North Florida Nesties
Dear Community,
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.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
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.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
*Kristin&Kelly* or anyone that owns rentals
Would you do it again? Any advice?
Stumbled across a dirt cheap condo this week, DH and I are seriously considering putting an offer in.
Edited for spelling.
Re: *Kristin&Kelly* or anyone that owns rentals
If you are going to get a prop manager, get one ASAP and put it on the market ASAP. You generally don't pay them anything until they find the first tenant. You can put a contingency move-in date based on when the repairs will be finished. The prop manager may even be able to be there during the week to meet with vendors if one of you can't be there...something to ask them about.
"My 101 List - Updating asap, I swear!
We've had no very few problems with ours overall. I bought my condo when I was 19 and lived there through undergrad. I've had 3 separate tenants.
The first one we had a property management company manage it and they gave her deposit back even though her dogs put HUGE runs in my carpet and caused other damage. We've managed it on our own(by "we" I really mean my dad since I was in SC) since then and have had a much easier time.
We've had some repairs that needed to be done but my dad's handy so they were things he could fix pretty easily himself. If your DH is the same way then it may be worth it but it really depends on whether you can get a tenant and how much rent you can get. You really want to make sure you cover yourself by having a good lease.
I don't know if I'd go buy property just for the purpose of renting as my DH isn't particularly handy but it's worked out well for us so far since my dad has been able to help.
ETA: Going through a project management company can definitely protect you in a lot of ways, if they work for you. Our experience was really negative (beyond giving the deposit back they also took 2 months trying to find a tenant after the dog lady moved out and when we got tired of waiting I found one in a week) but that's not the case for everyone.
Since we started renting out our townhouse we have only had 1 tenant who was an issue (the first one) out of the 3 tenants that have lived there. The other 2 tenants we have had have been wonderful and have never had any issues with them not keeping the place clean or letting us know in a timely manner when something was broken and needed to be fixed. We have actually talked about buying another rental but put that off since DH doesn't have a job and is in the process of starting up a franchise here in town. I am sure he will want to buy another rental. We have 2 sets of friends that have moved and DH currently "manages" those properties as well..collecting rent, dealing with issues/repairs and showing the properties to potential renters.
I think the biggest thing we learned through renting was to trust your gut on a potential renter. DH didn't with tenant #1 and she ended up screwing us over and causing a bunch of damage that we had to repair after her 2 years there. DH said he initially had a bad feeling about her but got desperate to get a renter in the place and it backfired. He didn't do any sort of background/credit check on her and found out later on when we were having issues that there had been multiple court cases against her over the years at different aparatment complexes/other rental owners dealing with eviction and failure to pay rent.
Another thing we tend to do is to give people a discount off their rent if they are willing to sign a 24+ month lease. I can't remember what discount DH gave our renters but it was helpful in finding good people who were planning to stay for a while and allowed us to not have to worry about putting it up for rent yearly.
As far as renting we have had the most luck putting ads on Craigslist even though you have to report it almost daily to make sure it doesn't get buried under all the other ads.
If you have any more specific questions, feel free to ask or PM me.
What kind of business did he decide on? I remember you were asking for ideas awhile ago.
It's a junk removal franchise. The next closest franchise for this company is San Antonio and Tampa. He is heading out to corporate offices next week for meetings. We are just figuring out all the $$ crap right now which isn't as hard as we thought it would be.
Having nothing but problems with my rental. Its a property I got in undergrad, the market was amazing..now not so much. It's worth almost nothing in comparison to what it was. We've been renting it out for a few years. We have high home owners fees, tenants that do not pay rent on time. They move out in July, and then we have to try to find new people to rent. It is such a headache.
If you do not have the time to put into it, I would highly suggest maybe finding people who do property management to watch over it for you and deal with all the not so fun issues. I really think that is where we went wrong. Let them have the headache and not you.