All Forum Posts by: Tim Miller

@Zachary Himes I remember the first house we bought and there is a lot to it. Like a few others have said, see if you have any family that can help with $8k or so. Plus, just because you are approved for $450k doesn't mean you have to buy a $450k house. Check around for a Short Sale or look just outside the area you want to live in and see what your options might be. You can always ask for a sellers credit of $7, 8 or 9k. To help with this, say the house is $350k. Offer the seller $358k with $8k seller credit. This way the seller is getting his $350 & you are getting $8k to help with other expenses. Now your $350k down payment is $12,250, a little more manageable.

As for the down payment assistance programs, keep checking around. Some local towns & cities may have Grants available. Some stating that you live in the home for so many years. Good luck.

We have a 4 unit building and we started out splitting the cost between all the units. It's a lot of work to keep up with. Now we raised the rents to cover the water/sewer. We calculated $600 every 3 months, that splits out to $50 a unit per month. On average, our water/sewer bill runs between $500 & $580 a quarter and we state in our lease that anything over our budgeted amount will be split between all the tenants. This helps keep the tenants mindful of the amount of water they use.

Tenants do like to feel that they are getting a good deal and stating that w/s is included, they like it.

Just watched the Trailer, I'm hooked. Going to signup for Netflix to watch the whole thing. 

@Peter Morgan Our system is set to 70 degrees for the AC in our home. It doesn't manner what the temp is outside, if the temp inside hit's 70 degrees, the AC is coming on. I don't see the problem and forget Google search. You can find anything on google that will confirm any belief that a person has.

The fact remains that you do not know how hot it was inside the house. You should also be cutting the life expectancy of all items in a rental in half. An HVAC should last 20 years, count on 10 year and each year there after is a bonus. Same with Dishwasher, Stove, Washer & Dryer.

@Jake Lapenter We allow 2 pets max with a $300 first pet & $100 for 2nd pet "NONREFUNDABLE FEE". Clearly stated in the ad and in the lease. We also charge $35 a month per pet but we do not break it out in the lease. This is due to the courts not willing to enforce the pet rent sometimes. If the tenant has one pet and the rent is $1300 the lease will state the monthly rent is $1335 a month.

It sounds like you have some money tied up in this house with higher end finish. I'd charge the extra monthly fee and the nonrefundable fee as well. It's better to be safe than sorry.

We use MyRental.com (it's part of CoreLogic) the prospective tenant goes to the website and pays the fee there. You get a complete report that also includes a Safe Tenant Score. Our policy is, anyone's score below 500 is an automatic reject. You'll want to see what works best for your area.

If the tenant is ask if they can put camera's up, by all means let them. This takes the pressure & legal headaches off of you.

We just finished installing 4 Ring door bells for our duplex and one tenant just called about their car being broken into. They want to buy a Ring Flood Light with camera to add to their door bell account. We said sure not a problem. They now control the situation, so if anything goes wrong, it's not on us.

We have an over/under duplex with a boiler system. You need to show the tenant how to adjust each radiator per room. Than you need to put in a new electronic thermostat that you can lock with a code. We have one that we can control with an app and this makes life soo much easier. After setting that up and training the tenants, advise the tenant not to shut the boiler off, unless it's an emergency. If he continues to shut if off, don't renew him.

David has a point, interest rates are starting to climb up and in 5 months they could be higher. You may also want to consider an FHA loan, 3.5% down. Check the local county or town you might buy your home in, they maybe offering some type of down payment grants. Most will require you to live in the house for a number of years and than forgive the money.

Also, check out multiple banks. Just because one say's we need to see ...., doesn't mean another one will. Each bank has it's own criteria to follow and smaller more local banks may be more helpful.

Good old Montgomery County! You're looking to raise rents on current tenants. A few things to know, 1. you can only raise rent once every 12 months. 2.  Montgomery County would most likely not allow raising rents in the middle of a lease, regardless of what the lease stated.

Not sure how far below market you are but, you need to wait until May 15, 2022. That's when Bill 30-21 will end and you can raise your rents. You may want to wait till the end of May to send out notices. Because all rent increases notices have to be given 90 days before hand. If you give notice now, you can only increase rent by .4%. After May 15, 2022 you can raise it higher but I wouldn't go over 5% on the increase. 

It doesn't manner how the rent is increasing, you have to give 90 day notice. If a current lease is ending before May 15, 2022, let the tenant go month to month. On May 30, 2022 send a notice that you want to renew the lease on August 1, 2022 at the new rent amount.