting into.   People always overestimate rents and under estimate expenses.   Owning a house is expensive over time, it's not as simple as saying gross rent minus your mortgage taxes and insurance = profits.   I have plenty of houses that I've spent $7k on repairs/capex this year.   Old cast iron sewer lines go bad, HVAC systems have to be replaced, roofs have to be replaced, tenants need to be evicted and you get back a trashed unit full of crap.   This is a business of calculated risk and expenses even out over time but you cannot always tell when and on what you will spend your money on.   I just got back one of my apartments after an eviction, at this point I'm out 3 months rent due to non-payment and the time the eviction took.   It'll be 4 months when it's rented again.   I paid $800 to my attorney.   I need to (well I need to pay for...) replace every interior door, patch 6 very large dry wall holes (think kicked in walls), retexture half of the unit  (due to the size of the drywall repairs), repaint the entire unit, new flooring for the entire unit, replace 2 broken windows, haul off 30 yards of furniture/household crap/misc debris plus whatever odds and ends I didn't/couldn't see on my initial walk through when the Sheriff did the lockout.   That's an inexpensive $700/month apartment and between the lost rent, the eviction and the repairs I'm losing a full year's gross rent.  Luckily I have many others that offset that expense so it gets chalked up to the cost of doing business.  

As far as recourse I doubt you have much.   Generally a home inspection contract limits the inspector's liability to the amount paid for the inspection.   Next time have a good contractor walk the property, they'll be able to spot bad work.

It's usually inexperienced landlords or apartment complexes that generally have high vacancy rates.   We'll often see someone show up with cash in hand for the full move in amount if they can have the place right now.   Some landlords will jump at that and not screen, every time I've seen that it's been a terrible tenant with a bad criminal or eviction history.  

We also see people using someone else's information on the application or someone else entirely applying for them......cousin, sibling, baby mama, parents, etc.   I've ended up with a few people lately that I've had to evict that I didn't rent to, someone else looked at the unit and filled out the app and signed the lease.  

I have dealt with agencies that will help tenants that are in danger of being evicted.   The ones I have received funds from generally need a copy of a 3 day (pay or quit) notice, a copy of the lease and a W9.   If I'm at the point where I have a judgement I'm not taking any money, I'm moving on.   

Ownership doesn't change until the foreclosure is completed.   The bank cannot sell you the house, they do not own it.   When they do own it they will list it with an agent, they won't sell it to you directly.  

 If the bank were willing to entertain your short sale offer they would order their own BPO.   

Peter in addition to people not receiving their money ERP is not being upfront with people and they aren't answering their phones or emails.   They have received 41 BBB complaints from 10/12-10/19 and wouldn't respond to the BBB and have had their accreditation pulled there.   This will absolutely sink their company, why would anyone trust them again after this?   You can't be a financial payment processor and have a colossal screw-up like this and then just hide your head in the sand and wait and see what happens.   The outrage only gets bigger the less truthful and transparent they are.   I don't see how you could feel comfortable with them handling your money after this.   

https://www.bbb.org/wyoming-and-northern-colorado/...

This business offers online rent payment services and has been a BBB Accredited Business since 2007. Beginning October 12, 2017, BBB began receiving complaints stating that although the complainant's tenants had paid their rent through eRentPayment's services, they are yet to receive their money owed. As of October 19, 2017, BBB has received 41 complaints that are currently pending. Not only has BBB forwarded copies of the complaints to the business, BBB has also attempted to make contact with the company to address the volume of complaints received in the last few days. BBB has not received a response from the business. As of October 19th, BBB has suspended the company's BBB Accreditation and will continue to attempt to contact the business via certified mail and help them work toward resolving their customer's disputes.

 You'll have to check your local laws.   As wayne said you have no claim to the funds as the buyer anymore than I do as a random stranger.   

Here the borrower has 60 days to make a claim otherwise the court will appointment a trustee to find the owner/heirs.   The trustee has a year and then after that it goes to the state as unclaimed property and can be claimed back at any point by the owner if they ever come forward.  

I've only done one NPN. I did it here in FL where I'm based with my team. Paid $16k for the note, about $2k in property preservation to fix some exterior code violations, clean up the yard and keep it mowed and about $2.5k in legal fees. Had 2 years of taxes owed but wasn't enough to be an issue so no reason to pay them off. Turned down a short sale offer that would have been $20k after commissions, liens and taxes. Let it go third party at the county foreclosure auction for $54k. Inside was a mess. Needed a roof, had termites, looked like there was a previous small kitchen fire and the kitchen had been removed. Someone else lost money on it, not me.

I would buy another if a deal came around but only somewhere that I'm familiar with where I can lay my eyes on it.    Takes any of the value I bring to the project out if I have no local knowledge.