All Forum Posts by: Rick Bassett

Quote from @Mark Berge:

Hi All, my tenant texted me a question-

Would you have any objection if I painted one of the rooms? Maybe two?

Generally, our answer is no. We write into the leases that tenants are not allowed to paint, but some still ask, and worse yet, some do it without asking.

We have a choice of 2 paint colors for walls that we use in all of our properties (a light beige and a light grey). We have standardized on these colors as it makes turnover much easier and cheaper, and we always have this paint in stock.

If a good tenant asks about changing the color, we tell them: 1) you can, but if the job isn't 100% professional, we will have to charge you to fix it at move-out time, 2) you must use one of these 2 specific colors (they have one of them already)...a few people have followed through, most people drop it when presented with those options. 

Quote from @Malachi P.:

But now I am unable to get any submissions after sending prospects my screening link which I created with google forms.

We have tried this approach several different ways over the years with the same level of success that you are experiencing, almost full non-compliance.

Prospective tenants are gun shy of scams, as they should be, and are less willing to give up information about themselves. When we first started in this business, we would know quite a bit about anybody who was coming to view a rental before the showings as we would spend a lot of time on the phone with them beforehand; now, we know almost nothing about them until they apply. The trade-off is we do not do individual showings anymore. We only do group/open house-style showings.

We do use a CRM system to track inquiries and leads of prospective tenants, which is tied to our inbound caller id. That has allowed us to accumulate data on serial tire-kickers, which saves us time in dealing with them but it also allows us to capture pieces of data when they interact with us or our web inquiry forms. 

We have had the free membership on CI for a few years with the hope of networking on deals with nearby RE investors; nothing measurable has come from it yet that we can tell. 

I wouldn't get involved with their site or any others for deal money; I only work with people I have a 1st or 2nd level relationship with (my circle of trust) for that.

We've worked with them several times, and our experiences with them were excellent. Still, screen the tenants, get a good security deposit and make the tenants sign an acknowledgment of house rules. 

Quote from @Ron Brady:

Were we in your shoes, we'd offer them two options. 1) 6 month lease with higher rent, 2) 12 month lease with lower rent. Tenant thus pays a premium for the flexibility of the 6 month lease. Best wishes.

Given where you are now, I like Ron's suggestion. But I would not have let the tenants get into the driver's seat in the first place. I would've offered them a six-month or an eighteen-month lease back when they first came in to keep the property on track with the clear understanding that all renewals must be twelve months. 

I don't see a problem with it; as others have mentioned, there are pros and cons, just buy it right and add that '1000' ft from a school question' as a qualifier to your rental application.

STR bookings seem to be much slower in our area. Ours had no activity over the holidays (Thanksgiving thru Xmas), which is extremely unusual. I've talked to several local Airbnb operators, and they said their December was pretty dead. I suspect the number of travelers to our area has remained constant over the last few years, but the number of properties/Hosts has increased substantially. Connecticut isn't a vacation destination, but it's a 'coming home for Christmas' destination often emulated in those Hallmark movies.

Investment Info:

Single-family residence fix & flip investment.

Purchase price: $215,000
Sale price: $339,000

This 1900 distressed Farmhouse was well-used but not abused. The family which we purchased it from had lived there for about 50 years. They allowed us to start rehab about 30 days before the closing, so it was 90% done by the closing. Some interesting and scary things happened in that 30-day window, including a sizeable pipe burst...well it makes for an interesting story.. perhaps on a podcast. A few before and after photos

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

We were going to do it as a buy & hold but decided to flip it while the market was still hot (but dropping)

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

This off-market lead came to us from one of our previous mid-term furnished rental tenants

How did you finance this deal?

Cash

How did you add value to the deal?

Removed all the wallpaper, painted the entire house, redid all of the floors, cleaned up the DIY attic conversion, installed ceiling fans in all rooms, slightly reconfigured the kitchen

What was the outcome?

The house came out great

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Working before closing without property insurance is risky (stupid); we had a major pipe break caused by one of our contractors that cost us thousands

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

I was the selling agent on this one

Quote from @Yogesh M sayanakar:

Hi, I’m closing on a property in a few weeks, I have tried Facebook marketplace and groups with no luck in getting any qualified tenant requests. Apparently Zillow won’t let me post since the closing is still pending. Any other ways you recommend to market the property?

thanks,

Yogesh 

Sign up for a service like TenantCloud (or one of a dozen others like it) and push the property  advertisement out to multiple rental websites through their syndication service.

Remember that property closing dates are often not absolute; sometimes, they get moved substantially, so be careful about promising a rental for a firm move-in date to a tenant. I represented an investor a few years ago that did this and was (self)burned when his closing date was moved back by a week or two by his lender. He was pointing the finger and mad at everyone, but the source of all his problems was best found in his bathroom mirror.

@Gabe Shapiro a number of our PM clients (property owners) have been purchasing investment property in New Britain as there is an abundance of multi-families that are somewhat affordable compared to other nearby towns/cities. The proximity to employment is pretty good for tenants who live in New Britain as well.