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I don't have any experience as a landlord, but FWIW, here in Chapel Hill many of my neighbors rent out their basements as apartments to students and others. I'm pretty sure they just deal with it themselves. I know my next door neighbor does.
I don't have any experience as a landlord, but FWIW, here in Chapel Hill many of my neighbors rent out their basements as apartments to students and others. I'm pretty sure they just deal with it themselves. I know my next door neighbor does.
It is much easier to rent out a place on your property, where the tenant knows you'll be keeping a constant eye on their potential shenanigans, than it is to rent a place you may not visit very often.
You'd be amazed at how easily someone who seems otherwise reasonable can destroy your property.
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I don't have any experience as a landlord, but FWIW, here in Chapel Hill many of my neighbors rent out their basements as apartments to students and others. I'm pretty sure they just deal with it themselves. I know my next door neighbor does.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RedZin
It is much easier to rent out a place on your property, where the tenant knows you'll be keeping a constant eye on their potential shenanigans, than it is to rent a place you may not visit very often.
You'd be amazed at how easily someone who seems otherwise reasonable can destroy your property.
"Discrimination" complaint is the among the highest risks and easiest law suits.
An Owner-Occupant shared rental lets the landlord avoid much of that liability.
The OP will not live in the condo and rent a room. Living in the same dwelling and renting a portion puts the landlord in great position for continuous monitoring.
It would be pretty difficult for a tenant to move four dogs in and let them pee throughout a home causing 5 figures of damages with the landlord under the same roof.
Absentee LL? Actually, pretty easy for the tenant to destroy the place.
I don't have any experience as a landlord, but FWIW, here in Chapel Hill many of my neighbors rent out their basements as apartments to students and others. I'm pretty sure they just deal with it themselves. I know my next door neighbor does.
I know this is OT but this is very common, and illegal, on Long Island. Is it legal in Chapel Hill? Do the landlords utilize separate outside entrances for their tenants? On LI you can always tell towns with a high degree of basement renters by the number of cars parked on the road, what's the situation with that in CH?
Yes, it's legal in Chapel Hill. The limit is 4 unrelated people in a dwelling. I'm sure it depends on the situation about the entrances, but in my next door neighbor's case, yes she has a separate entrance to the apartment. You can park on the street in some neighborhoods in Chapel Hill. It's okay in ours. I don't really care about it (this is not a cookie-cutter HOA neighborhood, but more of an older funky Chapel Hill neighborhood), but in the case of my neighbors it's actually the across the street neighbor with the adult children that has more cars on the street. My neighbor with the apartment has parking in her driveway and I think the renter rides a scooter anyway.
The OP said she would just be right up the street, so would be able to check by frequently. Maybe it's not a bad idea in that situation?
Quote:
Originally Posted by laxmom2
Any management companies come highly recommended? I live right up the street, so was hoping I could handle things, but can look into this option.
Location: Chapel Hill, NC, formerly NoVA and Phila
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Some clarification: You can use a property management firm to help you find a tenant, and then you can manage the property yourself. Or you can find a property management company to do both parts. Or you can do both parts yourself.
When we were going to sell our Northern Virginia house, we decided at the last minute to rent it instead. I found a tenant and managed it myself. And frankly, we had a 100% positive experience. I listed it on Militarybyowner.com and Craigslist. I ended up finding my renter from Craigslist, believe it or not, and he was awesome! I was SO SO glad I did not use a property management company to find me a tenant. Because I had a bad vibe about one tenant who probably would have looked good on paper. I will warn you that it was time consuming until we found the tenant and got him in place. So if you have no extra time, it may not be for you. But I wasn't working outside the home and could handle answering calls, questions, etc.
I "clicked" with the tenant we rented to. I did a credit/background check and that was it. He mailed me a check promptly each month. I think there were maybe two-three issues crop up during the one year+ that he rented from us. Simple problems that I would not have needed a management company to handle for me. Rather than the management company call a plumber, for example, I called a plumber. Super simple. And it was an old, 1950s house, so it's not like we had a new, shiny problem-free property. (Although, on the other hand, because it was an older not in perfect condition property, I wasn't as stressed about it). It was also in an upper-middle class, family-oriented town, which I assume is similar to where you are looking to rent in Cary. We are even still Facebook friends with our former tenant.
We also rented out our condo in South Florida ourselves, because the property management there we wanted to use just to FIND us a tenant wanted take a ridiculous percentage of the rent each YEAR that the tenant lived there plus one month up front (not even for managing it, just finding us a tenant). In the interest of full disclosure, a former neighbor of my brother ended up renting the property, so we knew a bit about him in advance. In any case, we had zero problems with this tenant either. We also had a few issues crop up during the 2 1/2 years he rented, with the biggest one being the AC not working in the dead of summer. For the week, he was without it, I credited him his full rent. He was happy as a clam to live there rent free for a week even without air, and it was still a very low expense for me compared to the 8-10% per month a management company charges to manage the place.
I know not everyone has such good experiences, but we do tend to hear about the bad ones more than the good ones, so I just wanted to share my pretty problem-free experiences as a new landlord.
I didn't rent out property in North Carolina, but generally, you can rent out YOUR home to whomever you want if you are not "in the real estate business", which generally applies to people who own and rent out more than than four housing units. In other words, the Fair Housing law doesn't apply to small time individuals renting out a property or two. *Note: I am not a lawyer or a real estate professional, but that was my understanding at the time I did our rentals. If anyone with more knowledge, particularly in North Carolina, please chime in.*
It was VERY helpful to read the real estate rental section in C-D. And in that forum, they have links to landlord-tenant laws in each state. Read the North Carolina one and familiarize yourself with it. This is very important because each state has different laws. For example, in some states, you can only collect first month's rent for a security deposit, not first and last. Each state might also have different laws on when rent is considered "late" as another example. The standard lease from the state should help you, but you really need to read up on the laws in NC. I bought the standard Virginia rental lease from one of those online legal sites like legalzoom or Nolo for about $20. For Florida, the state had a government site that made their standard rental leases available for free, which was great.
It IS a part-time job in the beginning, learning the ins and outs and finding a tenant. But once they are in, the workload was very minimal for me. While I was ultimately glad I found my own tenants, I think that is harder work than actually managing the property. I felt like I could call a handyman just as easily as the property management firm can. And there were NO 3 AM calls. I'd say we averaged maybe 3-4 calls per year between both tenants.
Must be? Out of the 26 tenants, probably 20 on average I would never even hear from during a given month. All my rental payments are either directly deposited into my bank account or they have a check issued by their banks and I just collect them all at the beginning of the month for 1 big deposit. Say the other 6 have issues, I just call whoever my necessary tech I need to do the work is (hvac, electric, plumbing, general punchwork/handyman) etc. Now that I think about, it is probably less than 10 hours a month most months. Now, I have completely renovated about 20 of those 26 units, I mean complete full scale renovations, including all mechanicals, so that helps out a ton on a reduced amount of tenant calls. Most of my time spent on real estate each month is moreso me scouting out new potential properties than me handling rental issues.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ucctgg
Wow, that's 23 Minutes per month per unit to handle all of the rental issues ? Every other responder here must be something very wrong.
Must be? Out of the 26 tenants, probably 20 on average I would never even hear from during a given month. All my rental payments are either directly deposited into my bank account or they have a check issued by their banks and I just collect them all at the beginning of the month for 1 big deposit. Say the other 6 have issues, I just call whoever my necessary tech I need to do the work is (hvac, electric, plumbing, general punchwork/handyman) etc. Now that I think about, it is probably less than 10 hours a month most months. Now, I have completely renovated about 20 of those 26 units, I mean complete full scale renovations, including all mechanicals, so that helps out a ton on a reduced amount of tenant calls. Most of my time spent on real estate each month is moreso me scouting out new potential properties than me handling rental issues.
If you have 26 tenants who all pay on time and never violate your policies, you're doing far better than most landlords. That's very fortunate for you.
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Being a landlord is great when you have good tenants. When I was renting out my condo back in NOVA, my first tenant was a young male coworker. He was great, paid on time, no problems at all. After he moved out I got a new tenant - young couple with a little baby. They never paid rent after the first month and I had to go to court to evict them. The worst part is that they somehow managed to completely infest my previously clean condo with roaches in less than two months of living there. It was like a horror movie! Hired a realtor to manage the place after that (he owned other units in the complex). My next tenant was mostly okay - and when he wasn't, the realtor dealt with it. Sold the place after 10 years for just about what I paid for it. Oh, and for more than a few years I lost money on it every month - rent didn't cover mortgage/condo fee. Never, ever, again.
Being a landlord is great when you have good tenants. When I was renting out my condo back in NOVA, my first tenant was a young male coworker. He was great, paid on time, no problems at all. After he moved out I got a new tenant - young couple with a little baby. They never paid rent after the first month and I had to go to court to evict them. The worst part is that they somehow managed to completely infest my previously clean condo with roaches in less than two months of living there. It was like a horror movie! Hired a realtor to manage the place after that (he owned other units in the complex). My next tenant was mostly okay - and when he wasn't, the realtor dealt with it. Sold the place after 10 years for just about what I paid for it. Oh, and for more than a few years I lost money on it every month - rent didn't cover mortgage/condo fee. Never, ever, again.
Same here.... NEVER AGAIN.
Also, if you have a landlord's insurance policy, there are some things tenants can do to destroy your home that that policy won't cover... like if their pet(s) destroy the place. I assume this is because that sort of thing happens pretty often. If it was rare, it would be a good thing to cover.
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