All Forum Posts by: Tracy Streich

Renters Place, Bailey Forestel, Properties Plus and Homefinders are the 4 biggest property managers in town.   You can google to find their websites.  

Rent Manager, Buildium, Appfolio.   These are the 3 best in the industry.   They will all do demos and let you know what they do better than the other.   Really just comes down to personal preference.    Good Luck.  

They are correct. You cannot charge extra deposits or fees for a service animal per HUD guidelines. A HUD lawsuit could be devastating. Tread lightly. I would not try to work around it.

Not sure how this would help. If you are the single entity LLC all the income you pay the "management" company will pass back to you. None of your expenses really change. You can write off the mileage, advertising, office space etc right now. Just not sure there are additional write offs if you run the management through a company.

If the rent is $1,000 and you pay 10 %. You now have a management fee of $100 that you write off. If you are the manager or you LLC, you now have $100 of income to account for.

Seems that the tenant is following your instructions.  It is not their fault there are delays in the banking system.   If our tenants pays online one minute before midnight it is Not late.   The money may not hit out account for three days.   That is the price you pay for online payments.   You can always drive to every rental and collect but that works only if you have 1-2 rentals.   It is not really scaleable and you will waste a lot of time 

I use a guy in Tulsa that has a program just for property managers/investors.   You can do a stated value of $0.65 psf for your insurance and not what they say it will cost to rebuild.   I have saved tons of money with him.    Send me a message and I can get you his info. 

Not unless you have something in your lease stating that you can do that.   They are bound to the lease and you are bound. You can offer to buy them out.  Offer some cash and see what happens.

$80 per month seems high but we are in different markets.   Check to see what some of the larger apartment complexes in your area are charging.   We charge a monthly pet fee for pets.   We do this instead of a pet deposit.   By nature a deposit could be refunded.   When it is a fee either monthly or at lease signing you are indicating that it is not refundable.  I like a smaller monthly fee.   That way if they stay 3 years I get it every month.   Not just a one time fee at signing.   

One time fee $350

Monthly Fee $35 per pet   =$420 first year and $420 every year after they stay.    You come out ahead. 

Our policy is to never turn down money.   However, we treat the money similar to a deposit.  We put the prepaid rent in escrow just like a deposit.   The owner then gets paid the rent on a monthly basis.   That way we avoid some of the problems that  @Kim Meredith Hampton just addressed.   We consider it the tenants money that we are holding until the monthly rent charge is applied to the account.   Then we pay the owner what is due for that month.  Rent is taxed in the year it is collected.  So if you collect it all this month.   It is all taxable in 2017

You just said the carpets were not that good when he moved in.  If he moves out at the end of this lease you are replacing the carpet and paying 100%.  Why not get new carpet and pay for only half.  You don't have to buy the super nice stuff.  Avg rental carpet can be bought for $1- $1.50 per square foot.  Good tenants that pay on time are great.  Treat them well