All Forum Posts by: Tim Miller

Any programmable thermostat that has the ability to lock the screen with a pass code should work. You don't want to rely on your tenants for WiFi service, it's not a good idea. We used a Hotspot from Verizon. The unit cost $100 and it was just $10 a month. You don't need gig speed for this, just enough to connect and control from your phone. 

If the only issue is with who pays attorney fees, that doesn't void the whole lease agreement. You have 3 options, 1. Do nothing & wait till May. 2. Have them sign a lease addendum that covers this issue. 3. Have a whole new lease drawn up and hope they will sign.

My advise is do nothing and have a new lease ready to sign at lease renewal.

@Cherilyn Williams Welcome to the school of hard knocks! These are lessons you'll never forget! Your problem wasn't that they were unmarried, the problem was he had good credit and she didn't. He was responsible and she isn't.

Nathan is spot on as always! Get her out now. Tell her to be out by the end of October and you'll waive the remaining lease, as long as the unit is the same condition as when they moved in.

Tighten up your policies and procedures and stick to them. If you don't, the next tenant could bankrupt you. Good Luck!

Montgomery county is a rent control county and they are very tenant friendly.

First things first, did you provide written notice? Maryland requires this and for M2M you must give 60 day notice of the increase or 90 day notice for yearly.

Next you'll want to make sure your rent increase does not exceed the rent control amount set by Montgomery county. If it does, he doesn't have to pay it.

Double check everything before filing for any non payment of rent or to evict. Good Luck!

I wouldn't feel guilty about this and I wouldn't be giving 6 months to get out. You did raise an issue that no one has brought up. You stated that you are under rent control, does that also mean you can't raise the rent on the next tenant to market rate? Only asking because some locals will not let you raise your rent on the next tenant to market. You'll want to check on this.

It's an FHA Streamline Refi, we've done it twice on our home. I just don't remember anything about living in it for a set amount of time. You could always call a different bank and ask a loan officer that question.

@Shane Bishop For something simple I would recommend Innago. We use it for our house hack and for our LLC. It's fairly easy to use for both Landlord and Tenant. Setup a test account and run through some of your issues you currently have and see what results you get. Good luck!

You can cancel this yourself. Just hoover over your picture in the upper right, go to Settings, go to subscription and cancel. 

It looks like it was listed in March for $500K and in June it dropped to $400K only to take it off market in July.

We looked at this property back in 2021 when it was for sale and wouldn't even touched it for $225k asking price. Our best offer would have been $175k and that holds true for today.

It's nice that it's a block from the new stadium but that area is still high crime and lots of drug use around it.

If I was in your shoes, I'd do one of two things. One try to find an out of state investor for it or two, I'd just drop the $250,000+ to renovate and rent it out. It would be a long term hold before you could get your money back. Good luck!

There's a lot of good points being made for both sides. You really need to know yourself. Are you a softy? Do you feel sorry for the sad stories? Or are you able to stick to your guns and simply tell the tenant, tough crap, the lease is the lease. Either follow it or get out.

If you're the first one, soft, tell them you're the PM but my advise would be to actually get a good PM.

If you have the tough skin, no need to lie. Just lay the ground rules, stick to them and let the tenant know. You sympathize with them but the lease is the lease. Good luck!