All Forum Posts by: Tobey Porter

Being from Nashville, I'll throw a little Dave Ramsey tidbit at you!!!  Have you talked to any lenders about doing manual underwriting?  If your credit score is zero, they can work with that, at least on a personal residence level.  Might be worth asking around if that is an option for investment realty as well.

My wife and I fought this for awhile.  We finally got to the point where we felt we had to just jump in & learn as we go (we had read several books/blogs/etc).  Most of what you read/hear will talk about the fear paralyzing you and keeping you from ever getting started.

Is your wife wanting to wait until you have enough cash to pay for your first one outright?  If so, that could take awhile and can sympathize with your impatience (I'd be the same way!!).  One of the beautiful things about real estate is the ability to put a little down and have your tenants pay off the mortgage!!

@William Walker - I'm not sure of anything else.  I've seen him move through the front door w/out any problems.  My property manager said when he's at the property collecting rent, there isn't any visible damage.  I know he has had some health issues, had a heart attack earlier this year and was in the hospital for 6 weeks (still catching up on payments from that as he is a paycheck to paycheck guy).  Aside from this toilet issue, I haven't had any other issues with this unit.

@Chris Masons - I've considered doing the same thing.  I have no problem maintaining normal wear and tear, but I'm not a fan of paying for tenant ignorance.  Do you ever catch any attitude from tenants...swearing they did nothing to clog it?

Ha....I hate toilets right now.  I've had one split (from an overweight tenant according to the plumber) and another clogged because our tenant was flushing her "sanitary napkins". 

I live in Calvert County and there is nothing in our area.  From what I can tell you and Russell are correct....they are VERY hard to find in this area.

@Justin Tahilramani - I'm thinking that is what we will do next time is put something more suitable to his needs in there.

Does anyone know, is it our responsibility to keep replacing them(I'm assuming so)?  Or, at some point, do we put it on him?

My property manger summed it up best for us...those are just a few more things you are responsible for repairing/replacing if you don't word it correctly in your lease.

1.  An elderly lady told us if we put new carpet in the entire house, she would give us $20 less/month than what we were asking.  Told her we would not be putting in new carpet especially since her generous offer was to spend over $1000 on carpet to get less than what we were asking.

2.  Had a mother call me about her daughter and explain she had a theft on her record.  I asked for some details and she said she was stealing money.  A little more probing uncovered the fact she had been stealing from her grandfather who was suffering from Alzheimer's.  I wanted to tell the lady that I would NEVER rent to someone who would stoop so low as to take advantage of a family member suffering from that illness.  What I did say was there was a lot of interest in the apartment and the best tenant would be selected. 

3.  I've also had multiple calls asking how far our properties are from a school.  I know people deserve a second chance, but I'm not willing to rent to a sex-offender when other tenants have kids around their places.

Our biggest success has been Facebook.  The area in which we invest has a specific page for selling/renting and we've gotten most of our tenants from this.

Our asking price is based on our market.  You can adjust if necessary based on response; we actually adjusted up.  We listed an apartment initially, and then when the tenant left, and got blown up at the price.  That told us we could push it a little higher so the next time one came open, we raised it $25.