All Forum Posts by: Tanya Maslach

Quote from @Scott Mac:

The dishwasher may have a grinder in it for food particles, and the discharge might go into the disposal.

Those particles might not be washing down completely.

Maybe they are grinding up garlic or onions or who knows what.

Maybe that is what is coming Into the garbage disposal possibly from the food on the plates or something like that.

Maybe the P trap under the sink is not filling with water correctly and allowing sewer gas to come back in.  

Just my 2 cents.

 Thanks for this Scott.  And yes, all great theories -- and ones the plumber debunked when he went to check out the issue.  He found no issues like that, but did confirm a smell.  He left the tenant with a special enzymatic solution that was supposed to address "food and grease" issues.

Quote from @Kristian Sexton:

@Tanya Maslach Does your lease agreement speak to this? I know our lease agreement specifically states that if a tenant reports a maintenance issue that ends up not being an issue at all it's the tenant's responsibility. 

 Yes in fact.   The Prop Mgr assured us of this, and mentioned it twice to the tenant in their response to the tenant's dispute.

Quote from @Tim Delaney:

Quote from @Tanya Maslach:

@Tim Delaney 
Thank you.
Agreed - we really don't want to deal with it, as it's the PM's job.

Just trying to be good landlords.

This is the first issue, not the second, with the garbage disposal... (other issue was a leaky toilet we took care of, at our expense). 

 Yes, I realize it was the first time, that is why I would cover the cost in an effort to be a good landlord and not discourage my tenants from reporting future issues. I would also explain that if it happens again that they may be responsible for some or all of the cost. In my leases I put clearly that if a tenant flags a request as emergency and it is determined to be their fault or not an emergency they are responsible for the cost. That's a bit different than this situation, but just wanted to share.

 Yep! Totally understood.   
Since it is explained clearly in the contract terms, (managing expectations there), the PM's initial response to the dispute was to reference that language.

We found out about the dispute after the tenant had repeated her dispute 2x -- and the property mgmt asked us what we wanted to do.

@Phillip Austin

Meant that previous reply for you instead of Tim. :-)
Either way -- thank you. Yes, we agree this is a PM issue / topic to handle.
So we've left it for them to do so.
They've already showed the tenant, from the contract language, why they are being asked to pay for this.

Thanks again,

@Tim Delaney 
Thank you.
Agreed - we really don't want to deal with it, as it's the PM's job.

Just trying to be good landlords.

This is the first issue, not the second, with the garbage disposal... (other issue was a leaky toilet we took care of, at our expense). 

Hi all,

After lengthy conversations with our hired prop mgmt company, I'm coming to this group for more guidance.

Location: Denver, CO
Property: LTR ending July 2025. No issues on property, except a faulty leaky toilet that was fixed same day as tenant posted maintenance issue. Done in 15 min.
Tenant: Has paid on time over last 1.5 years. Ends lease on July 2025.

In December, tenant said there was an odor coming from garbage disposal.

Tenant had tried their own DIY fixes for a month with no resolution. 
We are unaware of what those DIY fixes were.

Within 24 hours of maintenance request, we had our plumber there.  He looked at issue, confirmed there was nothing funtionally wrong with the disposal or its plumbing structure.

We and the Plumber gave the tenant instructions on how to use an enzymatic solution he had, and that the plubmer told us it sometimes happens with grease and/or food that is left in the disposal.

(We lived in that house for years and in other properties we knew this was the case)

Disposal: Was newly placed in property before tenant moved in.

The fee: $145.

We put the fee on the tenant's following month's rent as their responsibility due to resolution provided and plumber's confirmation that the disposal was working fine and structure had no issues.

Tenant has disputed the charge, ("other landlords would be appreciative of our notice" "we don't eat a lot" "isn't that what a garbage disposal is for? food?" and other comments)

We have stated the position that the disposal was functioning and in proper form without issue. So odors coming from use are the tenant's responsibility.  We did not know what kind of DIY fixes they tried before a plumber was sent out to look at and/or fix the issue so are not sure if something with that caused odor to worsen.  Plumber confirmed that some DIY fixes are both bad for disposals and simply do nothing.

Thoughts on this from you all?

Thank you for your candid feedback and guidance.

Tanya

Quote from @Perla Slutzky:

@Tanya Maslach - Have you found a PM/boots on the ground team to help you manage MTRs in Columbus? I am an OOS investor, currently own one long term property in Southern Orchards, so keeping in mind my options open with MTRs (which I run here in CA and are great!) as the property is so close by to Nationwide Children's Hospital.

 Reg: a team there —

Yes I do have various professional partners (agent, cleaners, GC etc) but the PM is way too $$ to warrant using them (considering fees for tech stack to self manage). We’ll just have to pay in our time until it makes financial sense to pay a PM.

(*the “co hosts” I have talked to are mostly beginners/not very sophisticated and still charging full service company PM rates)

Quote from @Perla Slutzky:

@Tanya Maslach - Have you found a PM/boots on the ground team to help you manage MTRs in Columbus? I am an OOS investor, currently own one long term property in Southern Orchards, so keeping in mind my options open with MTRs (which I run here in CA and are great!) as the property is so close by to Nationwide Children's Hospital.

No I have not— at least a pm that doesn’t take so much of the rental rev that it takes out all my positive cash margin.
we will most likely self manage until we get to a portfolio size that demands the high pm fees.
Curious to learn more about your LTR there : we have been putting offers on multiple SFH in exactly that area recently.
open to chat?

Quote from @Jaron Walling:

@Tanya Maslach What was the asking the price and what was your original offer?

I think option one is better if you want build a lasting relationship with this agent. Get your agent paid. 

If the COC has a difference of 0.3% who cares? That's a wash and not worthy of attention. If you went of 10% to 6% that's another story.

"Furnishings cast slotted for the property." - If you get creative on this maybe it's enough to the make the numbers work. 

 UPDATE:
Yes, we are moving forward and the numbers on the purchase price, and terms of the deal, stay relatively the same (in the big picture).

We opted to pay the agent out of our pockets.

Hey all,
Some context:
I've been offering on four properties as of late in OH. SFH for mtrs.
Nothing came through.

Latest deal looks promising; in 2nd stage for negotations.

But there was a plot twist.
My current offer is $12K below asking and the seller has accepted it but taken off the offer for seller buy down, and won't pay my agent's 3% commission. 

So the 2 offers the seller came back with are:
a. One number which does not include the original rate buy down, is $7K less than the original list, and does pay both the agents commission.  
This gets my mortgage payment barely at break even for LTR value, (could be negative cash flowing), and lowers to about a 6% CoC (with down payment, renov and furnishings' costs)
About 1.5 pt lower than my goal and with an MAO $10K higher than I wanted.

b. Second offer which is $12K lower than list price, no rate buy down, and seller won't pay the buyer agent commission.
Morgage payment with a conservative LTR payment is break even,  Coc is 6.3% , and I'm super bummed that my agent won't get paid.
We could put in cash to pay him, but it would come out of the renov + Furnishings cast slotted for the property.

Any creative financing thinking from this group on:

How to pay my agent AND not dip into our cash funds for prepping the property?

Tanya