I pick such responsible tenants that after a year or two they can afford to buy their own place. I had a lot of vacancies in June got them filled in July. Now two more tenants bought places and will be gone in August.
In one month I have replaced a refrigerator, two stoves 2 A/C’s and two toilets.
Don’t rag on me about A/C’s. I’m thinking about not supplying them in the future but I am a nice guy.
I am doing my first eviction, ever. I will get burned for about 2 grand. . (P.S. I made every new investor mistake possible with this tenant, but now attorney is fixing it.)
On the up side, I do pick great tenants so I have little problems…except for that one.
Plus, I bought a condo in June for 35k. A comparable unit next door just went on the market for 48k. Even if it doesn’t sell near that it sounds like some instant equity on the horizon for that one.
Plus, I fixed a stove myself so I saved there.
Still love the business. Just wanted to share… It is very VERY rare you will hear me moan about REI…
I’m afraid that is just par for the course with renters. Last month I had 2 evictions for non-payment and one section 8 tenant broke her 2 month old lease to shack up with her boyfriend. One evicted tenant faked a ceiling collapse with his criminal mother and tried to sue me. In addition to that, he stole the new gas heater and completely trashed the place. Another left my one year old berber carpet (in a 5 bedroom house) looking like it was 20 years old and broke out 3 windows. I’ve already evicted another scumbag this month. I spend more time in court than most judges! I could go on and on but feel sorry for you - NOT!!! Welcome to the club!
This is why I like rehab deals… Buy them, fix them, sell them off in 2-6months and never worry about it…Collect a check and start over… Effectivly you can do 1 rehab ever month…so its easy to handle 12-16 a yr and with a 30-75K profit per deal life becomes easier…and have your regular team and GC so you do not have to even put a nail in the wall.
PS…providing A/C’…your a nice guy since your in the north. Now I am in FL and tennants dont always get that. However, my places I do rent, have central A/C but the leases state in case they fail, having the unit fixed or replace will be left at owners discretion. No unauthorized repair personnel to look at said units. I have this in all my leases for all applicances in my rentals.
But this year I did get generators for some of my units, however they are paying a premium on the rent and will have to provide their own gas…But I am praying for no more hurricanes, i can not handle the insurance hikes…just got hit with a 76% hike on one policy…
OK, Mike… you win. I’m feeling better. All those evictions… wow. The one guy I’ve had to evict bypassed my normal checks because he was recommended by a trusted source.
If I had checked him out as I do the others, I probably would not have let him in… … but still you win.
I’m still very new at this, I do own a building renting out, it was my first properity. What kind of attorney do you use? How much you are paying for them?? Monthly? Per case? or yearly?
I use a local attorney that specializes in real estate. I believe that she charges $100 per hour. She handles all our routine RE stuff and she also handled the recent attempted lawsuit (scam) against us. I have found that the secret to dealing with lawyers is to be fully involved in the process. No-one knows the issues that you are involved with better than you.
For example, in our recent lawsuit attempt, a tenant that we were evicting and his mother faked an accident in an effort to extort money from us. The lawyer suggested turning the case over to the insurance company. If I had done that, I would be paying higher premiums for the next hundred years. So, I pulled the criminal records for the mother and discovered that she had a lengthy criminal record. I talked to other tenants and other investors at our REIA and discovered that the mother (who was supposedly totally disabled) was working for cash at two jobs. I also discovered that the mother had tried to sue someone else only a month before. Therefore, I had my attorney write a letter to her attorney saying that we thought that she was trying to extort money from us; that she appeared to be committing insurance fraud; and that we doubted that she was reporting her cash income to the IRS. Obviously, in any court case, we would be obligated to fully investigate these issues and report our findings to the appropriate agencies!!! (and I’m not bluffing - I’d like nothing better than to see this scumbag in jail!) I don’t know how this will turn out, but we haven’t heard anything else from this scumbag!
As Jeff said, it is absolutely critical to screen your tenants. We perform a criminal background check and a credit check for all potential tenants. If you only have a few rentals, you could literally go years without an eviction (with a little luck). In my experience, only about 10% of the tenants are a problem. However, as you acquire more and more rentals, these incidents will become a routine experiences. Obviously, if you are to have a full time income from REI, you will need quite a few rentals and these are issues that you will deal with on a daily basis. Setting up the proper business structure and system is critical, as is having a good lawyer, accountant, and realtor.
My attorney charges 375.00 for evictions. They have an department just for evictions and they are like an eviction machine. The price covers all legal no matter how long the case takes. It does not cover court fees.
Thanks Guys. I think the information you posted will help me alot in the future. Since my tenant are gaving me some problems like.
This is a Commerical Building.
trying to get me to fix the wet basement, which it’s suppose to be WET on the lease. ( Do to the water from the neigbor side. I think their drine is clogged so the have no place to go)
Complaint the roof fill with water after rain, leafs from neigbor tree block drine so it block the water on top of the roof) but NO LEAKs because we just have the roof fix less than a year old also when i go check it, There is no water on top. ( they did said they remove the leafs that clog it)
there is a little wet smell coming from the central Air united after raining? when i was there I didn’t smell anything. I personally think it’s just the filter need to be replace. (question is do I have to get this done? she said she will call me in next couple day to see what to do)
What do you think the best advice to take care of this?
I know the feeling, in April I had a heat pump go out ($2000) and the very next day a major drain blockage that utlimate required a backhoe to dig up the main drain line ($2300) and two weeks later, major termite infestation ($1300). All on different properties, but that the way it is sometimes. Cash flow was a little brutal that month.
