All Forum Posts by: Karen Johnson

Hi Kathleen, Just a couple of suggestions; I’m sure others will have more/better ideas: If Chase bank is local to you, consider getting an account with them. Chase Quickpay is an easy way to get funds from the tenants. Alternative, perhaps consider something like Zelle or PopMoney - this is fairly simple to set up and use and a lot of people are familiar with these already (and can be used between different banks on the same platform, I believe). Hope this helps. Good luck to you!

Hi Chris, I’m in PA but I don’t think that matters much for this question. I’ve used these with success: cozy.co (cross posts to realtor.com and one other site I don’t recall offhand). Zillow (cross posts to multiple sites). Apartments.com Craigslist The latter two I didn’t use on my last listing but I had good responses from there when I used them in the past. If you’re occupying one side and renting the other, I’m guessing you won’t want section 8 tenants, but if you do, check out gosection8.com. For context - I’m a newer landlord myself with 2 current rental properties (one I just completed tenant lease signing for today) and had a third rental property which I sold about 3 of years ago. Hope this helps.

You could use docusign or dotloop. You could also just email the document and they can open and sign using adobe acrobat (the phone app is great; I signed a bunch of mortgage docs with it) and email it back.

You’re welcome, Ryan Ellis . Regarding your question for Ned, the LifeProof flooring is luxury vinyl as opposed to laminate. It’s pretty durable and also waterproof and scratch proof, which would make it good for a rental and for an area like the kitchen.

We just installed allure lifeproof click flooring in the kitchen at our new rental. We paid a bit more to get the sturdier, thicker planks. One caveat is that it’s not as easy to install as you might think (especially if you have to work around a lot of corners, cabling or pipes). And even though you can “just” trim it with a box cutter as the packaging says, you’d be much better off using a circular saw or something similar. Best wishes!

Originally posted by @John Knisely:

Out in Delaware county I often recommend Sage Title Group in Broomall. Have had great results with them thus far.

 Seconded. Just did another closing with them for a property in Philadelphia. Went to their Blue Bell office as it was convenient for me, but they have multiple locations if travel is an issue.

Renters’ insurance tends to cover this. At most, I would cover a deductible for that, but to my recollection, there is no deductible for food spoilage.

I would expect a response within 24 hours (less, really, because I have been spoiled by my agent’s response time). The very first time I reached out to him was (sort of) on a whim late one evening. I heard from him before the night was out. I’ve emailed him at midnight and said things like, “I’m going to bed so you don’t have to reply” and still gotten a response within minutes. All that to say that if an agent didn’t respond to me for 5 days (or even 2 or 3 days), I’d be on to the next one. My guy prides himself on his response time and I don’t expect all agents to be as fast, but after 5 days I will assume you don’t want, need or value my business.

You would be wise to get preapproved for the mortgage first. With your financing secured, you have more information with which to make your buying decisions and also more leverage with sellers.

Purely anecdotal, but we are purchasing a home from family with seller financing. Due to the relationship, we agreed on a 3% down payment and the IRS minimum interest rate for a family loan (in our case, 2.47%). The loan has a 30year term. We are also getting the home for below retail. Although we don’t anticipate any issues, we had a proper agreement of sale, mortgage and note, and we are closing with a title company (so there was a title search and we have title insurance) and will be using a loan servicing company to avoid any confusion about payments, balances due and taxes. In other words, it’s possible to get private money at a favorable rate from friends/family or other lenders. You can treat it like any other lender and have the same structure in place for managing the loan. It helps to understand your lender’s motivation. If it’s purely a for-profit venture for the seller, then yes, rates may be higher. Our seller was interested in cash flow on a monthly basis and wasn’t concerned about overall profit margin as much. We would have had no issue getting conventional financing, but in this case it made no sense since we could get the money at such a low rate for an extended term. TL;DR - with private money, almost everything is negotiable, which is a good enough reason to pursue it.