Tenants moving out

It seems like we will be losing tenants from at least 3 of our 7 apartments, and maybe as many as 5!  We are happy about 2 of the tenants who are definitely leaving.  One has struggled to pay the rent on and off from the beginning. The second is the unit we are trying to evict.  Unfortunately the other three are all fabulous tenants.  One family has lived in their unit for over 4 years.  We will certainly miss them, and Hubby will be very busy trying to fill vacancies as they come up.  Luckily things seem like they will be spread out a bit, so we won't have 5 empty units at one time.

One of the problems with move-outs and showing is that you have almost the same problems as showing a house, but none of the control.  Hubby showed one of the apartments tonight, but the woman who was interested was really turned off by the mess, from both the interior of that unit, and by another tenant who has junk all over the place.  We may need to wait until the tenant is completely out, and force the other tenants to clean up their act before even trying to show the place.  This definitely means lost rent as the place sits vacant.

The renovations are continuing on the flipper and we are still waiting to close on the 2nd flipper (although the realtor says he has a buyer for the 2nd one.  All we have to do is get thru the buy and renovation!).  Hubby is continuing to work with folks on craigslist about the wheel chair ramp and I finally finished up with all the eBay stuff.  Hubby is enjoying working on the property half days.  He may put  in some "overtime" this weekend to paint the basement!

Wallpaper and wheel chair ramp

Hubby has been learning this week how hard a renovation can be. He has been removing wall paper all week and is finding it both frustrating and satisfying.  They work 4 days per week.  Hubby works 5 hours and the  contractor/handyman is supposed to work 10 hours.  Next week, because of the holiday, they will work Tues-Fri instead of Mon-Thurs.  I am really excited to see the place.  He managed to get the kitchen cost down to about $1300 (cabinets and countertops).  Still need floor and appliances (and paint, of course, but that is relatively cheap).  Closing on 2nd house is now scheduled for next Friday and can't come a moment too soon.  Now that the weather is changing, you are overcome by the mold smell when you walk in there.  Son still helping out whenever he can.

Tenant issues are not going so well.   These guys are real con-men!  Hubby wants to cut a deal with the guy we are trying to evict to just him out of there without the whole court thing.  He is giving them a break on the court finding and keeping the deposit and then the guy asks to stay until June 15th!  Apparently 5 months of free rent is not enough!  Meanwhile the unit on the payment plan sent him a real nasty text message because they were offended about something he said while collecting the rent last week.  With anyone else, they would have been out on the street.  Some people just feel entitled to everything. Drives me crazy!

Reno continues/court case update

Hubby is trying to get the tenants out of the house as fast as he can.  Even offered to forgive a month of rent just to get rid of them.  No idea what they are going to do. Strongly suspect they are going to drag it out as long as possible.  At least the judge agreed to revise the judgement to include May's rent, and Hubby is going to file for possession as soon as possible.

Reno work is continuing.  I saw the new kitchen design today and it looks really really nice. The whole project will take only about $2000 in materials (not counting paint and flooring).  That's not really too back for cabinet/countertops/backsplash.  Still debating the design a little.  I like shelves instead of upper cabinets.  I think it will look better and be more modern and versatile.  Hubby is having to referee the debate between me and the handyman. Usually we agree, but hubby still insists on asking both of us!  Son says the attic looks fantastic now that an old "Beaver board" ceiling has been removed and the place is cleaned up!  One room down, 8 to go - lol!

Starting renovation and court decision

Well, it took all week, but Hubby (with help from Son) finally started the renovation for the flipping property.  It literally took almost two weeks (and lots and lots of trips to Good Will) to get all of the previous owners belongings out of the house. Some tips:  Good Will will take as much as you can give them, but not furniture; many people will recycle scrap metal, and will come pick up unwield objects like stoves and refridgerators; even with all of the above, a lot will need to be thrown out.  We ended up completely filling two big dumpsters and we didn't really have a lot of furniture.  Hoping to sell a washer/dryer and still have a lot of stuff on Ebay tonight!   Also, put a "free stuff" posting on Craigs list about the wheel chair ramp. Many inquiries. We won't make any money directly, but won't have to pay the labor or disposal costs for taking it out (plus I feel better by not throwing it out).

Hubby and son basically did some demolition today. The kitchen cabinets were removed and some weird ceiling tiles were also removed (luckily the ceiling above these tiles is in pretty good shape).  Still lots of dust and I'm worried about son's allergies and asthma. He said the biggest problem was the overhead stuff.   Hopefully we won't need another dumpster, because there actually was not that much demo on this place.  It will be exciting to see it take shape.  It already looks bigger because the contents are gone.

Unfortunately the day ended on a sour note when Hubby got the results of his eviction proceedings in the mail. Very frustrating, but the judge did not grant the full amount. It appears as if May's rent was not included.  The tenant now has until a certain to pay or we can file for "possession".  The possession thing means that they will be given 10 days to move out or we can lock them out.  I'm not really crazy about this prospect, and we still aren't sure about the process for collecting on the judgement.

Yard Sale and more Tenant Issues

So, we did the yard sale for the contents of the flipper.  It was a huge bust.  Made barely $100.  Ugh.  I will do a little better because I'll sell some stuff on eBay or Craigs list, but most of it will go into the trash or have to get donated to Good Will or something similar. At least we'll get a tax write off from some of it!

Digging through the contents was a dirty/demoralizing job.  Found some old pics that broke my heart. Of course, most of it was just junk (no dead bodies or millions dollars - lol!).  Ended up selling a box full for $5 today.  Hubby has a scrap metal collector picking up some of the appliances and bigger things tomorrow, but it still feels really wasteful.

The tenant situation is getting bad.  Still no judgement from the court, officially, so the tenants who haven't paid in four months are still living there without payment.  One other tenant texted Hubby that she isn't going to pay this month and will move out by the end of the month and he can just keep the deposit.  These folks don't realize that it doesn't really work that way!  He will probably be happy just to get her out!  The guy on the payment plan paid on Friday, but came up a little short <sigh>.  Our most reliable tenants of three years are having another child and will move out over the summer.  Well, at least Hubby can now dedicate full-time to getting good tenants in place.

Court Case Results

So, after all the worrying, the tenant didn't even show up for court this morning. This usually means that we get an automatic judgement.  The judge is going to figure out how Kae can manage to get the money we are owed (4 months rent! + court costs).  It may involve attaching their paychecks.    Of course, this doesn't mean that they are gone from the apartment.  In 10 days we file for possession and if they are not gone within 10 days after that, we can change the locks and sell all of their stuff.  This is a little scary. We've never actually thrown anyone out before. We really don't feel bad about the guy that we believe is causing all of the trouble, but he lives with his girlfriend and her teenage son, and that does bother me a little. We will have to see how it goes!

Closing on the house that we will be flipping today. Started getting organized for the yard sale, and met with our HVAC guy to get an estimate on the furnace, which will have to be replaced.  Also found out that we won't actually be tied into the property for 90 days like we feared.  It turns out the 90 clause is just for short sales, not for general sales or foreclosures.  That is a big help because we are hoping to turn it around in about 60 days.

Yard Sale in Our Future

So ... we got into the house that Hubby is closing on, on Tuesday.  It is full of crap that we need to get rid of.  Much of it is trash, but there is enough useful stuff, that we feel bad just tossing, so we are going to hold a yard sale.  Hubby wants the place empty as quickly as possible, so we will have to work every night from Tues thru Friday to get the yard sale organized, and then have the yard sale Sat and Sun!

Never a dull moment. Hopefully the yard sale will pay for the dumpster we will need to get rid of whatever doesn't sell!

Sneak preview of court case

As I mentioned before, we have two apartments that are really problematic right now.  One is on a payment plan and they are doing great.  They should be completely caught up by the end of the month (fingers crossed). The others missed payments in the plan right away and are now 4 months behind on the rent.  We have a court date scheduled on Tues to evict them.  While hubby was fixing something at the property today, one of the tenants told him that the man that we are trying to evict is going to tell the court that there is a problem that we refuse to fix and that is why he is withholding the rent!   This is very frustrating, especially since hubby takes care of every single little problem immediately, and usually at great expense.  The tenant never reported the supposed problem to us.  Unfortunately, the judge has been very difficult to deal with through out the process, so we are very concerned that he will take this guy's word for it and delay the eviction.  Did I mention 4 months without rent!!!!!!!!!  The "problem" would cost all of $50 to fix.  Don't they think we would have fixed it, if it was true that the rent was withheld because of it?  Grrrr!!!!  A lot tenants get behind because of job losses, etc.  I'm not saying that they are perfect, but we have such a history of working with people to try to help them back on their feet.  The folks in this problem apartment both have good jobs, but they just will not pay the rent.  It's days like this that we feel like being total slumlords, or throwing in the towel!

The flipping properties seem to be back on track. Hubby will close on one on Tues (busy day!).  We are going over tomorrow to take a look around.  The house is not empty, so we have to figure out the best way to get rid of the stuff left behind:  dumpster, yard sale, or craigs list!  Hubby was able to negotiate a deal with the home owners association for the 2nd flipper.  They are going to waive a $2000 charge because they can't produce a receipt.  The seller has agreed to pay the rest of the amount owed.  Hopefully we will close on this property sometime next week.

Big Decision Made and Title Insurance Snafu

Well Hubby official gave notice to his full-time employers last week. We are in it with both feet now!

Still waiting on the closing for the townhouse I mentioned last time.  Tonight we have to go bug the Association President at that development.  Apparently there is a $2000 charge to the association that the seller (a government agency) is questioning and they won't sign off on the sale until the issue is resolved.

For a second property we are trying to buy, interestingly enough from our realtor, we ran into a problem with title insurance. For the realtor it is a true flipper, he bought it one week and planned to sell it to us the next week.  The title insurance companies won't insure it, because they say that the realtor agreement with the bank that he purchased from had an unstated 90 day wait clause.  The title insurance company won't take it for 90 days, but that doesn't fit Hubby's time table at all.  We are trying to work out a deal with the realtor to have him self-insure the title for the one-week time that he owned the property.  This involves lawyers on each side, so it is taking some time to resolve.

With some luck we will own two property next week!

Meanwhile the renter situation is looking a bit brighter.  One of the tenants that is on a payment plan has been paying regularly. Sadly, the other one is being taken to court next week for eviction proceedings.  Meanwhile Hubby is out at midnight trying to track down someone who still owes $50 for this month's rent!