sell house quick
I purchased my rental property about six years ago. I thought I would try my hand at managing the property myself - after all, how hard could it possibly be: get a tenant and get a check from them every month for rent. It could not be any more simple...or so I thought.
Since, when I purchased the property, I had already determined what the fair market rent was in that area for a home that size, I was pretty much ready to go. I ran an ad in the newspaper and got some phone calls. This is where the first problems came up: I had to be "on call" to show the property to potential tenants. I had a job working 40 hours per week, and sometimes I would have to take a long lunch to meet with prospective tenants, or drive to the house at 9 am on a Saturday morning to show it to one person, then 4 pm in the afternoon to show it to another. Half the time they did not even show up or call to let me know they would not be there! Did I mention that I lived 32 miles from my rental property?
Once I had someone that was ready to rent, I had to try to determine (based on my own ideas) whether the tenant could afford the house. Then I had to verify rental, credit, and work history. It's not as easy as it sounds.
Skipping ahead: my first tenants were a family of four (dad, mom, and two kids). They said they were ready to move in to the house in about two weeks, at which time they said they would have the deposit and first month's rent. This was my first big mistake. The day they were moving in, they had the first month's rent, but no deposit money. Feeling "kind", I agreed to accept the deposit in full the next week, and in the meantime they could move right on in to the house. After all, I had a mortgage payment, and some income is better than no income, right?
Needless to say, they did not have the deposit the next week...or the next... As a matter of fact, not only did I not ever collect the deposit, but they were two weeks late with the 2nd month's rent. This pattern went on for about six months until they simply decided they would not pay at all. At that point, I decided I needed to evict them. Again, having no clue about the laws of eviction, the eviction process took several weeks longer than it normally would have. The eviction process is not a fast one to begin with, then coupled with my lack of knowledge, it became a very long process.
Needless to say, managing a rental property is not easy, and it is made more difficult when you do not know the laws.
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