All Forum Posts by: Vitaliy Merkulov

Thanks a lot for this valuable info. I'll give them a 60 days notice of rent increase.

I have a tenant that moved in on September 2016 that paid $1300 per month with an agreement that they would pay $1450 per month starting from January 2017. I never actually raised the rent to $1450 because they were immigrants and I wanted to give them some more time. Now, most 4 bedrooms are going at $2000 per month in our area. Can I raise rent to $1450 + 10% on top? Or I can only raise it to $1450 right now?

But should I buy out of state, to get a better cashflow or buy another property in my area and barely cash flow?

Originally posted by @David Faulkner:

I forgot to mention ... if this place was your primary residence for at least 2 of the last 5 years, then your $100k capital gains will be tax free ... no need to mess around with a 1031. This will make the transaction much easier and take any pressure off of needing to find a replacement rental property to purchase within a tight deadline, though you will still need to find a replacement place to live. Of course, you could still redeploy that capital into a rental property, but you don't have to and there will not be the same time constraints as with the 1031.

 Thanks for the tip, this makes sense, I'll look into that.

@David Faulkner what would you do in my situation?

I forgot to tell you that I own a duplex here in Sacramento, CA already, It's $1,000 per month cash-flow positive right now. We're moving out of our house either way because I got a job in a different city and don't want to commute anymore. I don't want to rent it out because it's been completely remodeled last year and is in very good shape, I know renters will destroy it. It's in good "for sale" shape. 

We're planning to purchase our home once economy hits the bottom again. That's how we bought our duplex in 2012. 

Do you still recommend not selling it right now, and just refinance, get the equity out to get a down payment on a multi-family property in mid-west?

I listened to Thursday's BP podcast #238 where guest Michael Swan talked about selling his condo in San Diego and buying a multi-family cash-flow property. 

I own a house in Sacramento, CA where I live, I bough it for $225k 4 years ago, now my realtor says he can sell it for $325k in one week. 

What if I sell my house, get ~100k and use it as a down payment for a multi-family cash-flowing property out of state. 

Any thoughts, where should I start? Any gotchas should I watch out for?

@Joe Splitrock 

"The reason why most landlords don't respond to landlord reference phone calls are: "

1. There is no incentive for landlord to tell you anything.

Correct. Only the larger landlords or companies respond, because they know they may be asking me for a reference in the future. The mom and pop landlords are the problem and they won't be any more likely to use your service.

Small landlords have incentive to respond to landlord reference requests because they get to check the database for free every time they submit a reference about their past tenant. 

2. They don't know what they can or can't say legally so it's easier to just not say anything.

Most people would rather give a reference over the phone because it is protected. California is a two party consent state, so you can say whatever you want on the phone and at best it becomes here say in court. Submitting something in writing to your website gets published for anyone to see.

If you know that everything that you're asked to answer on a landlord reference is legal, why would you care that it's available for other landlords to see? 

3. They can't legally provide your with a reference without you first sending them signed applicant's consent form.

Correct. Every landlord I deal with has consent as part of the application process. Are you saying your website provides information without applicant consent?

When someone calls you and asks you a "few questions" about your past tenant, how can you verify that that landlord has a signed consent form without verifying a copy of it? When a landlord requests a landlord reference from a past landlord, they attach a copy of their applicant's signed consent form. An email is sent to the landlord with the signed consent form, landlord simply follows the link on their email and fills out the landlord reference after verifying their identity. This is much easier and more reliable then faxing. Our system send email reminders every day for 7 days, so you're most likely going to get the references back much more then cold calling landlords or faxing them.

@Daria B. Our website is available for anyone in the USA for requesting landlord references online (free), however our current focus is on Sacramento,CA region. However we do get a lot of landlords from VA, FL, IL, and NY.

@Joe Splitrock "The bigger issue is that most landlords are not going to take the time to add a tenant because there is no benefit."

With our database landlords have a benefit to respond to a landlord reference request. Landlords get a credit/point each time they respond to landlord reference request on our website. They can use this credit to search a landlord reference about their rental applicant.

"Half of them won't even return my phone calls when I try to get references."

The reason why most landlords don't respond to landlord reference phone calls are:
1. There is no incentive for landlord to tell you anything.
2. They don't know what they can or can't say legally so it's easier to just not say anything.
3. They can't legally provide your with a reference without you first sending them signed applicant's consent form.

Our website solves all three of these problems. I challenge you to give RenterInc a try, start requesting landlord references online and I'm sure you'll get more responses this way.

@Shaun Patterson What "verification that is done on the information that is received. Also what ways are there to stop people from messing with their information or adding fraudulent information on the database. As that can be currently done now with your credit reports"

Before any rental reference is submitted, we verify that the landlord who's submitting the reference is an owner/property manager of the property where the tenant was/is living. Tenant is able to request a record about themselves after verifying their identity, after seeing their report, they can dispute the report, and we will add the tenant's side of the story next to the report that landlord submitted.