All Forum Posts by: Tyler Phalen

@Steve S.

I am extremely grateful that I have great tenants, and that they are so far unaffected by this pandemic and still able and willing to pay rent!

I’m grateful my property wasn’t damaged by the earthquake we just had.

I’m grateful my family and friends are all healthy, mostly happy, and still gainfully employed.

I’m grateful that I have a well paying job that won’t be affected by the pandemic.

@Di Ye

You could use a property management software like cozy.co or TenantCloud.

@Andrew Thornton

I couldn’t have said it better. But I guess I’ll try

I agree with OP that it is theft, plain and simple, for a tenant not to pay rent and the landlord often gets the short end of the stick when it comes to getting what they are owed for their goods and services. With that said, if your “store” can only serve one “customer” at a time and it’s often hard to find another customer, not to mention get the current non-paying customer out, especially during this pandemic. Then I think it’s in our best interest to show a little tiny bit of well measured and smart compassion so that the customer that we do have doesn’t hate us and still feels obligated to pay. It is absolutely the tenants responsibility to have savings and be smart and responsible enough to have planned ahead, but if everyone was like that I don’t think we would have any “customers” at all, because they’d be too smart to be paying us any money, haha. But seriously, just determine which of your tenants, if any, are actually in need and work out a reasonable payment plan with them, if you can handle it financially, and make it very clear that it is a charitable act and you still fully intend to get everything you were promised in the legally binding contract that you both signed.

@Jane S.

If it’s in the lease, then follow it. If you feel bad about it then phrase it as if the lease is the bad guy, “I am bound by the lease as much as you are.” Don’t set the precedent that the lease is flexible, or you’ll just open yourself up to more problems in the future.

I’m all for being a good and understanding landlord, but that goes both ways. If they wanted to not pay a late fee they should have asked before it was already late.

@Scott V.

I agree with the YOLO comments, I’m all for enjoying life when you can. But, I think you also could take better advantage of your situation to get into investing. Your mortgage payment seems really high to me, for a single person. Yes you should definitely invest in your own business, but you could also try house hacking and reduce your mortgage payment to nothing or almost nothing while also bettering your investment position and you could increase savings.

I say go for it! Take advantage of your current situation to enjoy life but also to jump into investing. The best time to house hack is when you’re single. IMO a single person shouldn’t be paying 2k for a big house just for themselves, it’s a waste of money!

@Natalie Kolodij @Scott Mac @Jason Turgeon

Great suggestions thanks!

The tenants tried to work it out among themselves first, which is great! So, they are all aware. The other tenants came to me after it has continued to happen.

Was just notified by the upstairs tenants of my duplex that the basement tenants dogs bark all day while the basement tenants are not home. What is the best way to handle it? I intend to simply start by talking to the basement tenants about it, but I wanted to know how would you resolve this?

@John Matthew Johnston 

You definitely need to bill them for the damage now, the deposit is for damages at move out and by that time will likely not cover everything. You should bill them for the damage, maybe give them the option to postpone the work until the end of their lease. Each time you inspect, bill them for any new damage. The point being to make them understand that they can live however they want, but they will need to pay for damage caused. I would also give them a notice for some of the dirty conditions, if you think it will lead to vermin infestations.

@Timothy Duggan if they are asking how they can lock it down I would encourage them to send in an actual application. It seems like you are priced about right if that’s the level of interest you’re getting. Usually you will get more interest than actual applicants, I have had lots of people say they are interested and never apply.

As for choosing them, you can’t be sure that they are equally qualified until you have run a background check. I would recommend establishing very detailed requirements before even looking at their applications, that will help you decide.

@Jessica Turner

Not sure about the law, but I doubt they require that you provide a physical key, a code is still a key.

If you haven’t purchased the locks yet, i would recommend getting some that don’t have a key at all, that way you don’t ever have to change them. Because if you do end up needing to rekey it would be much more expensive to change the electronic locks. They make models that have battery terminals on the outside in case the battery dies and there are no keys to deal with.

Or if you still prefer to have a key, get one that you can rekey yourself, like a kwikset smartkey.