I don't know about you, but when I'm looking at houses, the school ratings are number one my priority list! The funny thing about that is that kids aren't even part of our life yet! No matter where you are in life, looking at the school ratings are important for two reasons: 1. Market Appreciation The areas with the best schools appreciate the best as this is the area people want to live. Most districts have a limited amount of space … [Read more...]
How to Prepare Your Home to Become a Rental
Are you looking to turn your home into rental? Preparing your home to become a rental is easy as long as you are trying to sell your house in its current state. I have had a lot of people tell me about all these "projects" they want to get done before their home can become a rental. The key is not to upgrade your home, but to make it a nice, livable house. Not sure what needs to be done before your home is ready? Below is a list of things to … [Read more...]
Thinking of Selling Your Placeholder Home? Read This First!
Are you planning on coming back to the area eventually? Do you want a house that is building equity and keeping place in the market? If the answer is yes, then why are you selling your placeholder? A house that keeps you in the market that has a mortgage that would be reduced by your tenants paying it is a good choice to keep. While there are certainly downsides, keeping your house in the city has a lot more positives beyond the … [Read more...]
Why You Should Screen Your Tenants and How You Should do it
Evictions are very expensive and costly in both time and money. That's why screening a tenant is one of the most important things you can do. Tenant-friendly states drastically increase the importance of screening a tenant so make sure you have a plan to take care of this! The steps that I take to screen a tenant are very important to my process. I require that a background and credit check be run by myself instead of the tenant providing … [Read more...]
How to Establish a Sight Unseen Lease
My husband and I love being landlords, and our newest niche is allowing leases from tenants who are willing to rent sight unseen. Even though we are willing to allow it, I found out from calling around that most companies will not allow these type of leases. For us, it is another way to serve our customer base as 5 out of 8 of our leases over the past two years have been from renters willing to sign a lease on our house sight unseen. Since my … [Read more...]
How to Rent Your House in One Showing
Renting your house out is the most stressful part of being a landlord. I've learned a lot in my time as a landlord and I want to share my tips with you. Here are 5 tips to get your house rented fast at market price. How to Rent Your House With These 5 Easy Tips: 1. Price the House Right: If your house is over-priced by even $50.-$75. then your showing numbers will be greatly reduced and the prospective tenants will not be as serious. 2. … [Read more...]
How to Choose the Best Lease Term
There are many different types of lease terms and they have different pros and cons. Here are a few examples... Three Lease Terms to Choose From: 1. Month To Month (M-to-M): Pros: A short term lease allows either party to break the lease with 30 or 60 days notice depending on the lease. Cons: Tenants can break the lease at any time with proper notice. This is a problem if there are definite moving seasons in your areas. Ask … [Read more...]
The Solution to a Broken Lease: The Buy-Out Clause
Tenants breaking the lease was one of my most common "issues" and seem to occur regularly. The default legal language does not allow for any penalty for breaking a lease beyond holding a tenant to the lease until a replacement has been found. The Problem: Landlords, by law, are required to re-list the house and show the house in a good faith effort. I have never lost a day of rent so I was always penalized. It made me very upset that … [Read more...]