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I inherited a nice and very large mobile home in Southern California. Including the property it is on. It is like like house and not mobile. )
I have property management in place as I live very far away. 3,000 miles.
I have had tenants in the place since last Feb. of 2009. I have had a lot of expenses since. A double oven in the wall was no longer working and I was told it was the law to replace it. With labor it cost about 1000 or more. Plus a plumber has done repairs twice and it cost nearly 600.00.
I get about 595.00 in rent minus the 10% the property management get. Now it turns out that the pipe leading from the home to the meter is corroded and has to be replaced one day. I have been informed it will require permits and probably cost in the thousands.
I have no mortgage and very low taxes but still it all adds up. I feel somewhat discouraged. Now I find out too that the tenants are considering moving out because of a musty smell. I did have the place inspected in November of 2008 but this pipe problem wasn't apparent. I was living in the home for two months too. It was my Mother's place and she barely used any water but she mentioned many times that her water bills were too high considering. I know that the water is such in that area that I am not too surprised that the pipe has become corroded.
Bottom line is what am I do with this place? Fix it or get out? Can I even sell it if it has these problems. Everything else about the place should fine in terms of wear and tear because over the years several things were fixed and/or replaced. I also always thought the rent was too low for this place but followed the advice of the management.
Now I may lose the tenants
due to some musty smells. Should I call the tenants to at least get more direct info? I never have spoken to them before but need to know more details. More importantly the management has another plumber coming in at no cost to me to see if something can be done to try to fix this problem. Maybe without replacing the whole thing. I don't have a lot of money right now and the whole thing is becoming a burden.
Any ideas? I feel so discouraged. Thanks for any insights.
I too inherited some rental investment property from my mother. In the 50 years she owned it only bandaids were used for repairs and she wouldn't put any money into major renovations. Now with her death I am facing unreal bills just to get them -duplexes- rentable or even sellable. She was an absentee landlord with spotty management and probably was robbed blind.
In my case the land is worth more than the buildings but because
they are in historical neighborhood the original footprint can't be increased. I am slowly getting them in tip top shape not only to rent but in order to get a decent sell price but I must wait until this market gets better.
If you don't have the money to make repairs, it probably will be empty until a flipper buys it. I can tell you, it will only get worse. I'm dealing with mold and mildew problems and just had to let a tenant break a lease. This will hurt me financially but at least it will be empty so I can make repairs.
If you don't want the headaches, I would advise to get the place sellable so you can sleep at night. That is probably what I will do in a year or two.
Good luck.
There's only so much advice from other people that is useful. After that point, you have to do your own work. Research the market (both the rental and the seller's market). Have a budget for repairs.
I don't really see much option besides fixing these issues though. If you don't want to rent it out, and try to sell, you aren't going to get a very good price unless you deal with the musty smell and other repairs.
You should always presume that a tenant will vacate at the end of their lease. If they chose to stay and you don't have a gap in occupancy and rent payments, its just more money in your pocket. But at least you are prepared for the possibility of having to find new tenants every year.
And isn't $595.00 a month rent cheap in Southern California?
And why would it cost that much to replace a water line from the meter to the house? How many feet is it? I don't know California prices but are they that much higher than Texas prices?
Thanks all for your imput. I think no matter what I should get the repairs done when I can afford to. As well get a second opinion. Pick someone from phone listings. I can call around and try and get someone on recommendation from contacts I have over there. I can't make up my mind what to do with this place but will try to scrunch numbers and decide once and for all if I ever want to live there. That part of California in the Inland Empire of Riverside County gets really hot in the summer/fall season. Too hot. Plus it's a bit dull out there. Very dull in fact.
I think I could have succeeded in renting it for at least 650.00 but the management insisted on 595.00 The tenants have to pay garbage/water too which is about 65.00 per month. Depends on water usage. The Inland Empire was hit pretty hard in realty. Though I don't think the rent is high enough considering what I see on Craigslist for similar dwellings in that area. Well, the place smells musty now according to them so that is a huge concern. Unless they said that so not to get an increase. Still I think they are sincere. I have never spoken to them directly.
Where I live in Montreal 595.00 barely gets you a three room apartment. I wish I had such a big place like that over here in fact. There is a small laundry room too with washer and dryer which I don't even have in my apt. :0( Plus there is a dishwasher and the place is huge with two bedrooms, two bathrooms and two living rooms plus a car port too. But like I said before it's dull over there and soooo hot weather wise. Plus the place is in a age 55 up and those places tend to a lot less expensive even in California.
I think you're seriously underestimating Riverside County. Sure, it's usually about ten degrees hotter than Los Angeles in the summer, and it's not quite as exciting as living directly in LA - but clearly that isn't too big of a deal to the over two million people who choose to live here! Personally I love the sun, and summer is my favorite time of year, so I love it. And this is Southern California - people come here from all over, because of the sun.
I have no idea what most mobile homes rent for, but $595 sounds really really low. I would definitely suggest doing some research!
Well an update. I just found out that when the pipe burst out back that a plumber came out about 8 months ago. Left a hole out in back of the house all this time. Though for that I blame property management for not telling me. They don't seem to care at all about anything but making a call during emergencies or collecting the rent. I only found out today speaking with a new plumber. Plus the job was not done right plus it's not necessary to change the whole thing the whole pipe. That would have cost in the thousands. I have a quote for 390.00 So that is easily manageable if that will be the end of the story. (fingers crossed)
Also spoke to the tenants for the first time and asked them if management had told them not to use the shower stall in the master bathroom. To just use the one in the other bathroom. I told management a few times before and after the tenants moved in. The tenants said they were never told anything about that at all.
So now I see it is very important to touch base with whom is living in your property. Another incident was that the second time a plumber was called two or three months ago I didn't know anything about it until I received my rental check in the mail minus nearly 300.00 for the plumbing bill. They had called a plumber on a weekend. Now they are saying (management) that they contacted me. I guess via email but I never got that email. I check my email everyday plus don't even get that much email so I wouldn't have missed it. I really feel like all I got for paying them was that they made a few calls for me plus mailed me my rent which always takes two weeks to get here. I have been asking for direct deposit for the last five months too and is it that hard to set up? Though that last part is not a big deal.
Today I contacted another property management that has an A rating at BBB. The one I'm with now is rated -c. So hopefully things will get better. I would have liked to have known about the hole in the back of the house so from now on I will check up on what is going on through the tenants. I would like to get rid of the property but will try and hang on until the market gets stronger like many people are doing. At least the management didn't do worse things.
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