All Forum Posts by: Tammy Mason

I’m not going to do any increases for existing tenants right now. And in a year or two when I reassess, it will be unit by unit based on where the current rent is vs market rent. If it’s way to low then it will get a small adjustment to get it closer. If it’s not way too low then I’ll leave it alone. If rents crash then I’ll be looking at lowering everyone’s rents.

I don’t like the philosophy that no one gets a rent increase ever and I also don’t buy the idea that it should go up every year for every tenant to maintain that expectation. I just want my rents to be fair. About market for new tenants and a bit lower than market for (good) long-term tenants.

@Kelly W. Just list it with a local with estate agent and their MLS will syndicate to zillow, trulio, homes.com, etc. It costs nothing for your rentals to make it on their platform without using them to list it.

I use scopeout to do a quick neighborhood analysis. But if you're looking to use a free resource city-data is the best. Neighborhoodscout has the best information for zip/property level but it's very pricey.

@Luke Baumbach congratulations on your new property! 

This is a tricky situation. From my experiences, it doesn’t make a big difference if you call yourself the Landlord, Property Manager or owner. I find a lot of people take Landlord more as the property manager than the owner, so I tend to go with that.

I encountered the same demand to replace roofing from my insurance company after they did a walk through / walk around shortly after I purchased a buy and hold 3BR / 2BA. I knew the roof was not brand new but I also knew that the inside of house was dry and the roof still had several years of useful life left. I had a reputable roofing company come out to inspect the roof and make an honest recommendation. They found roof to be sound and even took the time, upon request, to draft a letter addressed to my insurance company. My insurance company accepted this expert opinion and ultimately did provide a policy for this property without any further push back.

If they would just pay people directly and worry about taxing them on the back end if they didn’t really need it we wouldn’t be in this situation, but no, let’s give billions to the billionaires. I’m so thankful I have paying tenants but aside from the few taking advantage most people are just hurting. We need some help down here!

I just took one of my rental listing off MLS. I'd rather an apartment stay empty than some non-paying tenant enter and I have no recourse for the foreseeable future. Less water and utility bills too! So with less supply, and landlords taking on additional risks, guess which way rents will trend ?

I have had over 45 inquiries via FB, and 15 scheduled showings. 2 of the showings actually showed up. I am starting to agree with the other posters that FB marketplace folks are bottom of the barrel.

What about renting the units with electricity included? Hopefully you could get more than the electric bill costs w/o solar, and the tenants would not have a variable electric bill. Could be a selling point. Also tenants would not see you are making extra money just off the solar.

I would check on the liability for a pool with your insurance. You might approach it like this. You would consider if it meets the legally required height for a pool per local permitting requirements. My guess is when they see the soup to nuts cost plus they would need to have liability for the pool they will abandon the request. Also who pays water? , if you do you might just say I don't want the water demand on the property.