HI all
First hearings for my rentals start Oct 22. I have seen the comps and we have some good comps that really might slash my tax bills on these considerably PLUS.. where I live.. Naperville. the dispute period opens next month but in just perusing the assessor website myself I found a house 2 homes down with 700 MORE square feet w an assessed value more than $50k LESS than mine. Hoping to get major tax decreases through this appeals process. Dropping $50k off my assessed value has a $3500 impact.. and that is still 700 square feet more room than I have.
in other news..last unit filled w the rentals AND got 1 renewal at the 3 unit, pending 1 more and pending the new renewal lease on that one house
the existing property manager and I are under tense relations as more and more stuff, inattention, errors come out. double billing, missing credits for rent payments, charging me $2500 last month for 'repairs' I was not aware of and am disputing.. and he is struggling to substantiate and now trying to settle w me for a lower amount. may have to get an attorney involved... also these renewals should occur BEFORE the lease term ends. just on and on . anyway.. one more month w him and then hopefully improves and really one of the key areas was repairs (not knowing about them, price gouging, inability to trust the repair was actually done not just made up etc etc). New property manager gets my approval BEFORE starting work and gets an estimate up front and takes PICTURES! and I can talk to the repair people if I want
again I looked through my notes. this did NOT occur w this properrty manager upfront. just got progressively worse..
Both tenants we moved in want to stay a long time and have friends/ family in area by the way.. hard to get cheaper fixeed up homes then the ones I have so may hang on to these.
So have a lot of people wanting to stay in these 'hard to rent homes' and have only 1 house that may makes sense to sell right now and investigating doing so. apparently per realtor and new property manager though, there are people starting to buy up to live in this area so area may be going up.
Totals are in. I raised rents $306/per month this year but vacancy (evicting 2 from the 3 units, and 2 slow to rent homes ) has me way over my vacancy budget and all these unexplained repairs and what feels like price gouging has me over my repair budget. The rehab I managed myself was over $2k less to do MOMRE work than through the property manager and I hired actual tradespeople not folks off the street
Exciting news on real estate tax dispute and other news
September 24th, 2015 at 09:51 pm
September 24th, 2015 at 11:27 pm 1443137230
It's important to remember the market is cyclical and things will change. Owning these properties free and clear is a major advantage. Raising rents and making improvements now will give you a strong advantage when the market turns. If you can get the one house you are thinking of selling fixed up and performing, that will also help. In your shoes, I would not consider selling unless and until I had a firm plan to replace the property with something with a better ROI. I might consider it if the net proceeds could pay off the other loans.
September 25th, 2015 at 01:30 pm 1443187823
September 25th, 2015 at 05:39 pm 1443202790
Would you have to take on debt to move up to a B neighborhood? Can you qualify? If you are only going to invest the net sale proceeds, what can you buy in the B neighborhood?
What are typical "good deals" in a high B neighborhood? What is the rent as a percentage of the purchase cost, including all the expenses of closing and improvements a typical B neighborhood house would require?
The reason I ask this is better quality neighborhoods have significantly lower cap rates and cash flow is your goal. You don't know yet how successful the new property manager will be with your current properties. Maybe he can get the problems under control. In your shoes, I would wait until you have a better idea of how this will play out.