All Forum Posts by: Taylor Comer

Hi!

My partner and I purchased our first investment/live in property in April of last year with an FHA loan. We have been trying to sell it for a few months now and are starting to reconsider..

It is a 4-plex, we cash flow each month, and can raise the rent on 2 of the units to gain even more cash flow. Over the past year it has been a PAIN due to the original tenants we inherited, but all of them are almost out and things have been going smoothly lately.

We are still waiting to get our appraisal back, but it seems to be that it will come in a minimum of $57,000 higher than the amount we still owe on the loan.

We are debating whether to keep the property with new tenants vs sell and get our money out. If we kept it, is it possible to refinance, and either use the FHA loan on a new property for us or take a loan out for the down payment on another property?

Sort of jumbled, but hopefully this all makes sense and we can get some advice!

Thank you!!

@Fred Heller

That is very true! Nothing ever works exactly according to plan.

@Nicholas Crum

The first girl does not make 3x the rent, they qualify together for the income limit but not separately.

An offer letter would be perfect. I'll let them know we will put the application on hold until full acceptance from her new job. 

Also, if the first girl does not have good credit (she told us this from the beginning due to medical bills), should we make her pay an extra deposit, if so how much more is normal?

The property is not in the greatest neighborhood, so I can't assume that anyone has extremely high credit or income! 

Hi everyone!

My boyfriend and I are new property owners and are working to fill a vacant unit.

There are a couple of girls (two cousins and one's newborn son), who have seen the property/unit and applied to live there. They have filled out the applications, have gone through the credit/background checks, I have spoken with a previous landlord, etc.. For income being 3x the rent, they qualify together. 

The most previous landlord was one of the girls fathers (I did not call him since they are related), and they both lived with him in Southern California. The landlord prior to that is from Northern California (where our available rental is located), he said that there was never an issue with rent being paid, and they were great tenants.

My concern is coming from employment. The first girl has worked with the same company for 5 years and will be transferring locations within the same company. The second girl however, has a masters degree in psychology and is working for a health company right now in Southern California and wants to transfer back to Northern California to her old job (another health company). She will not receive full confirmation until next week when the company gets back to her regarding an open position.

Both girls have offered to a pay higher deposit if needed.. Should we approve them as tenants (with or without co-signer) or wait for the job confirmation next week? And should we continue to market the unit until they know for sure..

Hopefully someone has experience with this!!

-Taylor

@Deena Iverson

I am very interested in the companies that can set this up, could you private message me more details?

@Kyle J.

First off, thank you so much for the great information!

We have more C class tenants, so that helps to think of what works best for both landlord and tenant. I think the idea that calls out to me is having the tenants deposit their rent straight into a separate account that I set up with no funds other than rent or set up and account with Wells Fargo and give tenants a deposit only card. 

@Chris Vail

Thank you!

I thought about Chase Quick Pay since the two banks closest to the property are Chase and Wells Fargo, but do you think asking tenants to sign up for something would "be too much to ask of them right away"?

Hello again!

As a new landlord, I am trying to figure out the "best" option for my tenants to pay rent each month. I have looked around BP and read some articles and have a few ideas for a system I would actually use..

1. Tenant goes directly to the bank to pay (I saw this on the thread from www.biggerpockets.com/show37 with @Aaron Mazzrillo that said he sets up a separate account with no money other than for rent payments)

2. Tenant sets up and uses Chase Quick Pay to pay from anywhere

3. Set up a business account with Wells Fargo or Chase and give each tenant a "deposit only card" so they can pay at any branch location

4. Tenant mails payment to P.O. Box (although this isn't my first choice since in CA the tenants rent payment is considered "paid" when it is mailed, not when received) 

I may be missing a few, but my goal is to streamline this process and keep my time for myself!

Please chime in with any suggestions on the above or anything I have not mentioned.

@Account Closed

 I will go check out the FilePlace and if I am having any difficulties I will reach out to you, thank you very much!

@Ceril S.

I briefly checked out Google Voice and definitely think we will be using that! I agree 100% about not giving out our personal information to anyone, that's one of the biggest reasons why we wanted to go with different phone line. We also just set up a new PO Box yesterday that we will give to tenants for payments or anything else they may need to send us so it sounds like we are on the right track!

We are inheriting our tenants, which we aren't thrilled about. But thankfully the leases are up within the next couple months if for some reason we don't want to continue with them! 

@Marcus Johnson

 @Daren H.

Both my boyfriend and I thought long and hard about this decision before rushing into anything, and since we do plan on getting married in the future, it shouldn't be a problem. BUT even then, we still are writing up a partnership contract between the two of us stating where we stand if anything should happen. Just to be safe!

I forgot about Wunderlist, I'll have to check into that! As for Excel and tracking, are there any templates on Bigger Pockets as a starting point? Or should I just create my own to log everything and keep the cash flow organized?

Thank you everyone for the great advice!

@James Wise

 I will definitely familiarize myself more with excel and create/find some templates to build upon.

I hadn't heard of Google Voice surprisingly, so that sounds like a much better option at this early stage, thank you!!

Hello all!

I am excited to say, that my boyfriend and I about a few days away from closing on our first real estate investment property, a four plex!

I am already a very organized person, but with us being first time landlords I want to make sure we have all our bases covered and start off strong.

With that being said, can anyone give some tips or techniques that have worked for them in staying organized with our documents, to-do lists, bank account organization (security deposits, cash flow, etc.), tenant issues, etc?

We definitely love the idea of setting up a 1 800 number for our tenant issues to be forwarded to an email for us to check rather than them calling us any time of day and we have a few other ideas to make processes easier but would love some advice!

Thank you everyone for being so awesome!

-Taylor

@Chris Vail That is sure what it feels like! Thank you for that advice, I'll have to look around at the other avenues to see what I can find.

@Jake Weir I have found a couple properties that have 2 houses on one lot, but they are mostly in the Oak Park area, and specifically the parts of the Oak Park area that are still not getting better, if that makes sense!