All Forum Posts by: Wes Shive

@Jim L. First off, I will say that I think there is no definitive right answer here, but I will go against the grain on this one...

I have adopted a loose policy (unbeknownst to my renters obviously) where I will waive a late fee IF the tenant has never paid late before. However, I never give something without trying to get something back. So, if I "feel" as if doing so will generate some goodwill, I will waive the late fee. If I think the that it won't, I'll enforce it.

Goodwill is important to me because the more a tenant feels like I'm on their side, and not "the man" the easier they will be to deal with, the more communicative they will be, and the more understanding they will be if and when things go wrong with the rental.

A word of caution though... if you do waive a late fee, BE SURE they believe you are doing them a favor. They must feel as if you are making an exception because you're trying to be nice. You must also make sure they understand it is a one time deal. If you do this but come across as soft or that there will be leeway with you on future rent payments DON'T DO IT.

Hope this helps and welcome to the world of landlording!

@Pavel Sakurets , just wanted to say you made a great suggestion w.r.t. searching public records of investor properties to find lenders. I'm in the process of the doing an extensive lender search and hadn't thought of that!

@Rodney Kuhl, IMO the biggest advantage of having the rental properties under an LLC rather than your own name is a combination of privacy (for yourself personally) and (maybe) "perceived" legitimacy when it comes to management of the property.

I suspect the map/data is a bit too broad and unfocused for it to be very helpful in drawing any conclusions. I say this both because it is statewide and particularly because of the 10 year sample period.

For example, I'm in southern CA (LA and surrounding areas). Here, as with most parts of the country, prices went crazy during the boom to 2006 and then plummeted over the next couple years as the bubble burst, hitting troughs in 2009. Things traded sideways for the next few years. In the last couple years, some areas (ones saddled with a lot of bad loans that were hit the hardest) have doubled from their lows and areas that were more stable (generally nicer areas) have surpassed their 2006 highs.

As an investor, I correctly took advantage of this swing during the last several years and am continuing to see appreciation. And as a landlord, I didn't see much volatility in rental income. So it's hard for me see that CA's near-bottom ranking is an indicator of how one would do as a real estate investor.

One thought that I have is perhaps this map would be more useful if it gave a percent increase or decrease out of the state's total income. Absolute figures may lack a frame a reference so to speak for it to be very telling.