Posts Tagged ‘leases’

Family Dinner Time, Your Phone Rings..Do You Take The Call?

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

After months of getting your investment property prepared, the first call comes right as you sit down with your family for dinner.  You are not sure who is calling, but from now on every unrecognized number may be a tenant…a source of revenue to offset the payment and expenses you have incurred.

You ask your family to excuse you as you slip off into another room.  Sure enough, it is somebody calling to find out about the three bedroom home for rent.  As your heart skips a beat, you describe all the personal touches, along with the not so personal touches.  All the fresh paint, and efficient windows, and the extra storage.  The caller sounds nice enough and now they ask if they can see the property!

“This is going to be easy” that little voice in your head tells you.  The caller says they are free after work tomorrow.  You say great, forgetting for the moment that tomorrow is Jimmy’s playoff soccer game.  Remember, you need to get this home rented.   After confirming the time, you hang up and realize that you do not have the caller’s number.  Maybe it is on caller ID…but no…they must have used a blocked number.  You return to dinner as the table is being cleared.

That night your wife reminds you about Jimmy’s soccer game tomorrow night.  Immediately, you realize the conflict and wonder how you can find these callers to reschedule.  That fails, so you hope your best buddy can show it to them tomorrow.  He has plans.  So, you are stuck.  Maybe a quick showing and race across town and still catch the second half.  

The thought hits you, maybe you really should have budgeted for help with this hobby.

The showing time arrives.  You bring two rental applications found on line..just in case.  Not sure how you will get the background checks or credit pulled but you  will figure that out once you have the applications completed. 

 At the agreed time…no prospective tenant.  Fifteen minutes late, they pull up in a 20 year old van falling apart and very dirty.  It is exhuming exhaust.  The prospects both grind out their cigarettes on the driveway as they get out.   Both possible tenants begin to unload children from the rear.  First one, then two, then three and finally four and five.  Lets see, 7 occupants in a 3 bedroom 1000 square foot home.   Your heart sinks a little.

You show off your pride and joy and learn that there are some mysterious circumstances about where these people currently live.  A reference to how nice it will be to actually live in a home instead of the van by one of the kids catches your attention.  At that moment, you decide to ask what they do for a living.   One is unemployed..the other just got a job after months of unemployment.  The job involves selling magazines and appears to not really be as an employee but as a contractor.

Of course, they love the house and request the applications.  You hand them out and ask them to fax or email them back as you really need to run.  They do not have fax or email and want to fill them out now.  You are screwed.  Jimmy scores the winning goal..you miss it.  You waste an hour with a family that you are not even sure how to screen to officially reject.

Why is it again that you are doing this yourself?

Mistakes you learn by and the next time you will be smarter.  No answering the phone during dinner…but what if?  More pre-screening on the phone…but what if they call during dinner and you are in a hurry?  At least get a phone number…that one you can do every time!  How many more summer evenings meeting tenants before you find one?  Then, won’t it be fun to increase the return on this hobby by being there to service the leaky faucets and the oven that does not work on Thanksgiving?  Oh, and collect late fees when rent is late.

Leasing and property management sure sounds like fun when you have a life and a career..doesn’t it?  Most people actually have to enjoy experiences like this to decide that they understand why management and leasing companies exist. 

Save yourself the headaches.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Best Practices, Owners, Qualifications, Rent Preparation, Responsibilities, Screening, Selecting A Manager, Tenants, Uncategorized | No Comments »

How Do I Get Ink On The Agreement?

Monday, June 28th, 2010

OK, silly headline.  I am writing about a pretty unsophisticated topic here, but wanted to pass along some tips and a little bit of information on how we get signatures from owners who we can’t meet face to face.  In fact, because so much of our communication is electronic, even owners we could meet seem to prefer other options.

We have an owner who lives overseas.  In the old, old, days we would have used snail mail to get a contract or lease executed.   We would have worked on a telephone authorization (risky and not going to hold up in court!) and wait 2-3 weeks to receive a signed document.   Then, in the 1980′s we had this amazing device that cost $1000 called a fax machine.  (Am I dating myself?)  We had documents that were printed on this thermal paper that curled and faded!  Powerful stuff when a year later you could not read a document!  So, we still needed snail mail to get a original copy.  Faxes improved and in the 1990′s you could get a “plain paper” fax.  No more fading, but often very poor resolution.  So, we still used mail to have an original copy, but by then we had options that sped up the delivery of documents such as Fed Ex and UPS.   Then email became popular and all we had to do was figure out a way to make it easy for clients to return a nice looking document from their email, with their signature.  There are two options, printing and scanning, or faxing the returned document.  Faxing works pretty good unless their fax machine is dated or the telephone connection is bad (overseas connections).  We still like to have the documents in case the resolution is poor.   There is often enough savings that visiting an office store is cheaper than using a delivery service.   Printing, scanning, and emailing the documents back to us is the preferred method. 

Our clients and Associates are recommended to install a free program on their computer for creating pdf documents.  There are a number of ways to send back an executed copy to us via email.  After printing and executing  the document, our client can scan or fax to make an electronic version.   We really prefer not to receive the fax because the phone line issues can often cause resolution problems.  Most of the simplest printers today also offer scanners and copiers for pennies additional.  A document can be scanned with the signature and saved to a computer.  If the scanner does not offer a pdf converter, and makes photograph type faxes, these need to be converted to a pdf.  In fact,a free pdf converter program is a wonderful addition for many different uses.  Check out pdffactory or cutepdf.  

Today we actually have electronic signatures making their way into the popular mainstream.  We have not gone this far but I suspect it won’t be long until we offer this service.  Of all the improvements over the last 30 years, this one may take the most getting use to.  An electronic signature does not actually provide a signature in the traditional sense.  It provides a verification that the person who executed the document on a computer, can be traced to a computer.  In some cases there are verification processes associated with a person but most I have seen go back to an IP address and involve a check box or initials typed.   The most popular service in real estate for this is called Docusign. 

Be warned though, the future is in electronic documents.  The improvements in speed, resolution, and legal enforceability have been made.   We are really just trying to decide which vendors and how to implement.  For now though, the suggestions above should cut your delivery costs substantially and provide all parties a faster turnaround on document execution.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Best Practices, Owners, Procedures, Property Manager, Uncategorized | No Comments »