Better news on the rental front
I got a call from our tenant's sister. He's contacted her and sent her the money for March's rent. He apparently still wants the apartment. Hopefully he'll still have a job with her husband after just walking off for a while. Anyway, I'm supposed to meet her Monday to exchange the keys she gave me last week for the March rent money. While I don't know the details, nor do I want to, her brother had a fight with his fiance, I guess because she wanted to go back to her home state (half the country away) so he just up and left and took her. I have no idea if she and the kids will be returning with him. I'm sorry she was unhappy here, but it is hard to be half the country away from one's family. It took me a while to adjust after I got married and moved here, about 700 miles from my family.
The good thing is that my husband had not been in the apartment yet to clean (I caught him on the cell phone before he finished his regular work and went over there). I didn't get the advertisement together yet to put the place back on the market since we hadn't seen it yet to assure it could be ready this week. I also hadn't returned the utilities to our name since we didn't have both keys to the place back yet. So I guess it worked out okay. I hope the fellow has worked out his problems and will be happy in our rental.
5 Comments:
That is good news. At least he hasn't stiffed you and just walked away. Hopefully he'll stay. Are there any sort of contracts between you?
I ask because we had a rental property which we managed ourselves. We didn't use an agent but we did have a legally binding contract that I bought from a solicitor for $20 which we all signed. It set out the rental period (12 mths) and price etc. If our tenant had trashed the place and run we still would have had to pay to track them down and take them to court but it was a bit of legal paper that would have helped us.
Take care
Brilly,
Yes, we have a year's lease. We also have a security deposit of the amount of one month's rent. We can use it for any damages to the place or for unpaid rent. We are managing this property ourselves. Someday we hope to afford more properites, but right now we don't have this one under control. While I haven't seen the place since he moved in, I don't think it has been trashed. Anyway, if all goes well, tomorrow I collect March's rent and return the key to his sister so he can access the property when he returns from out-of-state. I do hope he plans on staying there for the rest of the lease and pays his rent in a timely fashion.
Our property is a duplex, and it came with a tenant in the already living in the other part. We are in the process of evicting her. She's in a program in which the government pays most of her rent (she's never bothered to give us a dime of her share, though, since we bought the place in September). We merely figured we'd not renew her lease, which we were told ended Jan 2006. We gave her proper notice and expected her gone on Jan. 31.
No luck. She's trying to find another government-paid place but hasn't moved out so my husband has begun the court proceedings necessary to get the sheriff to evict her. That takes a while, though. She's been there over 20 years, and it's possible the place got a room painted once during that time. Otherwise no upkeep has been done. I've never seen her half of the duplex, but my husband assures me it is in horrid shape and smells like cat pee. It is so bad there was no way we can renovate it while anyone lives there, and we do not wish to rent nasty property nor do we wish to participate in the government-aid rental program so she has to move out so we can make the unit nice and get a tenant who actually pays his own rent.
I don't know if you'll bother to read this far since my comment goes on forever, but what made you get out of the rental property business?
We sold our property plus our home to be able to buy this house and not have a large mortgage.
We'll definately do it again though just as soon as we have enough disposable cash :-)
I'm glad to hear your reason was so good. I was afraid you found it way too much trouble and not profitable.
There are lots of tax breaks for people who rent out housing. From lawn care, to repairs and the cost of travelling to inspect your property. The only down side is Capital Gains Tax when you sell. Having said that how else could you make $100,000 profit and only pay $16,000 in tax?
Also if you live in your rental property for 12mths before you sell it then you don't pay Capital Gains Tax as it becomes your "family home" not an investment property. We couldn't do that as we needed to buy this house. Our tenant (a single Mum) bought the property from us at a reduced rate as we didn't use agents. Win, win all 'round :-)
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