Money Matters
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: Rent: raise it or not?
I respectfully disagree on that. Nowadays, even in landlord friendly states (which I live in one) tenants have a substantial amount of necessary rights. And that is a good thing. But "tenant friendly states" usually equal "bad tenants take advantage of LL's" states.
And, with that, I'm more referring to the eviction process on a non-paying tenant. Not really the much more minor stuff like interest rates on security deposits. For example, in NOLA...and not that I've done it, but I've researched it...if a tenant stops paying rent, I can have them evicted in 2-3 weeks. And that's "sheriff is at the door with movers I've hired" putting all their stuff on the curb in 2-3 weeks. I can also DIY an eviction and not have to hire an attorney, because it is fairly simple and uncomplicated.
But in tenant friendly states like Mass., CA, and NY. A smooth eviction with no problems takes 2-3 MONTHS and the LL better hire a real estate attorney for at least their first one. And if someone is unfortunate enough to have what we in the biz call a "professional tenant", they can even drag that eviction substantially longer than 2-3 months.
Craziest eviction story I have heard. Unfortunately I don't remember what state the investor was in. He bought a piece of land. Just a plot of land. But there happened to be a dilapidated shed on it. And someone was living in it. Long story short. It took him 3 years and countless court hearings before he was given permission to make the man leave and take the shed down. He had, many times, even offered the guy money to leave. A lot of money, I think $2-$3K. Certainly enough to move to a motel and stay for quite awhile. But the guy wouldn't take it.
When they finally tore the shed down, what was in it was a bunch of fast food type trash, lots of porno mags and...drumroll...one very thick hardback law book, just like you would find a bookshelf of in a lawyer's office, specifically on the subject of landlord/tenant law.
Totally agree!!! And the two bad LL things you mentioned are almost unilaterally against the law everywhere, even in landlord friendly states. At least I've never heard of anywhere that allows the LL to turn utilities off or enter premises without a notice (except in the case of emergency). But the amount of "notice" is a regional difference. Most places it is 24 hours, but some areas can be 48-72 hours.
My worst LL wasn't even a person, it was a huge apartment complex. The heat kept going out, it was every few days. I'd call, they'd send one of their maintenance guys the same day...so that was good...but then it would break again later in the week. By about the 3rd or 4th time, I pointed this out to them and asked them to send a real A/C and Heat company. They refused. I told them they had one more chance and, if it still didn't get fixed, they needed to call a professional or I would be setting up an escrow account with the court and paying my rent to that until the heating was permanently fixed. I think I floored them with my knowledge, but it was finally fixed for good.
And for anyone who has major problem they need their landlord to fix and that person is not being diligent, you can't just stop paying them rent, but you can do what I outlined above
.
I would raise them something like $30-50 a month.
Great tenants, especially these days, are very hard to come by!! The fact that they respect your place is a rarity in this world. If you raise them too much, they may leave. You may be successful in filing the space but you risk getting people who are dirty or who don't pay or BOTH. I had the later in the past and it is not fun to deal with a problem tenant. Time and stress = cash imo