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I am an unintentional landlord; in January 2010 I was selling my house and buying another. We were going to close both deals the same day, but my rear end in a top hat buyer backed out a week before closing. I couldn't find any new buyer, and then I had a wave of deadbeat neighbors who got foreclosed on, which that sealed my fate as far as unloading the place goes. I have a property manager who charges me a $250 leasing fee at signing, which covers the first month of advertising and tenant screening. Any additional time it sits vacant while she's advertising it costs $50/month. She takes 6% commission on rent; rent is $850 and she mails me an $800 check every month. The property is right near an Air Force base and she has an "in" with advertising there; my last two tenants have been airmen and they have treated the place immaculately. I have been told this is an awesome deal as most property managers charge more like 10-12% commission monthly as well as the entire first month's rent. Is this true?
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May 9, 2013 15:24
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Dazzleberries posted:Have a good lease with strong penalties if they are late, even a day late. Mine turned out to be too soft because I thought I would screen people out so well that it wouldn't be an issue. I learned quickly that a 35$ late fee is not sufficient to avoid people being late for example. Yep. This sounds like that study that day care fine study that Freakonomics discussed. Some late fees don't encourage good behavior, they encourage people to think they can just pay you for their bad behavior. Saying "rent is due on on the 1st, grace period until the 5th, $35 late fee afterward" just means someone will think they can pay you rent+$35 and buy themselves the right to pay you late. Friend of mine had a tenant who did this every drat month.
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May 11, 2013 16:58
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I'd be afraid that if you capped the thermostat like that, then the little old lady who gets cold at 70º and wants it to be 75º will take out her 1964 vintage space heater with exposed coils and set the whole building on fire.
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May 12, 2013 17:14
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HOAs can record a lien and foreclose if you are behind on dues. There are often stories of people ending up losing their homes over a couple grand in back dues, if their HOA board is a bunch of dicks and actually decides to follow through with a foreclosure rather than just a lien. On one hand I think foreclosing based on back dues is just plain vindictive and pointless behavior, but I hate HOAs that make absolutely zero effort to collect what's owed, too. I rent out a townhouse in a larger development that has freestanding single family houses in it. There's an HOA for the street of townhouses and the whole development has its own master HOA. Both are represented by the same inept management company; I half wonder if they are some board member's cousin or something. Apparently the master HOA had something like $80K worth of receivables on the books, and since the dues are $225/year that means that there were some people who never paid a dime of dues since the houses were sold in 2005-2006. They were going to try to offer these folks a payment plan first, under the threat of a lien if the homeowner doesn't hold up their end of the deal. When I asked why they won't just file a lien first to protect our interests the board president said they "wanted to be nice." It's not your fiduciary duty to be nice, it's your duty to protect the interests of those of us who actually pay the bills. If my current tenant moves out I am really tempted to just list this place for a song to get out from under this HOA.
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Oct 16, 2013 06:05
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