All Forum Posts by: Thomas Dougherty

• It's fairly difficult to get a HELOC on a rental property. Lenders think that a borrower is more likely to accept loan default for an investment property than they would for their primary residence. You'd probably have more luck with an alternative lender.

Hi BP members,

How do you guys think of the statewide rent control in California? Haven't seen so many discussions of it on BP yet. I would like to know more aspects of it. Any ideas are appreciated! 

Those are great throughts and I would like to try them for my next property. 

Congrats on the duplex! Hope you have an awesome real estate investment journey! 

Personally, I use Tellus App for my rental management. As for screening reports, they partner with naborly and offer us free screening reports. Their reports are thorough and comprehensive including all the information I needed, like credit score, rental history, criminal record and income verification. You can also use their app for rent collection, financial tracking, maintenance and repair tickets. Check it out! 

Using software to manage rent collection and it charges automatically from tenants. Personally, I use Tellus App now. 

I would not suggest you renting to a smoker cuz you don't know that would damage your property. 

I use Tellus App for rental property management stuff and it seems they have launched investment feature these days. Looking forward to it and would like to give it a shot. 

Let the PM manage all the rental properties at the beginning and it makes me feel I have less control on my own property. 

Am I understanding this right? It looks like I can’t deny applicants if they were involved in a legal dispute with a previous landlord, even if they were evicted. That’s crazy. This is the section I’m still reeling over from § 227-f:

“No landlord of a residential premises shall refuse to rent or offer a lease to a potential tenant on the basis that the potential tenant was involved in a past or pending landlord-tenant action or summary proceeding under article seven of the real property actions and proceedings law. There shall be a rebuttable presumption that a person is in violation of this section if it is established that the person requested information from a tenant screening bureau relating to a potential tenant or otherwise inspected court records relating to a potential tenant and the person subsequently refuses to rent or offer a lease to the potential tenant.”

This almost makes it sound like trying to screen applicants will hurt landlords, since there’s an implied violation for any landlord who does a background check and then refuses to rent to an applicant. The fine per violation is between $500 and $1000.

How are other New York landlords handling this? Are you still choosing to screen knowing that denying an applicant could get you fined?