All Forum Posts by: Tyler Brown

Looking at the 10 day forecast for LA, I see overnight lows getting into the mid 40's.  That's pretty cold to be without heat and many judges would indeed find that a habitability issue.

Who pays for the utilities?  An electric space heater is fine for warming your feet when you're on the couch, but they get very expensive to run when you're talking about heating an entire room or section of a home.

Required or not, I'd go ahead and do it.  It starts you off on a good foot with the tenant, and it lowers potential liability.  Who know who your former tenants gave keys out to?

You may also want to look at an electronic keypad lock.  I bought one for my own house recently.  It was about $100, but you can get them for under $50.  Any time a tenant moves, you just change the code.  Plus, you never have to worry about a call at 2am because they locked themselves out.

I don't know about a specific law, but I'm sure that would come up at some point pretty early on in the process.  Whether or not the tenants have a lease is a major issue, since you inherit that lease when you buy the house.  You better be sure you've read it over so you know what you're signing up for.  No buyer in their right mind would purchase the house without being clear on that first.

Many real estate listings will even say, "house currently has month-to-month tenants," or "house currently has tenants on a lease that will expire this July" just to get it out of the way upfront.

No, they don't have to sign anything.  They're currently month-to-month tenants.  If they don't want to sign a lease, then you need to decide if you want to keep them as tenants in their current arrangement.  

If you don't, then you can follow your state's laws regarding giving proper notice to vacate (30 days in the case of Ohio).

If they're over 18, I'd run a background check on them to check for any criminal history, but other than that I wouldn't care too much about their income or credit.

The exception is if the parents are wanting to include their children's income in order to meet your income requirements.

 As far as the applicant putting down their friends or whatever for references, I have a little tactic that helps:

I have them list references of both former or current employers, as well as former or current landlords.  I'll call up the person they listed as an employer and say "Hi, John Smith said you're his landlord and I was looking to get your opinion of them as a tenant?"

And I'll call up whoever they listed as a landlord reference and say, "Hi, John Smith says he works for you and I'm looking to confirm that."

If the person on the other end of the line goes along, then you know they lied.

Thanks for all the advice - I'll look into these options, and probably sit down with an accountant at some point in the near future as well.

So my wife and I are about to close on a single family home for us.  My mother-in-law will be moving in with us in order to help out with childcare.  This is in New York.

My mother-in-law currently owns a two family home, and we'll be renting out her current single family home as soon as she moves in with us.

Not much should change with the two family home she has, so I'm focusing on her home for right now.  She really has no interest in doing any of the management for it.  She doesn't even care about the money, really.  She's just as happy if all the money (~$3,200 a month estimated rent) goes straight into mine and my wife's checking account.  She's an older Polish woman who just wants take care of her grandson all day.

Now getting to the question - I'll probably be paying for the maintenance and other expenses related to this house myself, especially if I'm the one receiving the rent checks.  However since I don't actually own the house, am I able to claim an otherwise qualified expense as a deduction on my taxes?

@Will Vera, probably Nassau County.  This would be my first investment property, so I don't want to go crazy, but there are some MFHs for $300k or so in areas like Hempstead or Freeport.  Not the nicest of neighborhoods, but they still command a hefty rental price.

Then again, since this would be my first property, Pennsylvania is attractive as well, because although the cashflow will be lower, I'd likely be spending under $100k.

 $200k will be tough on LI from the informal searching I've been doing for a MFH there.  I've seen exactly one property for $200k, and it had Sandy damage.  That was the only thing listed in all of Nassau County at that price point.  Maybe if you go further east into Suffolk?

Check out Eastern PA.  It's about 2 hours from Manhattan, although longer of course if you're coming from LI, but there are MFHs under $100k there.  I'm currently talking with an agent and giving it some serious though.  Of course the rents are nowhere near what they'd be in LI.