All Forum Posts by: Timmi Ryerson

Ok @Ricardo R. I will bite. I have been a landlord for 35 years.  I have used property management and managed for myself.  I have help probably thousands of investors and property managers to develop best practices in property management to maximize their profit.  That being said, I will not fault you on you comments.  You can run your business the way you see fit and do what works for you and your owners.  Property Management is a very complex job.  When an investor buys a property they do so with the expectation of profit.  So here are my comments relevant to what you posted.

1.  Property managers have the responsibility to choose the best possible tenant to occupy the owner's valuable property.  One of the criteria is that the tenant is able to pay rent and has enough money left over at the end of the month for life's necessities.  Therefore, if a tenant does not pay rent on time, it is up to that manager to make sure that it never happens again.  I felt that your attitude was that you are not responsible to collect rents. In my opinion, you are misguided there.  It IS your responsibility to get money to your owner on time.  He has to pay a mortgage payment, insurance and taxes for that investment and if you allow tenants to learn that they do not have to pay on time, you are putting him at risk.

2.  You keep a late fee from the tenant.  In my opinion, that is an more of an incentive to you not to collect rents on time.  In my opinion, if a tenant pays late and that rent payment to the owner is late, the owner show receive that late fee as interest on the late money.  That is the original purpose of late fees anyway. If I were a property manager, I would pay the late fee to the owner.  I would also use every tool at my disposal  (3 day notice, 30 notice to vacate after 2 months of late rent etc) to train the tenant to get rent paid on time.  I do have a conversation with my tenants when they sign the lease agreement that their rent payment is the most important payment that they make.  It guarantees that they will have a home for the next month.  

I use software on which I can set up grace days.  If the tenant has not paid through the software (automatic rent collection) by the grace day, a late fee is automatically attached.  The statement is resent.  When the payment is made, the accounting in the software pays the late fee first and applies the rest to rent.  So if they do not pay all due, there is a balance that gets another late fee.  It works so well that my tenants rarely are late with a rent payment if ever.

3. Most property managers whom I have worked with hold a "maintenance account" balance for each owner.  That way when there is a bill to be paid for a repair, there is money reserved to make that payment.  They then request that the owner put in enough to bring that maintenance account up to minimum.  But it does not burden the owner with not receiving enough to cover the basic costs of the mortgage.  What I understood you to say is that you pay all costs even if there is no money from rents to do so.  So in effect, you use your own money to cover any maintenance or repair bill and then reimburse yourself when a rent comes in.  As an owner, I would not like that model.  I would rather have a maintenance account balance so that I could at least depend on getting a level amount from rents every month so that I am not out of pocket for mortgage, insurance and taxes. But then again, I am not doing this to tell you how to run your biz.  But I do think you are putting your owner at more risk of not making much money on their investment.  Thanks for posting.

Wow!!!  I used to live in Lakewood only a few miles north.  Whereas I cannot help with this problem, when I owned properties in Puyallup, we never had this kind of restriction.  It could actually cause you a lot of grief.  Elections have consequences.  Can you get some other together who are landlords and send a collective letter to the people responsible for these regulations?  It sounds like you need numbers to fight this.  Is this a proposal or a law?  If a law, it must have gotten by all of the landlords and property managers in the area.  Good luck.  If I still lived in Washington State I would be there to organize a change.

I have owned and managed my own properties for over 35 years.  I would never let a tenant be in charge of a repair.  They do not know what is good and what poor work.  If the try to do the repairs themselves it can be a nightmare that comes back to haunt you.  I have a policy that if something needs repair, like a furnace, I manage that repair.  If a toilet is clogged and the plumber find that the tenant has put stuff down that toilet that clogged it, I charge the tenant for that repair.  I have that wording in my leases so that the tenant knows that they will be charged.  That is what I would recommend for you.  Warranties are a waste of money, especially if you take good care of your properties and rent to people who do the same.

Since I had many units, I had several trades people for each specialty that I could get bids from.  Sometimes one would not be available so I had another to fall back on.  It worked very well.  

First of all thank you for your service!!!! I am going to suggest that while you are waiting in SoKo to retire, you find and read the landlord tenant laws in the states in which you are considering your investment.  Also find out what the local laws are toward rents, rentals and landlord/tenant relations.  Find out how long it takes to do an eviction and whether the law in that state sides with the landlord or the tenant. (not that you will ever have to evict someone, but it is a must to know to maximize your success as a landlord.)  

Those of us who follow landlord tenant law know that the two worst states for landlords are New York and California.  But quickly entering the fray are the states of Washington and Oregon.  So even though they are all beautiful states, the politics of real estate investment is more difficult to manage.  Armed with that information, you will certainly be able to narrow down your scope.  Then it should be up to you to decide the weather issues and where you would like to settle down.  Of course you can always invest in a different state, but it always brings unnecessary disruption when a tenant gives notice or there is a repair or major tenant problem when you are out of state. 

I am assuming that you are planning to manage your own properties and not sub them out to a property management company.  So the next bit of homework is for you to investigate the software that is available to help you manage.  I encourage you to look for a full service platform as opposed to a piecemeal or free solution.  You will have to pay for a good one, but that should be included in your expected cost of doing business and built into your rent.  Finally there are some great courses on this platform and there are many more books on buying real estate and  property management.  I recommend that you read some of them and consider taking courses from Bigger Pockets.  That will prepare you to know better what to look for when buying a property and how to start picking tenants.  

I have been investing in rental properties and managing them for 35 years now.  You can leverage your current properties to a point, and use that leverage to buy more properties.  It works well if you always buy cash flowing properties and keep your units at full occupancy.  The trick is to stay ahead of your cash obligations every month and still have enough to live on as well. Good luck to you and your wife.  It will be a very interesting journey!!!  Hope you love it as much as I have.

It sounds like the tenant has breached the lease agreement by sending requests for service and not responding to any effort on your part to get them fixed.  There is at least on issue that needs to be addressed immediately and that is the backed up toilet and the ceiling leak under that bathroom.  I would use your software to send a notice of intent to enter.  I would also send a 30 day notice to vacate.  On this, you will need to read your landlord tenant laws for the state in which the property is located.  Whereas April is not far away, the damage that this tenant can do in that period of time could be horrible.  I would also check police records to find out what happened when they were called for a domestic violence issue.  Find out in that police report who broke the door. If it was the tenant, you have more grounds to remove them.

I think it is a brilliant idea to invest in paying off our properties sooner.  As long as the market holds, it is like having a savings account or buying stock in yourself.  If you ever need the money you can pull it out with a refi. As far as where or what to invest in, I think you will know when you find it.

I used to live in Lakewood and had many units in Puyallup.  Whereas I managed them for many years by myself, once they were paid off, I hired a property manager.  It was a nightmare just like you are describing here.  He took my rents to buy supplies for his properties.  He let my units go vacant and charged me monthly management fees even so.  I finally had him audited and we found many many errors in is books.  I took him to court and lost.  That is because of the way the contract was worded.  So first I recommend that you take your contract out and read it very carefully.  Second, I recommend that you ask for a full accounting of your account.  Make them do the work here.  Make them prove that they have done the repairs.  I realize that some were done and not to your standards.  You will have to have that work redone to bring your property up to rental condition I am sure.  In Pierce County you will have to sue in District Court for amounts over $6K and that is best done with a lawyer. The good news is that you can include your legal costs in the recovery.  But it will take months if not a year to get the judgement.  Try to get this company to settle with you by presenting the obvious facts and giving them an out from a lawsuit.  

If there is a way to get out of your contract, I recommend that you do so immediately.  I have a software that you can use to manage until you can find someone that you trust to do it for you.  Or you may find that just using the software solves the problem. Contact me for more details.  It would cost you about $18 per month for everything you need to self direct management until you find a trustworthy company.  

I have just been through this with credit on my husband's cards.  Your score went down because you opened two new cards and that basically increases the amount of credit open to you. It takes a month for the payoffs to show we found.  It happens when the next billings, on the cards you paid down, go out.  So since you only transferred money into the new accounts and show less debt than before and (the best part) you are under 49% debt ratio all should clear up then.  Be sure to make payments on each card every month and you should be good to go if you can qualify otherwise for a mortgage.  I am an investor and own a software company, not an accountant or lawyer.  So this missive only represents my experience.

Well always the skeptic here.  Have you asked why the tenant wants a new fence?  Do you allow pets and do they have a dog?  If they do not have a dog, maybe they are considering getting one...or opening a day care...etc.  If the fence that is there is fine, as you said, I would want to know their motive for wanting to replace the fence.  Once they tell you what that reason is, I would add that as a signed addendum to the lease if you approve the reason.  I would also add that no reimbursement was asked for or will be given for replacing the fence, just so that down the line, they cannot come back to you asking for a new kitchen because they put up a new fence.  If all of that goes well, then by all means, let them pay for a new fence, as long as you give your written approval.

What does your contract with the pm say?  If there is no language regarding how repairs are handled, and you trust this company, I suggest that you ask for an addendum to the contract and request copies of all bills for turns and repairs.  I would also ask for the move out inspection form that they filled out and had the tenant sign.  And for sure, I would want to know what cost $700 for a turn.  It could be that painting was required or replacement of carpet. But in that case, there would need to have been very old carpet or excessive wear and tear and maybe some of those costs should come out of the security deposit, not your pocket.  Most people set a limit for $ amounts for repairs that do not require pre approval by the owner.  In this case, I would add that language as well and probably set $50 to $75 as the ceiling for repairs, maintenance or turns.