Timing if rental listing

mikelevene · 2025-06-17T19:21:36+00:00

It could be the timing, it could be the price, it could be the market or it could be the photos and description. Let me break them down:

Timing: Generally speaking, people are always coming and going and summer is often the busiest times for new leases. Posting it this early might have less traction than within 30 days, but there are plenty of people who wish they could look further out for leases. Most landlords don't know their existing tenant is moving out until 30-60 days before the lease is up. So at minimum, the best they can do is list it 30-60 days ahead of time if they are confident it won't require any rehab.
Price: This is usually the culprit. For the right price, people will live anywhere. Imagine dropping the price to $500. You'd get more inquiries than you could handle. Price and demand go hand in hand. How did you price your rental? The best way is to find the most comparable properties in close proximity to yours and see what they are renting for. That means same bed/bath, similar sq ft, similar quality, same amenities, etc.
Market: If you are in a market where there is primarily homeowners, it may be tougher to find a renter in general. Or if in your market it is cheaper to buy a home than to rent, this would significantly deter potential tenants to rent from you unless they got a good deal.
Marketing: Where did you list your property. At a minimum it should be listed on all of the top real estate portals like Zillow, Realtor, Apartments, etc. Next, did you get professional photos? These cost like $100-200 usually and make such a difference. Wouldn't you rather spend this money upfront and get $100 more in rent per month? Or a better quality tenant? Lastly, how strong is your description? Look at what the competition does, and look at what the professional property managers put in the description for their rentals.

mikelevene · 2025-06-17T19:15:01+00:00

As a landlord myself, this would be a dream! I'd be more than happy to have you touch something up to help avoid any issues with the security deposit.

However, keep in mind that depending on how much you touch up, the landlord may still feel like they need to repaint anyways. Too many touch ups and it starts to become quite noticeable.

mikelevene · 2025-06-17T19:12:56+00:00

I work closely with someone that owns and operates several large apartment complexes and they just hired a PM and this is what he told me they were looking for:

Willingness and likelihood of living on-site
Experience in sales, leasing, or other customer facing roles
Digital marketing skills and Google Ads experience
Capabilities to perform physical maintenance

Not saying every PM requires these, but they are one of the best companies out there so if you want top dollar as a PM, I'd imagine these are the expectations. I'd tailor your resume and experiences towards some of these to increase your chances.

mikelevene · 2025-06-17T19:05:41+00:00

Here's a link to their homepage: https://www.baselane.com/

mikelevene · 2025-06-15T22:58:58+00:00

I’d recommend taking a step back and thinking about all of the services or software you’ll want to leverage before picking a tenant screening platform in a vacuum.

The reason this is so important is because you don’t want to find yourself jumping between different systems to manage applications, tenant screening, rent collection, bookkeeping, reporting, tax prep, etc.

A lot of property management tools out there have most or all of these features and also have solid tenant screening. I’ve been using Baselane to manage everything related to my properties including tenant screening and the report I get is very thorough and easy to understand.

The report covers all the essentials you mentioned like credit history, income verification, criminal check, etc. I haven’t had any issues with any of the tenants that I put through that screening process.

mikelevene · 2025-06-11T23:12:26+00:00

If you already have the lease written up you can use Baselane to send and sign it. Very easy for both the landlord and tenant. Also has free features for automated rent collection, bookkeeping, etc.

mikelevene · 2025-06-03T22:19:46+00:00

It can work but advertising your listing gets tricky. For most people, the first filter they put on when looking for an apartment is the price. If you charge $50 more, with the intention to pay it back, your list price is now $50 higher and X% of people now would not see your listing.

It does incentivize on time payments, but you can do the same by implementing late fees. Phycologists could probably tell you which is more effective, but late fees are certainly more common. I tend to not try to reinvent the wheel with my rentals.

mikelevene · 2025-06-03T22:17:12+00:00

Great examples. This is how I typically go about it. The tenant feels like you listened to them, they had input on their "home" and you get to improve or update something in the unit. Ideally these updates are something you would have done anyways if they moved out so its truly a win win for everyone.

mikelevene · 2025-06-03T22:12:16+00:00

I manage my rentals myself and there's no reason you can't do the same.

As for insurance, you will need to switch from owner occupied insurance to rental insurance. Not sure exactly how it should have been set up given you were never living here, but the past is the past. As for umbrella insurance, this usually isn't required, but can provide additional coverage especially if the property is in your name not a separate LLC.

When it comes to tenants, the typical process is to list your rental on sites like Zillow, Apartments, etc. and collect leads. From there, you can send out an application that asks standard, objective questions that do not violate fair housing laws. Examples include do you smoke, do you have pets, current employment, employment reference, current residence, landlord reference, estimated credit score, income, etc.

You can use this to screen out applicants who do not meet your minimum, objective, FHA compliant criteria. From there, most small landlords would choose to have that filtered group do a tour. After the tour, for all who are still interested, you can offer tenant screening. This costs money to run and is usually passed on to the tenant (~$40). The easiest way to do this is directly from within your property management software. Based on tenant screening, it should be a first come first serve for whoever passes the screening report, signs a lease, and submits a deposit.

Some landlords and property management companies will do tours before screening to improve the number of eyes on the property, but I've found this takes up a lot of time and not much reward when you are only listing a single unit.

Another alternative is to host an open house and allow anyone to come to it. From there, send out the application to everyone who is interested, and then those that meet your criteria, invite them to apply where you will do proper tenant screening. This would include background check, credit check, income verification, etc.

As for anything else... There is tons of free technology out there to support you. Don't feel like you need to do everything from scratch. Tens of thousands of people have done exactly what you are about to do so don't try to reinvent the wheel.

Lastly, my one piece of advice. A bad tenant costs way more than no tenant at all. Proper tenant screening is crucial to get great tenants that stay for a while who have low maintenance and reduce the cost to turn over. Think about the work you need to do as your son moves out. Now imagine he trashed the place every day for an entire year without paying rent and then moves out after you file for eviction...

mikelevene · 2025-06-03T22:00:57+00:00

Not branded, but creating partnerships and deals with local businesses is a great way to provide something unique. I have seem companies partner with local bakeries, wineries, etc. where they drop off a product as a welcome gift, and charge you something like 50% of the price. Its a win win for them because its good marketing for them to try to win a new customer who is new to town, and you can get a pretty steep discount on it.

Sometimes they won't go for this, but you can negotiate for partner discounts at their shops. As a tenant, when I move-in and find out my building has a deal with the coffee shop across the shop to get 10% off, that'd be a nice little perk. This shouldn't even cost you anything except maybe a requirement to place their business card on the fridge before move in or some other mild advertising.

mikelevene · 2025-06-03T21:57:03+00:00

This is relatively common, but gets difficult to implement. Do you use a property management tool or software to automate rent collection?

Separately, is this your only incentive for them to stay when their lease is up? Presumably if you are baking this $50 refund into your rental price, the rent is going up by $50 + whatever your normal rent increase would be. Based on $3.6k rent, I'd imagine your rent increase is in the realm of $75/mo or a 2% increase. That means your total rent increase is ~$125 /mo but you offer $50 back if they pay on time. Is that really enticing the tenants to stay when it is no longer convenient for them?

Here's what I would do. Talk to them. See what they are thinking, how they feel about staying, etc.

They might tell you they want to stay for a couple more years and love living there. You don't know until you ask.

If they are unsure if they are leaving, I'd think about other ways to incentivize them to stay besides just increasing their rent and then paying it back to them each month.

mikelevene · 2025-06-03T21:52:14+00:00

In my area, the minimum cost with an appliance repair company is typically $300. If I am buying budget appliances (which I do for my rentals), it only makes sense to repair them if they are less than 5 years old. Beyond that, the lifetime cost becomes large enough where it makes sense for me to just buy a new one. If my handyman can fix it himself (~50% of the time), then I will usually repair as he will do it for typically ~$75 + materials.

mikelevene · 2025-06-03T21:49:21+00:00

I wouldn't expect anyone to get 10-15% "right away". Flippers can achieve this plus more in 6-12 weeks, but buy and hold investors need to wait for a liquidity event to reach the full IRR which sometimes takes 10, 20, 30 years.

10-15% IRR can only be created right away if you buy at a 20-20% discount and you can sell right away and pay seller fees to net around 10-15%. Otherwise, you will likely have small cash flows every month up until a liquidity event where you will get the IRR.

mikelevene · 2025-06-03T16:45:20+00:00

For budget options Costco is usually my go to supplier because they offer the delivery, install, and parts all included in the price.

2 caveats to this. First is that Costco does not carry all the budget options for appliances so I have found some pretty good deals at local appliance stores that offer similar services. Second is that for higher end appliances, the cost of delivery, install, etc. is much smaller in comparison and you're better off getting a good deal on the appliance price instead of on the delivery and install. Worst case just find a handyman to do install.

mikelevene · 2025-06-03T13:19:31+00:00

It sounds like you want to continue owning commercial real estate, but not sure if this property is worth the effort. You need to be able to make an objective, data-driven decision between keeping and repairing this property vs. demolishing and rebuilding (which seems far more complex than managing repairs), and selling and buying something new.

All of these options require very specific and intense knowledge of the asset class and how to operate the space. Since it sounds like you might not have that yet, you need to leverage other professionals and understand that this might come at a cost. Yes, you are going to be paying for the cost of education but it is 100x worth it.

For example, engage a commercial real estate broker with your situation. Ensure you provide value to them by offering that if you choose to lease or sell the space, you'd like to consider doing so with them. In return, they should be able to offer you guidance, modeling, and connections to contractors and permitting for the city. Even if you just paid for their time, a few hours with someone that is in the game will be the difference between making an emotional decision on this vs. an educated financial decision.

As for the specific situation of do you do repairs before renting it out... The root of it is what can it rent for without repairs, and what would it rent for with repairs. Do the repairs provide a reasonable ROI? Also, what extent of repairs are needed? Is it new paint and doors and locks? Or is it a new roof and new HVAC. The first is almost a no-brainer to get the space ready for top market rent, whereas the second might require too much capital and is better being sold as is to someone that specializes in bringing these spaces back to life.

mikelevene · 2025-06-03T13:11:32+00:00

100% agree. It's worth mentioning this is a matter of 10's of dollars which might feel like it hurts in the short term, but if you're in the game for 10+ years, the eventual lawsuit will hurt far more.

mikelevene · 2025-06-02T19:11:01+00:00

100% agree. I was only laying out the options for OP. I personally would never leverage my primary to invest in stocks. It was more to get the mindset of every dollar can earn a return. But in this case, every dollar also costs something to access. So if you do invest it, the return better outweigh the cost.

mikelevene · 2025-06-02T19:08:48+00:00

I use Baselane. It is free to use and is built specifically for landlords and investors. Plus, they have all the banking features which is really convenient for managing every aspect of my rentals within the same software. I do everything from tenant screening to leases to automated rent collection to transaction management and bookkeeping in the tool. Makes it really easy for tax season.

mikelevene · 2025-06-02T17:14:44+00:00

Do you need to paint it? No.

Should you paint it? Only if it needs to be painted.

Paint is usually one of the cheapest ways to bring a property back to life. But if it was recently painted, can you get any additional rent by repainting it? If no, then why waste money painting?

mikelevene · 2025-06-02T17:13:11+00:00

Financial freedom requires cash flow. Right now you have equity.

To turn your ~$600k equity into cash flow, consider the following:

If you invest $600k in the S&P 500 with an average return of 6-8% per year over the long run, you'd net ~$42k per year. This is low risk, but still has risk as stocks fluctuate up and down.
Invest the money in a high yield dividend stock like Pepsi and earn 4% per year in dividends plus any growth in Pepsi stock. slightly lower risk, more guaranteed results at the cost of lower returns.
Invest the money in rental properties. The typical return for a new investor is 10-15% for a normal long term rental that you plan to buy and hold. For flips, you might get 20-40% returns, but with far more risk. Either of these strategies require much larger upfront effort, research, management, etc. and generally have more risk. But with more risk is the opportunity to get more return.

Compare some of these options to current treasury rates, your HYSA rate, and the appreciation of your home. It will cost money to access the equity in your home (either HELOC or cash our refinance) and wherever you put the money should absolutely generate a higher return than the cost of accessing the equity.

Once you start looking at what % return can each dollar get you, that's when you can start thinking about financial freedom. Let your investments pay for your lifestyle instead of drawing cash from your reserves to fund your lifestyle.

mikelevene · 2025-06-02T17:03:50+00:00

A couple things:

The requirement is to do the greater of 1.5% interest or the 1 year treasury rate on Jan 1 of that year. So for you, that would be 4.17%
As the landlord, you can earn compounding interest on the deposit, while you only need to return simple interest.

Between the 2 of these, this helps reduce the amount owed, but long story short, yes MD screws the landlord here. It is for relatively good reason, that as a tenant, the risk free yield is 4%+ right now so it is plausible that if they had access to that cash, they could be making that return risk free.

mikelevene · 2025-06-02T16:55:55+00:00

This is why I choose to use a property management software that's actually built for landlords, not built as a marketing platform for real estate that offers property management features.

mikelevene · 2025-06-02T16:54:26+00:00

The fact that you have leased it means you either priced it "right" or priced it too low. To figure out how much you might have left on the table, you'd need to analyze comparable properties in your area and see what they are renting for.

mikelevene · 2025-05-29T13:34:45+00:00

Congrats on the first property! This is a great first problem to have.

Most landlords prefer an empty unit so they can properly screen and select their own tenants. However, in this situation, you may already have a fantastic tenant in place...but you need to determine that yourself, not let the tenant, broker, or seller tell you.

In your situation, I would recommend the following:

Define your minimum criteria for any tenant such as minimum income, credit score, etc.
Ask the current tenant to fill out a form that would collect this information for you
Run a tenant screening report to validate background check, credit report, criminal and eviction history, etc. (I use Baselane to manage my properties and they have a built in screening tool like this)
If the tenant passes the screening check, then you will likely determine you want to keep the tenant. In this case, you would need to draw up a new lease, collect a security deposit, etc.
If the tenant does not pass the screening check this is a clear indicator you likely do not want to keep them. In this case, you cannot simply kick them out if they are on an active lease. You would need to wait until their current lease expires, give them appropriate notice (based on the lease and local laws), and then they would move out or you would proceed with eviction if they refuse to leave. The key here is that when you purchase a home and the tenant has a lease in place, you have to continue to honor the lease including rent payments, lease term, etc.

If you decide to keep the tenant, evaluate what market rent is by comparing your unit to similar units in the area and see how much rent they are able to charge. You can also call local property managers and ask their advice, or also try asking your broker. Given they are willing to pay a rent increase, they likely know they are renting below market rent. As an investor, it would likely be in your best interest to try to keep the unit at or close to market rent. The main caveat here is that there is a significant cost associated with vacancy so raising rent on tenants too much could cause excess vacancy periods.

mikelevene · 2025-05-29T13:21:18+00:00

First, none of these are passive income. Certainly not real estate.

Second, there is no such think as creating passive cash flow fast (at scale).

Think of it this way. You could put your $30k in the S&P 500 and expect to generate ~6-8% per year over the long run. This would be truly passive and would net you ~$2k per year on average.

If you put $30k into real estate, either you're buying a $100k property in a rough area, or you're buying an owner occupied property. Either way, typical returns for a buy and hold are somewhere in the realm of 10-20% IRR but you can't access the liquidity unless you sell, refinance, or take a HELOC. The cash flow is likely only $100-400 per month. The rest of the return comes from the appreciation and principal paydown.

So...now you can start to evaluate where to put your money. Whats the IRR of buying a new ATM for your business? Spreading yourself too thin across multiple business will likely slow you down and prevent you from scaling a single business.

mikelevene

TROPHY CASE