If you are not a contractor yourself, then bring one in and have him bid or ballpark the rehab for a few different finishes depending on the neighborhood (i.e. rent ready, owner occ, high end owner occ) Make sure he is a well respected contractor and then pass his bids to the person buying.

I'd be willing to pay you and another agent a few $100 dollars if you find a respectable tenant for me.

I think if you treat them with respect they will direct their anger at their deadbeat room mate and not be trashing your place.

Thanks for all the ideas :)Brian-Thanks...I forgot that insurance has a problem with vacant properties and thier respective coverages.

That's a great strategy and I respect people who do that.

"Thank you, the expression "With all due respect", for reminding me that somebody is going to tell me something with absolutely zero respect"

This looks like pretty normal expenses.I am not attacking your judgment of the situation but from personal experience I know that I like to be in control of my investments and when I can’t be, it is easy to get paranoid and assume that somebody is trying to rip me off.Looks to me like you have a good property manager that is taking care of things for you.Just another angle to consider…Respectfully,

in my case, the benefits of cutting losses via short sale or default would not outweigh the costs of credit deterioration. i plan on making investments in the future and i need to maintain my credit standing. more importantly, i dug myself into this mess and i want to get out in a respectable way. i'm wondering if i do sell, will i be able to benefit from capital loss to offset future gains.thx for the responses all!

You should be calling me to put you in deals where you make $8,000 profit after holding for 15 months, along with collecting a respectable 14% ROI during the time it was rented AND collecting interest on the payment.

Now I will add the caveat that this December and January have been the worst I've seen in six years with respect to tenant quality, such that a couple of colleagues and I actually stopped marketing our properties in the beginning of January.