All Forum Posts by: Patrick L.

It's illegal in the city of St Pete.   If code enforcement catches you or a neighbor reports you (this will happen) you will be shut down.   They'll max you out with $10k in liens and then move on to a municipal ordinance violation which will be a court case.  

For it to have value as a business you will have to scale it to the point where you are not doing all of the day to day tasks.   You are selling a job not a business and that has a big impact on the value.   If you have scale to the point where you have enough units that can hire a leasing agent to do all the showings and an office person to handle all of the inbound phone calls, repair scheduling, billing, etc then you have a business.   As for management software I would look at something like Appfolio or Buildium.

 From my understanding of the post she doesn't own any of them, she is a property manager.   

You don't have a business, you have a job.   If you wanted to sell it you would need to build a business with employees and systems in place to handle all of the day to day tasks for there to be any value to a buyer.   The lack of reasonable books and tracking is also a huge issue for anyone looking to take that over.   All you have to sell is a book of business and that value is pretty questionable. 

If the business is just you and you leave there is no business and there is little reason for your current clients to stay.  With your lack of modern tracking and reporting I'm guessing the main reason the owners stay with you is because they like you and feel comfortable with you.  Many management companies will provide online portals for owners where they can track tenants, revenue, expenses, etc.     

I use granite and stainless appliances on 100% of my flips.   It's one of those things that can wow a buyer at a low price point and if you shop around you can get granite for a pretty reasonable price.   I even put granite counters in an $85k condo I sold this year, I was able to do the counters for $800 and it was a lot of impact for that price. 

1.  You should have re-keyed the property when you purchased it.  Who knows how many people have keys to that door and yes it seems completely unreasonable for you and the tenant to not have a key to enter through the front door.  

2.  While you're changing locks you should do this door as well.   Go to home depot and buy a 2 pack of keyed alike locks in a set for $50 and do both doors.   

3.  Tenants are responsible for their own window coverings.  If they wanted blinds they should have raised that concern prior to signing a lease.  

On to the rent issue.  I wouldn't cut them any slack because whatever you give them they will try to take more.   Post a pay or quit notice when they're late and if they don't pay by the expiration date let them know that you will be evicting them.  I don't do cash for keys because I'd rather give my money to the attorney than some deadbeat, but that's my own personal opinion.  An eviction costs me $800 all in for an attorney to do it for me and takes about 3-4 weeks here.   It's not a huge deal and once I sign the papers and give the attorney a check it always feels like a load off because I know I'm getting rid of a headache.  

While it would be nice to feel bad for everyone and cut them all a break doing so would end up putting you out of business.  I can't count the number of excuses tenants have given me and unfortunately the ones that are true get lost in all the lies and I can't make special accommodations for any of them.    I hear all the time that my bank account was hacked, my check was screwed up/late, I lost my wallet and I had all the rent money in it, my car got repoed and the rent money was in the glove box.  

 Only a handful are in my personal name.   I have almost all of them in LLCs.   I have had AC units stolen, vacant properties broken into, water damage from plumbing, etc but I have always just sucked it up and fixed those without insurance.   If one of my tenants starts a major fire then I'll save my claims for something like that.   

I'm not an insurance expert so I don't know if moving them into an LLC will be of any benefit to getting those properties insured now as the LLC won't have any financial/insurance history so they'll have to look at you personally. It may help your personal insurance if you have future claims against the rentals but I'm not sure.

Insurance companies are very good at making money and if they're losing money on you they'll either drop you or try to make it back up with premiums.  

 The $26k claim is the only one I would have made.   With 3 claims what do you expect?  Insurance companies aren't a charity, you're now looked at as extremely high risk and it will be priced accordingly.    You can't claim every little thing, insurance should be used for the things that you cannot afford otherwise.   Anyone can end up with one claim, people with 3 aren't desirable for an insurance company.   Raise you deductibles as high as possible and maybe you'll find affordable rates. 

I own 60 properties and have never filed a claim with my insurance companies.  The only claim I've had was against a driver's insurance that crashed into one of my houses.  

Another other option is cleartosell.com.  They will certify the tax deed so you can get title insurance.  The cost is a little more than most attorneys charge for quiet title ($2,750) but it only takes 3 weeks.  

The only way to sell in less than 4 years in FL is to do quiet title, use a certification company or find a buyer that's willing to take it on a quit claim deed with no title insurance (probably at a big discount).