Q: I'm on a limited budget, what can I do to make my rental appealing?
A: Typically this is what we do to spend very little and do a quick turn around
1. Cleaning, you can spend some time and do this on your own, soap and sponges and some sweat equity. If your place isn't clean, it won't be appealing.
2. New coat of paint. Roll over some of the dirty spots, usually corners
3. New blinds. These are very inexpensive. Get basic blinds from Home Depot and install them yourself.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Friday, June 9, 2006
Bugs..what do I do?
Bugs are always a headache. Some tenants don't care. Some tenants are scared of their own shadow.
Ants - use ant spray. Usually tenants leave food out for ants to find. This is especially true during the summer months when it gets hot. I usually show up with a $5 gallon of bug spray I bought at Home Depot. I will spray all the areas with ants and leave the bottle with the tenant. You show hands on work and leave the tenant with the tools to handle the rest.
Mice/Rats - buy traps and poison. No one likes to be near a rat and there are some pretty good humane traps that don't kill them in a gruesome manner. The pellets work well as mice will take those back to their nests and not die inside the unit. Again, tell tenants not to leave any food out. Rats and mice can be carriers of disease. But if there is no food, there will be no rodents. If traps and pellets don't work in about a week, call an exterminator.
Cockroaches - CALL EXTERMINATOR ASAP. If you find a unit is infested with cockroaches, then the unit next door or on top of below is infested as well. If you unit is empty, I suggest using alot of fogger. But call the exterminators right away. This will take a good 1-2 weeks to totally get rid of them. They aren't call cockroaches for nothing.
Bees - if they haven't formed a hive (like under the roof or in the corner of a wall) then you are in luck. There are sprays you can buy to kill off bee hives and nests. I recommend once a week in the spring take a visual survey of your unit. Make sure bees aren't making a nest inside your property walls.
Spiders - depends on how severe. There is no way to prevent every single insect from getting into the house and 1 or 2 spiders isn't an epidemic. Spay them with RAID.
Ants - use ant spray. Usually tenants leave food out for ants to find. This is especially true during the summer months when it gets hot. I usually show up with a $5 gallon of bug spray I bought at Home Depot. I will spray all the areas with ants and leave the bottle with the tenant. You show hands on work and leave the tenant with the tools to handle the rest.
Mice/Rats - buy traps and poison. No one likes to be near a rat and there are some pretty good humane traps that don't kill them in a gruesome manner. The pellets work well as mice will take those back to their nests and not die inside the unit. Again, tell tenants not to leave any food out. Rats and mice can be carriers of disease. But if there is no food, there will be no rodents. If traps and pellets don't work in about a week, call an exterminator.
Cockroaches - CALL EXTERMINATOR ASAP. If you find a unit is infested with cockroaches, then the unit next door or on top of below is infested as well. If you unit is empty, I suggest using alot of fogger. But call the exterminators right away. This will take a good 1-2 weeks to totally get rid of them. They aren't call cockroaches for nothing.
Bees - if they haven't formed a hive (like under the roof or in the corner of a wall) then you are in luck. There are sprays you can buy to kill off bee hives and nests. I recommend once a week in the spring take a visual survey of your unit. Make sure bees aren't making a nest inside your property walls.
Spiders - depends on how severe. There is no way to prevent every single insect from getting into the house and 1 or 2 spiders isn't an epidemic. Spay them with RAID.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Background Check/Deposit/Reserves
1. Always do a credit check
- anyone who refuses to pay for a credit check has bad credit
- no credit doesn't mean bad credit, some people pay cash for everything and don't use credit cards. this might even be a good thing if you are running lower end rental units. i have worked with many tenants who have working jobs and pay the rent in cash (usually it's not a good idea to collect large amounts of cash)
- do no accept a "credit report i just ran" if it is more than 2 weeks old.
2. Never let anyone move in ANYTHING before you have the deposit
- i recommend at least 1 month's rent for deposit. you can be flexible depending on the amount of the total rent but NEVER let anyone move in with a couple hundred dollars
3. Besides making sure the potential new tenant has a job, make sure they can show you they have $$$ in the bank. If the rent is $2000/mo, then it's not an unrealistic expectation for any tenant to have at least a few thousand extra dollars in their checking account. Anyone who refuses to show reserves should be avoided. I understand there are privacy issues some tenants might be uncomfortable with, but you already have all their personal information, and they are renting from YOU so unless they have $500,000 cash in their checking, there shouldn't be anything embarrassing about their account balance.
- anyone who refuses to pay for a credit check has bad credit
- no credit doesn't mean bad credit, some people pay cash for everything and don't use credit cards. this might even be a good thing if you are running lower end rental units. i have worked with many tenants who have working jobs and pay the rent in cash (usually it's not a good idea to collect large amounts of cash)
- do no accept a "credit report i just ran" if it is more than 2 weeks old.
2. Never let anyone move in ANYTHING before you have the deposit
- i recommend at least 1 month's rent for deposit. you can be flexible depending on the amount of the total rent but NEVER let anyone move in with a couple hundred dollars
3. Besides making sure the potential new tenant has a job, make sure they can show you they have $$$ in the bank. If the rent is $2000/mo, then it's not an unrealistic expectation for any tenant to have at least a few thousand extra dollars in their checking account. Anyone who refuses to show reserves should be avoided. I understand there are privacy issues some tenants might be uncomfortable with, but you already have all their personal information, and they are renting from YOU so unless they have $500,000 cash in their checking, there shouldn't be anything embarrassing about their account balance.
Tuesday, May 9, 2006
Property Management - Being A Landlord
INTRO
Welcome to the Statewide PM blog. Here our goal is to share some useful property management tips, some horror stories, and everything in between. Everyone can be a successful landlord and real estate investor by following the tips and tricks we've learned over the years. Feel free to comment and we will be more than happy to share any knowledge we can in helping you become successful in real estate.
-Statewide Property Management Team
Welcome to the Statewide PM blog. Here our goal is to share some useful property management tips, some horror stories, and everything in between. Everyone can be a successful landlord and real estate investor by following the tips and tricks we've learned over the years. Feel free to comment and we will be more than happy to share any knowledge we can in helping you become successful in real estate.
-Statewide Property Management Team
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