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jai Mundi posted:I live in the greater Phoenix area, and as such, my condo value is in the toilet. That's the bad news. The good news is that I bought a toilet-priced house, figuring I could rent out my condo until the market returns, and sell it for what I paid for it in 7 to 10 years. If you are going to be dealing with the lower end of the credit scale you definitely want references from their previous or current landlord, also keep in mind that the condo building will likely want to screen the tenant as well as have overrule privileges, in general you will want to talk to your condo association about the rules of renting a unit, so buildings specify the lengths allowed along with any deposits and fees for their background checks, if they allow rental at all. They probably have a guide written up on how to rent your unit, sometimes there are different rules and services for owner occupied units and rental units, for instance, my building allows pets for owners but not for renters, no exceptions. You definitely want to collect a security deposit for any damage. Something to look into might be a rental management company, mine charges me $40 a month and handles all the logistics of any repair or service, collecting rent, ect and know what they are doing. You are also going to want to change the insurance policy on your unit so you aren't paying to cover any personal property, just your liability and repair, talk to your insurance agency as there are options in this, for instance, I pay extra for liability insurance on my personal condo policy and that insurance extends to my rental policy at a cheaper rate and larger coverage than the structural coverage policy on my rental property would allow me to add it at. There is always a chance if you do everything right you still might get a bad apple: quote:The Board reviewed numerous infractions of building rules by a tenant The owner ended up paying a ton of money in fines and was forced by the board to evict her tenant, and evicting a tenant is not easy or cheap.
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Jun 29, 2011 19:12
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jai Mundi posted:I was paying renters insurance on the place, so I hope it will be a wash at least. On your condo? You might want to find a new agent because you don't want renters insurance on a condo if you own it, there are special condo policies for the gap between contents insurance (I.e. Renters insurance) and the building blanket policy, plus you need more liability insurance in case you do something like flood another unit. You definitely want to talk to an insurance agent that knows what they are doing an explain everything to them including that you will be renting it out. The wrong policy can be just as bad as not having one at all.
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Jun 29, 2011 23:54
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Budget Bears posted:My garbage disposal suddenly stopped turning on altogether. Doesn't even make any kind of noise when you flip the switch. I've been googling for like two hours and everything has just been telling me, "check the circuit breaker, check if it's plugged in, try pushing the reset button." Nothing is working. I live in an apartment complex so it's their garbage disposal, not mine; if the thing is completely busted, they're the ones responsible for putting a new one in/getting it repaired, right? You might be better off not telling them about it and just quietly replacing it yourself if you really want one. Turns out gargage disposals are hell on pipes, especially MDUs and tons of places are removing them/banning them. My condo grandfathered mine in but once it is dead that's it, I'm not allowed to put a new one in. Edit: Actually I revise my advice, don't do it without telling them, that could gently caress you over too, just know that if they don't replace it it might not just be because they are jerks. Since the ban which kind of ticked me off I had my garbage disposal cause a back up with minor flooding to my unit and my next door neighbors, an event that I now call my $300 onion. Three Olives fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Jul 7, 2013 |
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Jul 7, 2013 23:44
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Anne Whateley posted:Don't cheap out on a vacuum, sorry, especially if anyone with longish hair is ever at your place. I have shoulder-length hair (and mostly hardwood), and cheapo vacuums do nothing and then die horribly. Shamefully, I had to get a vacuum advertised for pet hair. If you have mostly hardwood, you'll also want a Swiffer -- I like the Wet Jet kind. I have all hard surface flooring in my house and after seeing a TV commercial bought a Hoover Floormate. The thing changed my life. It's a vacuum specifically designed for hardwood floors and here is the amazing part, you turn a knob and it has little scrubbers in the front that scrub the floors along with a squeegee and a solution sprayer so it sprays down cleaner, scrubs and than sucks back up the dirty water along with any dirt, dust and in my case somehow enough dog hair to construct several additional small dogs. I seriously can't recommend the thing more for anyone that has hard floors, no Swiffer pads, no mopping and amazingly clean floors.
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Jul 8, 2013 20:41
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Jet Set Jettison posted:Holy poo poo, I just got an electric bill for 163$ for my tiny apartment. This is very obviously a mistake, but I couldn't find a math flaw anywhere on the bill. I'm assuming they misread the meter. I'm going to poke around the boiler room in my basement and see if I can find my meter. It very well could be real, I've paid around $130 a month forever. Ciaphas posted:Might be moot though, since I just noticed that all the wifi ones require a dedicated "C" line (whatever the hell that is) for power, and my current thermostat has two AA batteries under the cover, so I presume (but can't check) that there's no power leading to it. A lot of thermostats have batteries they don't need for systems that don't have a c line or don't use the c line for power. Mine takes batteries but has been happily running without them for like 7 years.
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Jul 20, 2013 00:20
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Ciaphas posted:Also I just checked my running electricity total and I'm at $85 of use 12 days into the billing cycle in a 1000 sqft apartment When you said small I thought you meant like a studio/500-600 sqft place, 1000 sqft is a good sized apartment, that's the size of like a normal middle class two bedroom house. That's like a completely average bill for an apartment that size, maybe on the low end with this heat wave. I pay $130 a month for my 1000 sqft place and that doesn't include air conditioning, in my last place my bill would easily go into the $200s in the summer. Where are you getting your expected charges from, the apartment? They lie, they lie bad on electric costs, take whatever number they tell you and double it and then add some. Edit: Crossed your post with someone else but my point still stands, that is completely normal for an apartment that size. Three Olives fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Jul 20, 2013 |
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Jul 20, 2013 01:51
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drat Bananas posted:I have it in writing (email) about 3 times that I don't want anyone entering because of the dog... Very annoying. And luckily I'm not here for a month, I'm actually moving in 2 days. I'm just on the hook for the rent until the 20th because of the dumb 60-day notice of vacating thing. It's just dumb, no one wants to deal with a frightened/pissed off dog, not even burglars, I'd say it is more a gently caress up than anything else.
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Jul 27, 2013 00:45
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Ashcans posted:Are you just changing policies, or are you planning to just not have renter's insurance? Because I seriously advise you not to jut abandon the insurance entirely because it is no longer required. Renter's insurance is stupid cheap, and it is an amazing protection for you in case you suddenly lose all your stuff. Most of it even provides some liability in case some dude falls over at your party and whacks his head. If I were you, I would talk to my insurance company and see what the situation is if you want to extend your coverage for the next year, but will be changing addresses during that time. Seriously this is likely your only protection and it is stupid cheap. It's like a weekly deal around here for an apartment to catch on fire and there be people with no insurance that lose everything, not to mention water leaks, break-ins and liability. Can you afford to replace everything you own without major financial hardship? If the answer is no keep the stupid cheap insurance that also likely protect you for stupid accidents that you could be liable for.
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Jul 30, 2013 00:42
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Ashcans posted:You are right that once you start digging in basically any area that has more than two people per square mile, it can seem pretty scary. I find the easiest way to balance this is to think of a place I have already lived that I felt was safe or friendly, and reference that. It'll probably turn out to have more crime than you thought. Then you can use that as a benchmark to evaluate other areas. Yeah, on top of that it is important to look at the type of crime. I live in a nice part of town, very little violent crime, it's extremely safe to walk around but if you look at the crime reports it looks incredible sketchy you have to dig in to see that it's mostly car break ins on idiots that leave valuables in clear view, people trying to pass fake scripts at drugs stores, drunken bar assaults, etc but we are very low in crime that would keep you up at night.
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Jul 31, 2013 19:55
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Flash Gordon Ramsay posted:Car break ins happen in pretty much every apartment complex parking lot. Lots of cars in one place at night, no one really know's whether someone walking around the parking lot lives there or not, and the way lots are spread out make it hard for security to watch everywhere at once. Wherever you live, don't leave valuables in plain sight in your car. Take your gps in with you if you have one. Tools and electronics seem to be the favored items by the smash and grab types. Yes, even you people with gated parking/parking garages. I've heard a million whines by people that had stuff stolen from their "Secure gated parking garages" who are furious at the apartment management because they left their work bag with laptop in the backseat of their car.
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Aug 1, 2013 16:25
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