All Forum Posts by: Wade Williams

I found a tenant dead during a property inspection. Dead tenants is never a good situation, but it is a business of providing housing, it happens. 

I did not disclose, but had a prospect tenant who just so happen to know who lived there and asked "Where did [Deceased Tenant] move to?" I wasn't going to openly disclosure, but definitely wasn't going to lie. It wasn't an easy conversation, but she still rented it.

I am not familiar with with Oregon law, but in Iowa we serve a 3-day (72 hour) notice to quit. By law, this requires 2 days to mail there, 3 days of notice, and 2 days to mail back. So, if you wait 5 days to run delinquency, post a 3-day (which takes 7 days before you can file) this puts you at the 12th of the month, at which point, a tenant could still pay you before filing with the courts and would only cost the tenant the price of a certified mailing. By doing this, you are serving your owner by following proper procedure, and also providing a reasonable tenant ample time to procure rent funds. You can always choose not to file, or even dismiss a filing before the hearing if the tenant honors the promised payment date he/she makes, but you don't want to be stuck with tenant's empty promises and no way to hold them to their word. 

Remember, just because it isn't the way you do things, doesn't mean it is a California thing. I learn things everyday from people who do things differently and I always ask if it can be used to improve my current methods. That being said, nothing is ever black and white and we live in a world filled with grey. Use your judgement in such situations, because you are the PM, making you best equipped to make those decisions.

And for your dog poop problem, there is a company called poo prints that collects samples of all on-site pets and DNA tests the poop (for real). Simply send them a sample and they will tell you who's dog it is! Fines cover the cost and makes for a weary pet owner knowing their pets DNA is on file! No more pet waste notices!!

A great option would be to make sure your are budgeting (if not already) to replace it and also have it evaluated by a vendor to determine the cost/time required to replace. If you have a good relationship with this vendor, then you can hold off until the W/H stops working and then have replaced promptly. With this, you do run the risk of it breaking down after-hours, but you may also have another year of life left, for which cost savings easily outweigh even an after-hours replacement cost.

You are already ahead of the game by knowing it is old and looking into it!

Hello Shicara! Good luck on building a great team in Dallas, finding good members can be hard, but well worth it. Can't helping finding a CPA, but would be happy to help any way I can if you run into management questions! Feel free to message me anytime once (or before) you become a landlord!

@Atwan Kwan is correct, AppFolio (just the one I am familiar with but can be applied to other systems) does a synchronization to all major websites. The postings may not be any more legible than others, due to the mass information pulling, but our listings are always optimized within the site and/or external search engines. 

We are able to collect large quantity of leads and, with using lean processing, can extract the quality leads, thus allowing us to maintain a less than 1% vacancy rate.

Craigslist is important to stand out due to the large number of scams and unreliable posts, but for Zillow and other reputable platforms, this isn't the case. Don't worry as much about them looking better than the competition but rather being found. Do this by being on as many marketing platforms as possible. 

Some of my affiliated communities will have tenant Christmas parties with fun games and small gifts for children. Going to dollar store and buying a bunch of girl and boy related toys may seem small, but it can make a kids holiday and create an appreciative tenant. 

Effort is more important!  

In Iowa, none. Maintenance and repairs are never fall under the cost responsibilities of the property manager, always the tenant/owner (tax write-off for owners). This is why it is important that a property manager collecting a fee does well to protect the interest of his investor by not assuming negligent costs. Every cost is either a tenant or owner charge. For this reason, if a tenant calls due to a malfunction of the smoke detectors and a technician is dispatched, you can have the following outcomes:

• Technician determines the smoke detectors were faulty, and replaces - owner charge
• Technician determined the smoke detectors batteries needed replacing - tenant charge
  • If written into the lease that the tenant is responsible for such replacement and the detector was easily reachable, - if not or if the tenant is elderly or disabled, assume reasonable accommodation: owner charge=time/labor & tenant charge=battery cost

Where the property manager must be mindful is in the allocation of the owner's resources (money). If the technician is employed by the manager and shows up to the job site and has neither smoke detector or battery stock on hand while attempting to charge the owner/tenant for the time it takes to go to the store and come back - that is negligent management. 

So in a way, if you have in-house maintenance technicians, than carrying commonly applied maintenance and repair stock on hand is cost included within the management fee (overhead).

If you have any questions, message me and I can elaborate in further detail! Hope I was able to help!

I would coordinate my technicians based on priority level of the maintenance concern submitted. If one tenant called about a closet slider off the track and another called about a leaking faucet, the leak would be addressed first, followed by the closet. 

On a basic level, if you use a two level priority system, such as A = Emergency and B = Common, you simply determine which priority level it fits into and then enact the "first-come-first-serve" method to have the issues remedied. If both maintenance requests are received within a similar time-frame, just communicate to the tenant that a technician is scheduled to perform another work order, but will be over after to address their concern. Tenants typically just want to be assured they are "on the schedule" even if they aren't first. Although one tenant may believe their clogged disposal is more important than another's loose fridge handle, neither is an emergency and should be addressed in the order for which it was received.

Hope this helps!

I have experience using AppFolio and would highly recommend it for 3rd party management. With a very use-friendly interface and most all aspects of management covered, it is a great tool for any level of manager.

It is really a one stop shop for all things management. Depending on the scale at which you plan to implement the software, I do recommend for large 3rd party solutions, supplementing some of the current software short-comings such as inspections, and maintenance asset tracking. For inspections, a great substitute would be Happy Inspector - a very thorough and customized inspection reporting software. For maintenance team management, FieldAware allows technicians schedules to be prioritized and easily tracked with job "Start", "Pause", and "Completed" status reporting, and mobile GPS tracking.

Currently, I use MRI X which seems to be specialized for apartment and community manage and allows for a lot of back-end modifications. We have a employee designated to the software, so I would not recommend it unless you plan to use it on a large (100+ units per location) scale.

@Erin Estes What type of management needs would you be looking to serve? (3rd party, self-managed, apartment building)

If you have any questions about the applications mentioned above, please don't hesitate to message me.

Your rent can be considered income if the building is owned by a business entity, such as an LLC.