All Forum Posts by: Tarun Mitra

I have purchased the property recently. It has been only like 6 months they paid rents and 4 months they paid increased rents. They have been paying on time so far. I cannot claim as of now whether they are good tenants or bad. 
I agree 100% that just because the rents were raised they DO NOT deserve a present. As I am new I was wondering I would I would I word this out to them

I recently purchased a duplex and inherited two tenants. One of the tenants (let’s call them Tenant A) has lived in the property for 9 years, while the other tenant (Tenant B) is a relative of Tenant A. Before the purchase, Tenant B's unit was renovated, and their lease is newer with slightly higher rent. When I acquired the property, both tenants were paying below-market rents. I raised the rents to bring them closer to market value, though still not at full market rates.

It’s now been four months since the rent increase, and Tenant A has requested hardwood flooring to replace the carpet, which I believe has been there since they first moved in. They mentioned that with the rent increase, this improvement is the least I could do.

At this point, I’m hesitant to switch to hardwood floors, as they’ve just started paying the new rent, and it would take some time for me to recoup the costs of such a change. However, if I were to proceed with this, I would likely need to adjust the rent accordingly.

I’m looking for advice from the community on how best to approach this situation. How would you handle this request, and how might you phrase a response to the tenant?

Yes I feel like I got ripped off big time. The biggest problem is there is no consequence for these vendors or shop who does this kind of things. The only things I could do is to leave a bad review on google but that is it. I feel like that investors should create big strong groups together make these vendors standardize pricing.

Hello Fellow Investors,

Help me understand if I got ripped off by this company and how I can do this better in future. My tenant faced issues with dishwasher and I sent a repairman, who checked the dishwasher and told me that motor had issue and it is better to buy a new one then to fix this one as it would cost me $900. 
I thought ok let’s buy a new one, I ordered a new dishwasher from Costco and paid for installation as well. Costco uses third party for installation. It was Transmotion. They were horrible. They did not install my dishwasher. They visited three times and went back. There was an issue with 2 way valve. I felt like they were trying to find reasons to not install the dishwasher. I called Costco and asked them to refund my installation money and they did refund and it was around $300.

Now I have to get the dishwasher installed so my property manager recommended a plumbing company with high ratings. They are called At Your Service Plumbing in Tacoma Washington area. It is small business according to them. Before scheduling I asked the person that do they have any estimation as to what would be the installation cost. They kept insisting, they don’t know and they can only know when the plumber is onsite. I asked them multiple times but they didn’t mention anything. So, I ended up scheduling the visit. 
On the day of the visit, the plumber quoted a ridiculously high price(higher than national avg) just for uninstalling the old one and installing the new one. Here is the price for uninstalling the old one and installing the new one is 1060 and then fixing the two way valve leak was 942. I totally got blindsided because the plumber said this is a standard price for them. He even opened a booklet to show me the pricing. My question was if this is a standard and it does not change why couldn’t the person told me this earlier. Btw, this plumber was a certified plumber and the son in law of the business owner. 
Charging ridiculously high price is not an issue if you think you are worth that but customer also has the right to chose weather we want that high price kind of service. Letting me know beforehand about the minimum atleast gives me a choice.
I know there could be more leaks or damages that can increase the cost and hence they say they can quote at the site but not letting the me know even the minimum is bad when you know the job is to install the dishwasher. 
I could have said no when they quoted the price but costco already made three visits and  my tenant was without dishwasher for over a month now and hence I said yes with lots of disdain. Now my questions are

1. Do you guys think the prices for just uninstalling and installing was way too high and I got ripped off?

2. How do I do this better in future?
3. Should I have sent them back even if my tenant didn’t have dishwasher for over a month? I mean I could have rescheduled a different one but I didn’t know how long will it take.

I cannot shake this nasty ripped off feeling. 

I am not sure how every one else did but when I was about to make an offer, I did check what kind of tenants are there. What kind of leases are they on? In the property description itself it was mentioned that the rent is below the market. I honestly did not check whether the existing tenant would be able to afford the new rent. If I will ask that information to the seller, I am not sure how he will answer. I am pretty sure he is not going to tell me whether the tenants can afford the new rent or not. 

The only things I liked to know was how did you vet the tenants. Will there be an issue evicting them in case they don't agree to the rent increase. 

I agree with Greg here that increasing rent is not screwing people because if I won't increase the rent then technically the tenants are screwing me. I will be very negative on the cash flow and it is like the tenants are taking advantage just because previous owner was ok with not getting to the market price. 

Also, the only reason previous owner was ok with that price is because when he bought the house he bought is way cheaper than what I paid in this market. He probably was making more money with this rent because he paid half the price that I paid. So, that is why he was fine with not increasing because he was still making good cash flow on it.

Thank you all for responding to the post. In terms of the condition to the property, the previous owner did make some minor upgrades. The unit where the tenant is living there for 10 years has more wear and tear compared to the other unit where the tenants lived only for four years. I am also willing to do little upgrades if tenant requests or if they leave. I just thought if the existing tenants will keep on living, it will reduce a lot of hassle for me but if things come to that I will definitely fix things to bring it to market price.  

@Bjorn Ahlblad The state is Washington, so there is no rent control. The notice period is 60 days and tenants are on month to month lease. I am willing to give them a rental increase notice with 60 days of time to accept. But I am worried about the amount to which I should be increasing. Everywhere I have read people recommend to gradually increase but in my scenario the previous owner never increased the rent according to the market. If I will the rent by 10% every year, I will be at great loss which I don't want. I do want to increase the rent but I am not sure what number sounds reasonable which can benefit me and does not sound super crazy to the renters.

I have just bought a new duplex. I have existing long term tenants living in each unit. One tenant is living there for 10 years paying around 1080 and another is living there for 4 years and paying 1265. The current median and average rent is above 1650 according to rentometer and zillow. I bought the property thinking I will be able to increase the rent and bring it to the market rate. But if I increase the rent for tenant_1 to even 1400 it is like 30% increase. I definitely want to bring the rent up to 1550 at least and then gradually increase it to the market rate. I am not sure how to go about this rent increase. I just started being a landlord and this is my first property. Can you guys suggest how should I increase the rent here? Today is my day 1 of owning this property.