All Forum Posts by: Travis Daudelin

@Russell Brazil Actually it's a 3-story duplex. I'm very confused why a legitimate agency would be interested in my property given all the stairs - thus my initial suspicion.

@Colleen F. you paint an appealing picture, I'll look into this a bit more.

@Jon A. Great suggestion, I've opened a new thread here: https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/52/topics/741134-renting-to-an-in-home-health-care-agency

Thanks for the insight everyone! I have decided to hold off on declining their offer until I understand this better.

Hi all! I got an unsual response to a listing of mine today:

Good morning, We are home health care agency, and we want to rent the house to care for disabled or elderly clients that are unable to care for themselves 4 -6 unrelated people. We are looking for 3 year lease if that is acceptable with you.

My initial reaction was to decline this offer. I am worried about having an intermediary taking control of my property and renting to tenants I haven't screened. I'm also concerned about the liability that I might be exposed to here by allowing what appears to be a business to operate out of my rental. But, perhaps this could be an opportunity in disguise? 

Has anyone experienced something like this with your own rentals?

Hey all! Just last night I took the plunge and posted my very first rental listing. I've spent weeks reading and preparing for the tenant screening process ahead and right off the bat the first response I get is as follows:

Good morning. We are home health care agency, and we want to rent the house to care for disabled or elderly clients that are unable to care for themselves 4 -6 unrelated people. We are looking for 3 year lease if that is acceptable with you.

I am immediately getting a suspicious vibe from this. Assuming this is a legitimate agency, would I be essentially renting to them and they would then place the actual tenants? How do I maintain control over my property if I would be working with an intermediary like this? Is this a scam? I'm also not sure my zoning allows for more than 3 unrelated tenants in a dwelling.

Everything I did to prepare for my new role as a landlord assumed that my applicants would be a traditional family or roommate situation. I feel like I need to tread very lightly here so as not to appear discriminatory against applicants with disabilities.

Has anyone fielded listing inquiries like this before?

@Marc Winter Thank you for the reply, I really appreciate your words of encouragement. It sounds like you agree with my original plan: that there are useful lessons to be learned managing on my own even if my long term goals don't involve self-management?

I was listening to podcast ep. 340 last week and something Whitney touched on made me question everything I'm doing right now. If my long-term goal is to grow a large portfolio of long-distance rental properties, should I skip learning to manage my first few properties myself and instead learn to manage property managers right away?

My intuition was that learning to manage tenants first would help me down the road when I would mainly deal with property managers. Now I'm thinking it may be wasted effort, but some of my investor friends with < 5 properties think property management is just throwing away good cashflow. 

Background: I work full time as the sole provider for a young family and I don't see that changing in the next 5 years. Managing any more than a handful of units on my own would be a huge strain on my already non-existent free-time, so I see myself switching to using property management on my second or third property. I want to scale rapidly though so any time spent building unnecessary skills or systems to manage my investing is a real concern.

Excellent suggestions, everyone. I like the idea of the poly finish to give it that extra durability, that makes me feel much more confident that my investment in the floors won't go to waste. Also, great suggestion @Mindy Jensen to incentivize tenants to report any damages!

I've just purchased my first property: a duplex in I guess what I'd call a C- neighborhood. I'm hoping it will turn into a success story post soon, but TBD.

Both of the units have hardwood flooring in their main living rooms but the floors are in dire need of refinishing. Big scratches and discoloration throughout. Given the quality of tenants I'll likely be dealing with, I can't decide if I should refinish the floors and risk having them get scratched up again, or if I should cover them with something like luxury vinyl planking? I worry that every time I have to refinish the hardwood I reduce the life of the wood, and that eventually I'll have to replace the entire floor because it has been sanded down to the point it can't support the weight of the room. I plan on holding this property for 10+ years, so if I have to refinish the floor after every tenancy... could that be a real scenario?

Covering the hardwood with LVP instead I still run the risk of having to replace the planks after every tenancy but the hardwood is protected. When I go to sell some day I can just refinish the hardwood then.

Just in case it isn't obvious yet I should mention I am totally clueless about realistic expectations on floor care / maintenance. I'd love to hear the opinions of experts!

Thanks for the thorough answer Aaron! It's interesting that you called out nurses/doctors as my market is a hospital-town (Rochester, MN). I'll have to look into that further. 

Hi everyone,

I'm not sure what the general term is for the rental strategy of renting out individual bedrooms (long-term, not VRBO) in a single-family home. Student housing is usually what I hear these rental types called but my market has no college so there are no students. Does a rental strategy like this work in a student-less market?

My instinct is no, but I hope I am wrong because if it were possible it would make a lot more of the properties in my market make sense from a numbers standpoint.

Curious on your thoughts!