All Forum Posts by: Yolanda W Cuevas

Yes, the big dogs do worry me a bit as it is an older house. But, Tampa is such a dog town it's hard to find someone without pets.

I'm in the process of turning over my property and have my top 3 applicants whom all meet the qualifications. My number 1 applicant is a couple with caged rats as pets. My number 2 is a couple with 2 large dogs (over 50 lbs). My 3rd are 3 college roommates with 2 large dogs where the parents are paying the rent. I met one set of parents and he had a legal pad of questions for me including crime rates, subletting contingencies, alarm systems, etc.

I chose the 1st couple as they know the area (it's transitional), will pay the pet fee though it's unlikely their pets will cause damage and generally were a laid back couple.

When I sent my sorry email to the college roommates, they came back with an offer of +150/mo in rent.

To be honest, I anticipate the relationship to be higher maintenance than with the 1st couple BUT it is a significant bump in rent.

Thoughts?

I purchased a newly renovated home with asbestos siding that has stucco over it (home built in 1924). One insurance company raised concern over the asbestos siding but I chose another that did not have a problem with it. Also the home had termite damage in the attic and at the time of the inspection there were no live termites. Since then my tenant has notified me that there is a termite swarm in the house. I have a year-long contract with a pest control company and they are coming to re-treat. They assured me that it is a treatable problem. In hindsight, I wish I had asked the seller to have the house tented before closing. 

@John Truong yes, Zillow has its own application and credit/background check methodology. You really don’t have to do anything extra. Once the person applies and pays/consents for the credit check you will be notified and within 24 hours sent all of the data

@Daniel Sherman luckily we got through to close with the original insurer but as they started doing their investigation they determined that the partial cast iron piping was a problem, and then 2 months into the policy cancelled citing age of the house. We switched brokers and insurers and were able to get insurance.

@Julie Marquez thank you! I like your approach. Appreciated.

@Jeremy Blevins thanks!... I will look into cozy. Or,  at the very least I will now require maintenance requests to come through email. I had specified Zillow pay in my lease, tenant requested PayPal....paid 1X that way and then requested money order payments. So, yes I've been very accommodating :)

@Terrell Garren thank you for the advice! I will definitely consider M2M going forward.

@James Wise yes, I know. I messed up on the shelving issue. He fixed it and let me know after the fact.

 I have a service call scheduled for the oven but I too think it is an extra picky request. Honestly, without an oven thermometer, I'm not even sure how he noticed except it is his business and he was looking for a repair opportunity.

Based on advice given above, I will make this the last non-urgent service call and let him know that if he isn't satisfied he is welcome to exit the lease.  I'm learning!!

@JD Martin I don't disagree that a property manager would ease my stress level. I will consider it down the road. For the shelving....he had ALREADY fixed it and let me know by sending me a picture. It was my error to react with a discount to the rent as reimbursement but I didn't know how else to handle it.

@Account Closed It is a digital stove. My point was really that he knows about these things...to the point that he wants to tell me to tell the service provider how to fix it. And it took over a month before he even "noticed" it. While these may be normal landlord issues, I think he has other motives or simply is an overly picky tenant.