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Hi, I'm Ella Gurfinkel, your host of the AskElla Show and senior loan officer at Fairway Independent Mortgage. On my podcast, I cut through the noise to bring you honest conversations about real estate, mortgages, and financial planning.
I interview industry experts to tackle everything from homebuying basics to complex topics like reverse mortgages, trusts, and market trends. With decades of experience, I'm passionate about dispelling myths and providing clear, actionable advice.
Whether you're buying your first home, refinancing, or planning for retirement, I'm here to help you make informed decisions. Join me for straightforward talk about real estate and beyond!
hello everybody this is another installment of the extended ask Ella show and this is where I get to bring on cool guests and talk about issues that are real estate related real estate adjacent and frankly things you kind of need to know financially so today I have an amazing amazing amazing and amazing person um who also happens to be my property manager Noel Denton was Del n PDX Property Management did I get that right you got right it is a handful so we're going to talk about renting out your real estate something or other in the Portland area predominantly and in Portland area in general and the questions I want Noel to answer today are many so we'll focus on just a few because of course you know we can go on for a day which we would if you really unleash both of us if you own rental real estate in the Portland metro and again more generally in Oregon Portland metro has its own quirks shall we say and we'll address them but if you own your own rental real estate or if you're thinking of buying a rental or turning your current home into a rental there are so many things that you need to know especially especially if that property happens to be in Portland proper animal Dom County so without Much Ado again Noel you are my go-to for all real estate rental questions and I want you to talk a little bit about what it is that you do what is about uh what it is that Delan does and tell us a little bit about like I said what you do what your property management firm does and of course that will bring up the next or the first question why is it so important to have a property manager instead of trying to DIY renting out a home or a condo or a town home or a duplex Triplex fourplex in the Portland area the biggest thing about property management is what I think is compliance so all of the laws Oregon has tons of laws for property management across the board yes it is your house yes you own it but you are accepting money for a tenant to live there and those tenants do have rights at Delan what our whole motto is is that we want tenants to be proud of the homes that they live in they want to take pride in the homes that they live and they may be renters but oh my goodness they want their guests to come over they want their guests to see how great their home is and they want to be happy with their property management company and the reason why our tenants are happy with us as property management is because we always ensure that things of compliance are 100% on board so getting repairs done collecting rent friends ensuring that everything just flows smoothly and meanwhile as we do that we are keeping our owner assets at the topof A- line quality levels we do not want owner's assets to start to get run down to start to have things get left to the side that's not who we are we want to maintain our owner's assets throughout throughout because when you do that your tenants are then Happy throughout and throughout and what do happy tenants do happy tenants take good care of homes they pay rent on time and they don't kick up any dust so one of our values is well one of our values is that we are just always within compliance with repairs and we are in those homes multiple times a years and when we're in those homes we're taking multiple photos we're checking all the water features we're going into all of the rooms and we're making sure that a the tenants are held accountable for knowing that they're taking good care of the homes and then we're also there we sometimes find repair items that tenants just whoosh they never think about but they might be causing small very gradual damage to your homes well we'll find them and then we'll mark them and then we'll get them fixed so let's say you have a property with Delan and we have your home rented out four five six years and eventually the tenants are like oh hey let's move on well one of the best things our property management company will do is that when tenants move out you won't be coming in the home and go I have tens of thousands of dollars worth of repairs to do no that is not our quality of homes that is not our standards our homes are going to be maintained in great condition throughout your tency so if it ever does come to a time to sell you won't have to worry about that aspect you'll be able to come in and go maybe I'll do some updates here and there but you're not going to be shell shocked that your asset has slowly been deteriorating the entire time you've had it as a rental not with our company at least now that reminds me actually of what you and I discussed at noi when I discovered you and yes a mutual friend put us in touch but you know full disclosure um I've had two property managers before I found you thank God I found you and the prior one had this nasty habit of I guess just hitting my rental incoming check for the repairs that needed to be done without really talking to me first about those repairs and also from what we discovered later obviously um not at the time because yes I would have dumped them a lot sooner um they were also not really I guess going after the tenant for the damage that the tenants did and I say damage it doesn't mean that they kick the walls in or anything but some of the repairs are normal wear and Terror as you taught me but other repairs are not normal wear and tear and are caused by the tenants so let's talk about that for a second because to me that was an eyeopener and I really want anybody and everybody else who's concerned about getting into a rental property uh business they need to know that no not every repair necessarily is something that they have to pay for out of pocket but also that not all property management companies are created equal to where they will communicate on the level that you do well thank you we always like hearing that so legally if your property management agreements has a trust account which everyone does state of Oregon trust accounts it can be any level of amount ours used to be 500 bucks inflation increase that to $1,000 and that's specifically for emergency repairs you know let's say something bad happens yes 500 bucks is not going to cut it so we hiked ours up to a th but in terms of repairs that is an excellent point there's different categories of repairs so let's just go over there you have essential repairs well what's an essential repair there's multiple categories of that in Oregon you have 48 hours to fix a essential repair that jeopardizes the health or safety of a tenant so what could that mean that could be like a window gets broken the front door lock randomly stops working and they aren't able to securely to secure their home their heat goes out in the middle of winter and it's 20° outside um a pipe burst and is flooding the home those are you know pretty big emergenc ones um you get 48 hours to repair those um a fridge an oven breaks down guess what that's an essential Appliance you get 72 hours to fix those before you are technically out of a compliance and a tenant can come after you for rent money and then you have you know repairs that are essential but you get seven days on those so let's say the plumbing in one of the bathrooms kind of funky or you do have a leak it's not a massive leak but there is a leak but they can catch it with a bucket for the time being or one of the heaters goes out um in one of the rooms so things that are essential you know to live right you get seven days to repair those and then there are the repairs that you get 30 days to repair so like you know a leaking shower head faucet like that that's one you could probably put off a little bit but tenants probably aren't going to be happy that they're gradually losing money from the leaking um or you know one of the hinges of the cupboard just does fall off that happens with wear and tear not torn off because we have seen that too that is tend damage but there are other repairs where like a door stops closing working properly in and out or it's beginning to scratch the carpet because it's shifted things like that you get 30 days to fix washer and dryer not an essential Appliance guess what we're going to push the envelope to 30 days but we also will offer the tenant to pay for laundry care costs during that time because we want our tenants to be happy and enjoy living in their homes um but with that what our company does is we always check in with our owners regardless what the repairs are um our PMA does State Ella that we don't have to I mean if it's under a thousand bucks we do have the executive right the decision the right to make decisions that's actually what the what the Clause is called to just go out and get those repairs done however here it's your home you know and it's my money it's your money it's your home like you need to know what's going on in your home and with that like that stuff adds up it really really does so what we also do here at Delan is we try to train the tenants right of like hey just so you know this is a repair item but do you really want your owner to spend like $199 for like a 20 minute repair where you know it's not really doing anything right now is it okay if we wait like another month or two and other things pop up let's just do a punch list is that okay okay but we communicate with our tenants about that too so they understand and as long as we get it back in writing the tenants fine to do that we're all in the clear I think my biggest issue was and again even though you have the right per the agreement and other property management companies I'm sure do too go in and do the repairs but what landlord wants to have a shocker of why is my monthly rental amount transferred into my account short and of the normal without the communication so the communication piece is really what's most important I feel in this equation besides obviously knowing what the actual repairs are that are essential not so essential or non-essential perfect well I mean we just think communication is key um another thing with communication as with actually L's property is sometimes you have tenants that are just really hard on the home or they are the biggest kutes you've ever seen so when we have tenants like that and we do we they're not renewing but let's just say we do have a set of tenants where I don't know if someone curse them or if they just constantly trip in the house I'm not sure but sometimes there are pairs that come up and it is not on the owner at all to do those repairs it is 100% throughout throughout tenant damage and that's really what a property management or a property manager should be looking out for we're looking out for our owners it's your asset it's your money you know what happens if you're constantly getting repairs not being told about it you're going to get lower and lower amount on your dispersements and then you're going to come to terms and go why am I even using a property management company if I'm not even getting any money from this no one wants that no one wins so in terms of the communication we're always up on it and we will always say whether or not something is tenant damag so for certain homes where tenants are very hard on the home or they're the biggest clutches in the world whenever we send out a vendor for a repair right like an essential necessary repair all we have to do is ask that vendor hey can you please inspect this repair item and let us know via the invoice write out a few sentences and either say yes this is wear and tear because X Y and Z or ooh this was tenant damage because x y and z and then when we get that invoice back we can either go back to the owner and say you know what this really was wear and tear sorry you're eating the cost or yep we got it in wording from the professional this was tenant damage you're going to pay for this out of your trust account but the second you pay for it we post those charges back on the tenant portal and your tenant will pay for it by the first of the following month so it's money out of your account that will go right back into your account for the next billing cycle so it's a wash to you when that happens well at least some good news in that regard as far as I'm concerned as a landlord now repairs aside which repairs are a huge piece and that's actually why so many people even opt in to have a property management company in the first place is because they don't want to deal with the repairs they don't want to deal with a 2 a.m. phone call of you know the pipes burst or you know something happened that to me is where it started but the the reality is that rolling back to the lovely lovely lovely tenent landlord laws in PDX specifically it all starts at the beginning it all starts at how you can promote the property what you can and cannot say and how do you select the tenants so let's talk about that a little bit because that's the piece honestly the more I started looking into that frankly it scared the Living Daylights out of me so bring it okay so city of PDX is pretty much the most tenant friendly place in the entire us to the point where other cities are now adopting the laws and the legislation city of PDX has for their tenants you know tenants rights is a thing 100% I have been a tenant for years and my rights were totally ignored in a lot of ways our property management company does not want to be one of those so with that city of PDX you know one of the very best standards you can go by is go by their low barrier screening criteria because there's a lot of TR s within the city of PDX laws so for our city of PDX homes we do you know what it stipulates credit scores of 500 or higher two times a monthly income they are allowed to have open collections as long as they're $1,000 or less or $999 un less I should be more specific um certain evictions are protected during Co still um anything that's been decriminalized within the past several years you know if that pops up on a criminal report that's excused um and things like that and you only need to have one year of professional landlord history however if someone doesn't have that the only way to try to deny a person from that is if they willfully lie by admitting that information which I mean of course how are you going to approve you can't so our city of PDX homes we spend the most amount of time screening tenants and when we pick through everything with a tooth comb because the the bar is at a different level than it is with all the other properties we have within Oregon um you can't pick and choose guys you can't just wait for all the apps to come in wait to get five apps to come in and go oh of these five apps which one I'm going to pick no 100% illegal city of PDX you post something Market it publicly there's then a 72-hour weight hold where no one can apply if someone applies before that 72-hour weight hold they then an 8 Hour penalty added to their application so there's that caveat another thing we come in all the times with owners is well I don't like cats no cats in my unit and we have to go hey just so you know we can't abide by that you know just so you know Esa animals service animals those are a protected class so when we get an application in what you do is you get one application in you have to screen that application 100% in full before you're allowed to move to the next you can't just cherry pick totally illegal if an application comes through and they match everything every single screening criteria they have it in Spades it doesn't matter that you don't like cats they have an Esa letter that has cats so yes we have it in the posting no cats allowed but if they have that Esa letter that cat is a protected class and we're not going to deny them they are going to move in and no we can't charge a cat deposit or a pet deposit just because you really want us to that is illegal so there's a lot of things hold on so no pet deposits even though wow yeah but they're still held within the same pet stipulations so with that you know we still have them signed the exact same pet addendum we just State you know this animal is Esa we're not charging for pet rent or pet deposit but your animal is still held within all of the exact same stipulation so if any damage is found the animal is far working scratching you know doing their business in the house anything like that nasty nasty that's violations guys you aren't protected from violations even if you have an Esa animal still a violation so I mean that is one way you do get protections you just don't get the extra money for it um another thing is security deposits in the city of PDX you are allowed to have one security posit match the state of monthly rent and then your own only allowed to do half of an additional security deposit for the remainder of that tency does that make sense absolutely not okay so let's say your rent's 3,000 bucks so your total monthly rent here's a check for 3,000 bucks and then you go okay $3,000 deposit here's a check for a $3,000 deposit and let's say they do have pets like actual pets not esas or you know there is some caveat for unmet screening criteria but the rest of their applications were amazing and you know every like whatever like we can do a higher security deposit so you can only do one additional check for that and it's only half of that amount which would be 1,500 bucks and that security deposit locks in for the remainder of the ten tency you cannot charge any more security deposits after that I mean that account is closed for business so no we had an owner was a private landlord had multiple properties she was charging first months rent last month's rent and security deposit not allowed and she had no idea like you're not allowed to charge for carpet cleaning the city of PDX no private landlord knows that they're constantly charging it so there's little things like that that I honestly think a lot of tenants especially going through private landlords or property management companies that also aren't following these rules don't understand that their rights aren't being held into account um we hold everyone's rights into account we hold the owners to compliance we own we make our owner we make our tenants pay rent and follow the rules everyone's held to the same regard so the screening process is there anything else let's say a prospective landlord needs to be aware of um one of the questions somebody actually asked me recently um uh they're considering renting their property out in Beaverton for example or Hillsboro uh well what about Section 8 section 8 is interesting um Section 8 you know the tenant has to apply there is a process it usually takes one to two months for them to even get approved if they get approved and then with that once you have that stipulation in place you know the property management company is either sent a check or an a payment for that tenants rent but what I was driving it I think is that in Oregon pretty much every landlord is obligated now to take Section 8 which didn't used to be the case years ago of course but I think that's accurate right yes so we accept Section 8 100% you're not allowed to not accept Section 8 but it is on the onus of the tenant to set that up and there's few tenants that uh actually will go through the process to completion to have that set up it is strenuous I mean on the tenant side yes it is absolutely strenuous but like you said it's their responsibility from the landlord standpoint though you can turn it down once it's in place so yay I mean on the flip side there is a flip side of no matter what you always know you're getting rent for that property not 100% per se just depends on the Section 8 coverage but yes at least you're getting a chunk so that's that's the silver silver lining right there yes so let's say the screening process is over and the tenant has um the tenant is moving in to walk through or not to walk through oh you walk through you walk through and you take at least 200 photos we have some houses that are about 33200 sare ft those ones have about 500 photos so when you do a move in even if you have a moving condition report and that moving condition report is like oh acceptable okay yeah it's good okay yeah there's one SL ding protect yourself just take the photos take photos of every angle take photos of the trim take photos of the windows open up every single cupboard show that it was empty show open up your appliances show that they were deep cleaned you know turn on the ovens show that the burners are heating up you know when you do a movein for your own property you need to protect yourself and protecting yourself it proof is in the pudding proof is going to be in those photos so I will always slightly admonish private landlords especially if they have other properties and they're only giving us one is hey I know it seems silly for you to take that extra 20 30 minutes taking a kajillion photos take that 20 30 minutes take those kajillion photos get them at all of the angles get them up downside check your water features triple check your appliances ensure that when a tenant moves out you have proof to go that quarter size hole was not on that wall well look you have a picture that shows it literally wasn't there 10 and is unable to fight that oh hey look that's a pretty large stand on the carpet mm-m that wasn't pre-existing here's the picture so 20 to 30 minutes of a private landlord's time just taking photos is going to save so much heartache in the future So speaking of walkthroughs um something that I know my original property manager didn't do and again found out pretty much from you when we switched over um you semiannual walkthroughs uh for the landlord and for the tenant obviously and basically see that the property is actually being kept up per the agreement right so we do a lot of walkthroughs at Delan so our first year we do three walkthroughs I mean we have like our movein right where everything's pretty and they sign things and everyone's happy and we get their keys then we do a 90-day walkthrough and after that it's every six months and in our leases when we you know move people in everywhere it goes we do walkthroughs our walkthroughs we're taking photos of everything except inside a closets we don't go in closets that's your own thing but we don't open drawers we don't open closets but we do go in and we take pictures we check all of the water features the toilets the showers under the sinks running all the faucets we always find leaks every single year that the tenants whoosh they didn't realize but we'll find them for you um and then with that we check all the smoke detectors and yes we are on the lookout for violations so uh my coworker Tyler he's my right-hand man he's pretty much everyone in the field he knows all of our tenants by first names last names animals all of that we also know that that three-bedroom house that is a single woman on the lease with no kiddos so as a single woman with no kiddos on the lease there's a lot of men's clothing all up in this unit and that's about six pairs of shoes and hey there's all the jackets and ooh so there's things we also look out for we look for violations like do they have unauthorized pets like why do you have a cat scratching to post you have no cat why is that post there hm there's only one person registered on this lease there's obviously multiple people living here that bed literally has been slept in last night from your bed so that's another thing we we don't like issuing not violations luckily with our tenants we rarely have to but when we find them we do and it's because we want to ensure that who's ever living in your home whether it's another human or a pet they have to abide by those lease terms and if the tenant gets caught and they don't fix it within 14 days well then they can move out or they can fix it within 14 days and not do the behavior again and then be safe um luckily for us tenants like to fix things so if they don't fix things then you invite them to move out if they don't understand what an invite to move out is we then might have to go through the evictions process um we get a lot of inherited Tendencies where the current property management company does not want to do evictions does not want to issue violations does not want to have to go above and beyond so we inherit properties where we will help facilitate those evictions and it's because the tenant is not taking care of the home or not not paying rent and that's just that's not fair to the owners I mean everyone has lives everyone has Strife there's tons of programs for tenants if they need help with rent assistance um if a tenants actively destroying your home I don't have much sympathy for that um they're actively destroying something that is not theirs and is just hurting the owner and making that home they're currently living in not a good place to live so we also will help other outside owners evict violate and get their home back up and ready and rentable to tenants that will take proper care of their home pay rent on time and that's awesome actually because you know yes I understand there is uh some negative perception you know landlords are slum Lords okay some are but you know that's a very small percentage of the greater majority and the majority of the rentals single family rentals especially meaning you know homes condos Town Homes those are owned by a human they're not owned by a black rock they're not owned by a mega Corporation they're owned by other humans like you like I like a lot of my clients actually and we have bills to pay too and we have mortgages on those properties so when our property that's being rented out is being destroyed or is not being respected well that's a real family out there that's going to start suffering financially too and there isn't that much assistance if any for the actual landlords and that's a Full Circle again to why I am a very strong believer in Property Management especially in Oregon Portland specifically that's a must that's your insurance policy against a crappy tenant that's your insurance policy against damages that's your insurance policy against a potential lawsuit because you didn't pick the tenant that you were supposed to pick so to speak and that's where like said i' I've learned so much from our conversations over the last what year and a half roughly it it's been mind-blowing but here is one more piece that I also stumbled into and this is something for potential landlords looking for a property manage uh management company or interviewing a property management company here is something to watch out for in the contract and yes guilty is charged I did not read the contract in its entirety as a landlord before I signed it so yes boohoo B on me but here is the clause and that's the prior property management company essentially obligated me to put the property on the market with them when the time for us came to sell or whenever the time came to sell and as soon as I put the property on the market with a different agent because most property management companies are also real estate companies or realy companies as soon as I would have listed the property they would have dumped my rear and canceled the contract on me basically immediately and that is something also of to me that was pretty much sticking a knife and twisting it
and unfortunately Ella you're you're not the first case where we have onboarded other property owners because of that I we have Property Owners like yourself that wanted to use their own realtor or we have property owners that just wanted to sell their house and we're given the boot um we here do not do that it's not our house it is your house so we work with outside Realtors um and with that we also pay them a realtor referral fee for all you outside realtors that wants some extra cash and for us when we are you know doing renewal so 120 days before renewal comes to play we'll always CC your realtor as well as have you on there and provide you the rent income estimates so if your realtor is like oh you know what Ella that Market's getting a little hotter here let me get you a CMA and that CMA is going to show you what you could possibly net you know as a sales price we do that and you decide to sell selling a home with tenants in it is not fun which is why a good chunk of property management companies will wash their hands and just walk away it is a lot of work and that's something that that was my actually next question to ask you about selling a property more specifically under what conditions yes you can actually sell the property with a tenant in it so with that you know it's it's very hard to ever serve a termination notice especially if someone's lived in a property after the first year occupancy so you know in your case your tenant have lived there for what 3 years now three and a half so I mean they are locked in so Ella here can only do a landlord qualifying exemption which she can move back into the property and actually move into it not just say she's going to move into it um she can decide to sell it and but has to have I I sorry I believe if I do choose to move into it and correct me if I'm wrong but it's uh so me or immediate family member yes basically whoever that is we have to be in that property for a full year yes you actually have to move into that property um we did let one owner go who went oh I want to sell the property and we went okay you have to do it one of these landlord qualifying reasons and they're oh we're not going to do that just say we're going to do that and we went no no we're not going to lie for you like it you want to lie totally fine you can go do this on your own like I'm very big with the compliance very big um selling a home with tenants in it is sucky it is you'll get a lower selling price usually about 10% you cannot guarantee those tenants will be clean during the process you cannot invite them to move out during showings they're always going to get up in arms about the fact you're conducting showings but you know what it happens and when it happens what we'll do is make the process as painless as possible so the tenants understand hey this is going to happen whether or not you like it or not you know please let's work together on this and the better we work together on this hopefully the sooner the house is sold sooner that you don't need to worry about it or there's other things you can do as an owner you know maybe your house hasn't been updated in about 15 years and when you wanted to sell it you did want new appliances you did need to do a full repaint you did want new carpets anyways you know that's going to fish you an extra $60,000 maybe $70,000 in net sales at the end of it so you know what that qualifies as major repairs and renovations you're cutting off Utilities in order to do the appliances you're ripping out the floors you might put in you know new kitchen countertops you can serve a 90-day notice for that and ask the tenants to leave that way so there's things we can do to facilitate getting a tenant out for you to then have a tenant free home to list on the market but you have to do it under the guid of Oregon tenant landlord law is there a minimum threshold for the actual um amount of of dollar value of repairs or is it just not a dollar value ROV time so what has been advised to me through my CEUs is that it's about a month and that's what we go by to um if it's about a month's worth of repairs and a tenant literally does not have access to essential functions during that time for like a month then you're in the clear so I mean if you're ripping out floors taking out appliances doing repaints and you know a lot of times like hvacs getting changed in there usually like they're updating the heating system or installing a new furnace so think about like essential what you need essentially to live like if all of your appliances are getting kaput and they're changing the countertops in order to put brand new appliances in you don't have access to a kitchen you're not going to be able to cook like how are you going to live in a place where you can't cook that doesn't work or you're changing everything in the bathroom don't you want to go to the bathroom I don't know about you but I I think I would like to be able to use a bathroom in my own home so that's the way you kind of have to think about it like what are the repairs and Renovations that will literally make it impossible for someone to cook clean go to the bathroom sleep at night have heat or hot water have hot water if your major repairs and Renovations do circulate around that and they take about a month you are in the clear awesome so back to selling with a tenant potentially first of all what's entailed when you want to sell a property and the Tenant is in it minimum noticing All That Jazz yes well our very first tactic is that we will see when their next renewal period is up if their renewal period is up and usually it does because that's when we send it out and you get the CMA and you get the rent our first tactic is as sucky as it may sound just do the maximum rent increase and see if that's the driving factor to get them out Oregon just passed a stipulation in the past several months that the new Max rent cap is 10% so in city of PDX it's always been 10% if you raise you know rent 10% or more in city of PDX accidentally if it's 10.01% your tenant can say oh that's too expensive and then you're paying thousands of dollars in relocation fees so our ours is only 99.9% in the city of PDX because we're paranoid well hold on hold that hold that thought um didn't our laws stipulate that and I'm not trying to get legal here this is just to verify um weren't our rent increases actually tied to the inflation index in the past that's the exemption now so there's an exemption so in the past before they mandated just like the full Statewide cap the everywhere else in Oregon besides city of PDX it was um my God it's like the consumer rate inflation yeah like with the CPI rate so like last year in 2023 it was 14.6% like that was the max you could do in 2024 it's 12.6 6% um but then people heard this whole like oh my God it's only 10% everywhere in the state you can't do that all contr there is an exemption that exemption is if your home has been a rental for 15 years or less it can go to that 12.6% you you're not capped at that 10 10% but this is a thing private landlords may not realize I mean are they going to be click click clicking through to find that exemption most likely not so at the most they may go oh my God I'm only going to do 10% because that's all I can do or they don't even realize that there's a Max rent rate and they raise it like 20% Which isn't the best we have also encountered private landlords that have done that in the past and we're like no no no no no we can't do that that's no no no no um but that's the thing about having a property manager we know this stuff we know how much you can raise rent we know how many times a year you can raise rent we know legally how you can raise rent guys doing it a text message guess what that doesn't count that does not work that is not legal um so that's that's what we're here for so like if you want to sell a house and the tenants are in there for Ella's home it's been a rental for under 15 years we would do the max rent rate of 12.6% and see if that motivates them to move out and then with that we if that doesn't work then we can talk to them and just be really really honest and go hey you know what this is happening your own is going to be selling the property as you could see we did the max rental rate so that's not negotiable your rent is going to go up and then usually what I do is I will also give that tenant listings of other active properties and go just so you know like with that rent rate you're officially paying higher market rate than any of these other properties within the same neighborhood you know it might be more conclusive to you to decide to move out and not be spending an additional 150 bucks a month in almost an identical unit so I will also do that to entice T to move out to show them that they have options right I mean they do have options and that works pretty well actually a lot of times sending them other listings so they realize they do have the ability to find something for the same value but actual less price and then if that doesn't work we just tell them okay this is the way it is you're just going to have to accept it and you know we're going to make it as easy as humanly possible and we can do the easy way or the hard way let's just all work on the easy way um the final thing is if you have tenants and I'm just warning all of you private landlords out there if you have tenants and they're going to fight you they don't want showings they are not going to keep their place clean they are just going to be angry the whole time which you know they are paying rent it is their home but it's going to be a cluster the entire time and it's going to be fight fight fight fight fight you have the option for cash for keys cash for keys is when you and you know a $100 lawyer fee draft up a settlement that's like hey I understand that I get to live in this place and you can't not renew to me you cannot terminate me but you know what if you pay me x amount of dollars then I will move out on this state that's another option so there are options there are ways you can motivate there are ways that you can communicate there are way ways that you can literally pay someone off but there's a multitude of ways you can facilitate getting a tenant out for you to get your home on the market for sale now the cash for keys option and I'm picking on that one for a very specific reason because I just had that conversation actually with a dear friend uh who effectively just went through that with her tenant uh with the cash for keys the cash for keys also in a way and I know that so many landlords and yes my own husband was you know hearing the cash for keys makes the landlords angry guys I get it I totally get it but the cash for keys also typically stipulates that the tenant will move out of the property and leave it in basically not destroy condition yeah so there is some value to that as a matter of fact and as you know as much it does hurt the pocketbook it's not always necessarily the worst solution to the issue no I mean we had a home and this is like a perfect cash for key situation beautiful home actually to this day my favorite home in the portfolio wraparound porch three car garage massive shed circular drive like I love this but the owner and it was like at the top of the sales market right the owner saw the forecast we saw the forecast of like ooh you could get a lot of money for this house do you know it was so much better for the owner he did cash for keys and we actually love those tenants so I transferred those tenants in to another s square footage house as well so they didn't even have to apply for anywhere else I just transferred them into another home um so they were happy they barely had to think about doing anything they got thousands of bucks cash but you know what that owner got that owner got a house that was moved out about 3 weeks before they wanted to list it in the hottest Market at the time so they had the tenants move out they were able to go in there they were able to do their little tweaks their modifications and they they got listed at the height of the season and they got their dollars they got that sales price they got a very high sales price they would never have gotten that sales price if the tenants had lived in there and it's because tenants would have been living in there it would have been awkward showings would have not have been great and you generally get 10% less of your sales price when you have tenants living in there because of all of those reasons but because they were able to get the tenants out they were able to do a few thousand dollars of updates here and there to a beautiful fresh tenant free house they got top top dollar and let's not forget about the property being put on the market with the tenants let's say with a tenants then the only way they can move out is when a potential buyer let's say they cooperate and let's say they do abide by the showings and they kept the unit clean or the property clean and they're not being a stick in the mud and it's not a cluster let's say it's you know dream come true but there is another Zinger and the Zinger is the 90day move out notice from the accepted offer only if the buyer is going to owner occupy the said property there are people that wish to buy homes that have tenants that in them because they do want it to be their primary home right like that's what they want to do um and then there's people that buy properties with tenants in them because they know there's tenants in they want to be an investment property um but if you have an owner that does want to have that home be their primary residence you can only issue that 90-day notice and remember it's not 90 days that you put in the mail it's actually 94 days because it's three days for mailing not including the date you actually put in the mail so it's technically a 94 day notice a lot of people don't know that I like to tell people you add four days to every single notice you ever sent out cover your basis otherwise it will get thrown out and you just have to start fresh um so with that you have to have an accepted offer and there's an affida in that offer that says I swear as the buyer this will be my primary residence that's when you can serve that 90-day notice you have to have proof of that freaking awesome absolutely freaking awesome and talking as a lender you know having a buyer put the closing off for 90 days creates a whole other can of worms on the buy side because again from the technical standpoint if you're buying a home owner occupied you have to move in within 60 days otherwise you have violated one of the effectively Federal forms and the house is not occupied in 90 days or sorry in 60 days and 90 is greater than 60 so in effect then you're jeopardizing your loan so that's not a catch um and then of course there is the the lock in time for the rate and as volatile as the interest rates have been that's the whole other story and really again not every buyer wants to wait for you know 90 days so guarante right let's say they have that notice and they oh totally I'll move out and then they don't guess what happens then you then just find a house you're doing an active Addiction on so that can become like I said from The Lending standpoint that alone can be not just a cluster that can be an absolute legal Nightmare and that is something that again that's a conversation I have with potential buyers who are looking at tenant occup occupied properties to buy also letting them know that they may want to seek legal advice you know early on or you know put additional Protections in because that's that opens up a whole other can of worms so there's that side that not everybody considers when looking at rental properties I mean we even had a case where um the tenants were more on the volatile side with it history of communications um where the owners literally were moving back into the house like they were just going to move back into their house tenants would not get out and we almost we had to settle out but the tenants were just like nope not moving out my our owner was like 8 months pregnant was hoping to get into the house so they could build the nursery so she could have birth and have a nursery there's things that happen with property management guys I mean there's things that come out of left field there's things that people somehow found the gray even though there's a million black and white words they found that those five gray words and they're taking advantage of it and that's really why having a property manager is good to have we're there for you we're there in your court we're there to protect you we're there to honestly also protect the tenants to make sure that they're being taken care of we're there to maintain your asset in a great condition we're just there as all of the Liaisons all of the repairs ensuring you get your money ensuring that your home is at the day your home it's not just being taken over and you feel powerless no it is your home and that's what a property manager will do for you and you're absolutely correct I mean like I said that's really the biggest reason why I wanted to have this conversation and I'm not trying to scare my clients moving my um existing clients who talk to me about uh rental properties or turning their current home into a rental and buying another one I'm not trying to scare them um into getting a property manager I just want them to be aware of what the potential pitfalls are and to legally protect themselves and probably one of the biggest misconceptions about the property management is oh my God it's expensive do you know why it's not trly expensive these are the reasons why a we we know what sells on the market we know how to get that maximum rental rate we have owners that they're undercharging like 300 bucks a month not even kidding they had no idea what the real rental price was or we have owners that are like oh it's really not that important that I need to paint things actually yes it is we literally just got you $150 extra a month because you repainted these two rooms like this is where we come in we come in with our expertise like we know exactly what tenants want and what tenants will pay for where we can maximize that rental rate so we get our owners especially people that have been private landlords we get them a heck of a lot more in terms of rental income every month not only that but we're placing tenants in that have been screened inside and out that is so unbelievably important you want to ensure who's ever going into your home doesn't have a history of bouncing rent checks doesn't have a history of noise complaints doesn't have a history of having a 20 000 cleaning bill when they moved out we're sourcing tenants that have great histories of being tenants and then we're just in that home all the time I do think it's funny that private landlords just I do think that they feel awkward going into a home that at least that's like every private landlord that we've encountered has been like oh no I haven't done a walkthrough in like a year and you're like do you have any idea like what the status of your house is and they're like no I'm sure it's fine and we go in there and they're like what happened I'm not trying to scare people at all it's just as a property manager we will get you the highest rent income we will place qualified tenants we will ensure your homes being taken care of throughout the remaining of tency upon move out we can get all those repairs done for you and we will get them done fast and we will get them done at Great races with quality vendors that we vouch for and do great work we're not peac mailing things together we're not doing handshake deals in order to get a 20% discount with cash like we are doing quality repairs we're getting them done fast we are getting your house back on the market within two weeks so you have a short vacancy period that's what your property management company will do for you again not all property management companies are created equal as has been my personal experience because you're my number three but you are Baran the best one and hence the reason for the conversation because I just want more people to know what they really need to look for what questions to ask their potential property management company they're interviewing to take over the management if you're a novice landlord don't do it yourself if you're an experienced landlord but you're maybe moving out of city or out of state don't do it yourself s there's so many reasons why really having a really really good uh compliant legal what have you property manager will actually protect your asset pun intended it's a to it's not just cya it's a real C in terms of protecting your real asset which is your rental property or multiple properties and protect you as a landlord so if you need help if you're thinking of renting a property out Noel is my go-to and I can't recommend her enough thank you but also if you're trying to dip your toe in the water there's been multiple people that I've um put in touch with Noel just to give them a rundown some of them run away because it's very overwhelming oh my it is very overwhelming have no idea like the laws the stipulations the you know what you know oh my one of my favorite ones call it owner blind blindness is when we do like complimentary free home inspections right so we could tell you what needs to be fixed what's essential my favorite one to this day was it was a pocket door into a bathroom and it was within the primary bedroom and trying to close the door and going hey this store doesn't closed and the owner goes oh yeah it hasn't closed in years and I'm like we need to have the store closed she goes no you don't and I'm like we need to have this store closed she's like well I mean I pee with it all the time open and that's fine we're like owner blindness like just so you know there are certain things that like we'll walk around and we'll we'll find things that were like you may be chill with that and Tenon do not chill with that like yes your smoke detector technically works but it's like 25 years old we're putting in new ones um and I do always let anyone that comes to me I always let let them go with this information please interview other property management companies there are a kajillion of us there really are all of us will specialize in something different you might have certain needs that my company might just do too much of or maybe you are looking for a company that's an alak cart like you don't really care how often they go out so this is what I always let people know to ask at least other property management companies one do you do repairs two how often are you within the Home Three are you doing separate charges for things like walkthroughs inspections yard checks are you charging on boarding fees do you charge cancellation fees that's a big one that's embedded in a lot of pmas that people don't see um our company charges two fees we do 50% of the first month rent for new tenant placement and then which is way more than reasonable FYI the amount of showings the listings like all of it the screenings all of it right and then we do a monthly management fee starting the second month of tency on we don't do renewals we don't do cancellations we don't do on in we but we will do certain things that will be charged above and beyond like if you're asking us to Source like four bids for one project we have our preferred list of vendors they do amazing work give us great prices and we know we can count on them I have a right to charge you an additionally hour rate if you want me to go out and Google and try to find all of these other vendors that I we cannot vouch for so there are certain things my company does reserve the right to do an additionally hour rate for um but it is real clear in rpma what the stipulations are again nowel thank you thank you thank you thank you and for anybody who has any questions would love to connect with you would love to talk to you your information is right there on the screen and thank you so much for your time today could not again thank you enough for the information you've imparted there's been a few tidbits that I've picked up for myself throughout the conversation as I always do and again with my highest recommendation if you ever need a property manager in the state of Oregon and Portland metro specifically no is Ban the best and there you have it thank you so much love thank you
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