All Forum Posts by: Walt Dockery

IMO home warranties by design are effectively worthless. If something breaks I want to get it fixed by my chosen people on my timeline, not whoever and whenever the warranty co sends out. 

Call the police. This landlord pulls this **** on the wrong person she’d get herself shot. 

I would not rent to someone who was harassing me or threatening legal action, this is a bigger issue than the bugs IMO. 

You checked her landlord references and one of them did not come back favorably, and since then she has demonstrated she is the harassing/threatening type. Move on and ignore her calls. 

There’s a book by Gavin de Becker “The gift of Fear” that has some good advice on dealing with people who make threats of any type.  

When the roof needs to be replaced or house needs to be painted, will other side cooperate and share it?  Does other side rent to loud messy smokers with 3 pit bulls and a car on blocks in the front yard while you want to attract a clean, quiet, non-smoking non pet owning tenant on your side?

As someone who likes his properties clean and well kept, no way in hell would I own one side of a duplex.  I want the lawn/landscaping clean and well maintained, I want to attract good tenants who keep the place clean etc.  When half of the property is out of your control there is no way to maintain any standards as far as how well kept it is.

The numbers are never ‘set’ until you have a signed/executed contract. The market value has nothing to do with what the current owners owe on their mortgage.

They want (and on some level most likely need) to sell, and you do not need to buy. As you said in the OP, the #s aren’t interesting at the current price and rent.  If you can’t buy it where the #s are interesting, walk.  The below market rent isn’t the tenants’ problem, they got a deal and it’s the sellers loss that they signed a lease that much below market. I would counter the sellers at a price where it’s interesting to you, and walk if can’t get it at a price that makes it worthwhile. 

If the tenants are not clean, getting rid of the roaches will be difficult. Get rid of the unclean tenants, get the unit clean then deal with the roaches. 

For vacant houses I like having a monitored burglar alarm. If it’s not something you normally provide to tenants, with the newer wireless systems it’s easy to move from one property to another when you have a vacancy. If you have a monitored alarm an intrusion will be responded to immediately and treated like a burglary, rather than responded to 2 weeks later after the person has had plenty of time to change the locks and move in.  You can also get texts immediately if there is any activity at the property. 

I agree with @Jack B.above. Something as simple as “how long have you owned the property” will probably throw off an imposter.  If you really want to be sure throw in 1-2 more questions along those lines. 

I agree with @Account Closed I think that you see it is mainly a manifestation of one of the many conflicts of interest between property managers and landlords as opposed to validation that it’s a good business practice for landlords. 

As a property owner I want my property to be meticulously maintained, and I wouldn’t want to give tenants a disincentive to report a problem ASAP. Small problems can turn into bigger problems if ignored.   

I have limited experience, but I think a little over a month out ie I listed late June for a property available Aug 1. In my limited experience the better tenants don’t wait til right before they need to move to look, they look and want to secure a place to live a month or so out, or at least a few weeks out. This is in what I’d call about an an A- or B+ neighborhood, in lower income neighborhoods perhaps people wait longer I am not sure.