Back Home.

Made it back home and all is going well.  The renter is all moved in and is arranging furniture and sending photos of how nice the place looks.  Happy renters are great.

The management company is all on board and ready to go in case we ever need them.  Hopefully this will never happen, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

The car is unloaded and everything is put back to where it belongs.

My desk is piled full of stuff to do with all of the things from outside the real-estate portion of my life.  It’s amazing how everything just piles up.

My husband is already talking about another house.  However, I am hoping we can try to put that off for a little bit until I can catch up.  Having said that, he does have a way of getting what he wants, so we will see.

Will keep this blog posted and in the mean time, keep in touch.

This house done.

It looks like things are wrapping up.  We found a Renter and a Property Manager.

Our renter is great.  He passed the background check better than he even thought.  He loves the house and is getting packed up and ready to move in next week.

We found a property manager that seems to understand that this is our house and he works for us.  He can be here for any emergencies and is collecting the rent directly so that the tenants will have a local place to go to pay the rent at the last second if they need to.  Their price per month is not too bad at 8% of rents collected. 

He is also good with not doing the renewals or the between tenant rehab.  It seems that most of the property manager want to switch out tenants as much as possible so that they can charge a full month’s rent to find another tenant.  Our goal is to get good tenants in that stay, not swap them out every year.  Plus, this will allow us to go in and make the upgrades we want between tenants and not leave it to a stranger to fix things up.

All of my stuff has been kept in the garage in a nice organized pile while showing the house.  Since we don’t have any storage nearby and I really don’t want to pay for a storage unit, it all get’s packed into the little car to head home.  My renter was shocked that I could fit everything inside.  But one way or another it will fit.

The plan is, the night before the tenant moves in, I pack up the car to the brim.  Will meet him the next afternoon and turn over the keys and he does the final sign off attesting he received the keys and what the keys are for.  Say goodbye to my new neighbor friends.  And then head out for the long drive.

I can’t wait to get home to see my family again.  After all, they are the reason I am doing this.

The Things People Do. (Continued from previous.)

...Continued from previous.

One family came back three times.  Loved the house.  Loved the neighborhood.  Couldn’t commit.  A couple of shady characters.  A few looky loos from the neighborhood.  All in all, pretty positive.

My favorite one was the young couple who just found out they were pregnant and wanted to move out of their apartment.

I asked when their lease was up?  “Not for another 9 months, but don’t worry.  I have a friend that can write a letter to get us out of it.”

What did they do for work? “I am self employed.  I work with my brother and we took over my dad’s business. “  Can you verify your income.  “Well… I am self employed.”

 

They decided they wanted to apply for the house and insisted that this was the house for them.  They submitted the application and all of the paperwork.  The income verification documents looked like it was printed out from an excel worksheet.  No way to verify where the numbers came from.  No bank statements.  No tax documents.  Just a bunch of pages with numbers on it.  Plus, they printed out one page twice and forgot another

I looked up and found the owner of the house they say they rented before moving into the apartment.  The county records show that it was owned by his brother, who by chance was also listed as being his direct supervisor, and his personal reference.  So I called the brother and asked if he worked for him, yes, he is a great guy, hard worker etc.  I asked him if he owned the home at the applicants previous address.  Pause, yes, he owned the home.  I asked him if he knew the name of the person the applicant listed as his landlord, Pause, no never heard of him.  He asked why.  I told him that the applicant listed that person as his previous landlord, but you owned the home and thought that was odd, him being his brother and all.  Long pause, "he's a great guy."

So then I call his current residents.  They say yes, the couple rents and apartment in their building.  The couple seemed ok, but, there lease doesn’t run out any time soon.  I told them what he told me about the letter.  They say “OH Really….  I don’t think so.  We will talk to them next time they come in.  Do us a favor and don’t call them back till tomorrow.”

So the next day I call the applicant back back (sent a certified letter that afternoon) and tell him we can’t rent to the them.  “Umm….  Why?”  No verifiable income.  Currently in a Lease. “OK.”  Click.

Seriously, did they not think that I would follow up or that I was asking these things on the application just for fun?  The whole point of the process is the weed out people who are not going to pay, cannot pay, or would destroy the property.  And if your going to lie to me right from the get go, how can I trust you with my home, my huge investment. 

Well. Here's the thing...

The house is listed for rent and this is really my favorite part of this whole process. It’s fun to see the reactions of folks of what they like and don’t like.  It’s also fun to hear their stories.  Some of them have some great life experiences.  Some of them…  well, you just have to laugh.

I love it when they come through the house and look around and then say, “well, here’s the thing…”

Our Lease Application lists right up front ALL of the requirements to lease the home.  Most people say that they love the house, where is the application.  I point out all of the requirements and hand it to them.  If they don’t qualify, the usually just take it home and don’t come back.

 

Some of the look it over and say the “Well… here’s the thing”.

One woman says, "Well... here's the thing...".  Would I be willing to take government assistance.  No, I pointed out on the requirements that we do not accept any government assistance programs.  She kept saying, “but it’s guaranteed money” and, “you would get your rent every month with no problem”.  I finally had to tell her, “no, we are not accepting any government assistance programs.  If you have a program that pays you directly, that is between you and them.  But the government sure has heck didn’t help us to purchase this home, so we sure as heck are not going to accept any assistance in keeping it.”  We laughed and then she looked at me, realized I was serious, and left never to return.

Another family came in, filled out the applications, and paid for the background check.  Did their backgrounds and my investigation and they passed.  So I called them up to say congratulations.  "Well, here's the thing...:  They changed their mind and wanted to live in an apartment instead so there wouldn't be any yard work.  They asked for their background check funds to be returned, but since I had already paid for their background, told them it was not possible.  They understood.

One family came in with three adults, mom, dad and grandma.  When I told them that every adult over the age of 18 must have a background check, they were shocked.  “All of us!  But Grandma is from another county and doesn’t have a background."  They were horrified when I told them that regardless of their citizenship status that every adult over the age of 18 must must must have a background check to verify that there is no criminal history.  I had to finally explain to them that the school bus stop is right in front of the house and I will be darned if I have some criminal or child molester living in my home.  All three said "Oh..." at the same time when they finally got it.  They never came back.

To Be Continued...

So much for the realtor.

We thought hiring a realtor that was also a property manager would be a good idea.  We thought so anyways.

One day during the rehab, the realtor stopped by and I asked him for the property management contract as we had not seen it yet.  His wife emailed the contract a couple of days later.  After fourteen pages of legal jargon, it needed to be changed.

Apparently, this is a standard contract that is used across the state with a bunch of fill in the blanks.  Much of it has nothing to do with us, and there were several things we did not like at all.

Some of those things where: we had to pay them for every little piece of office supplies they used.  We also had to pay for all mileage, even if someone was driving from the office on the other side of the state.  The contract also stated that we had to give him $500 a month extra for anything related to the property, no questions asked.

Found the original document online, downloaded it, and rewrote it.  All of the mumbo jumbo that was irrelevant to our home was removed, printed it out, signed and initialed all of the pages, and sent it back to him for his signatures.  And then heard nothing.

Many days go by and still not a word.  So I called him up and told him the contract needed to be in place before I left town.  After a long pause, he says “About that contract.  I looked over the changes and really don’t see them as being all that major.  All of our out of state owners use the same contract and we have never had a problem.  Plus, since this is a state wide standard contract, it is illegal to make any changes to it and has to remain the way it is.”

Illegal….  Oh really.  (Remember, this is the same guy whose maintenance man tried to sell us stolen paint.)  Told him I would call him back after checking with my attorney.  Long pause…. “um…. ok”.

Called my attorney and he just laughed.  He said that no, it was not illegal to change any contract, that is why it is called contract negations.  Plus, if this guy is trying to tell me that, fire him now.

Called the realtor back, told him that on the advice of our attorney, we would not be using the original contract.  If he could not accept the changes, we understood and would find someone else.

Needless to say, he was upset and tried everything he could think of to get me to sign that contract.  At the end of the conversation he angrily said, “Fine, you want to be long distance landlords, you just go ahead.  You will never find anyone to work for you.  Have a nice life.”  Then he hung up.

When I got back to my computer, I sent him and his wife a nice email and wished them the best in their future endeavors.  Now to look for a property manager.