Jump Up and Down

My husband is a fanatic about NASCAR? He LOVES to watch those cars go round and round. He is obsessed with NASCAR. I gave him tickets to a NASCAR race in Dallas several years ago. His son lives in Dallas and off they went to the race. They were like little boys when they got back from the race. It was delightful to listen to these grown men act like they were 10 years old. 

It is good for us to be a child ever once in awhile.  To laugh and jump up and down is a good thing. I need to work on this. I take life too seriously. I am going to go laugh and jump up and down today. Why don’t you?

Lot of pretending

Did you know

There is a tip I want to pass along to you. When you are representing the buyer or the seller it is amazing how much they respect you when you tell them “I pretend that I own your house or I pretend I am buying a house.”

Now the hard part is to really pretend you are in their shoes. When you are negotiating the sale, remind them that you ARE looking out for their best interest even if they don’t buy/sell the house. Repeat business is the name of the game.

At closing you go down the closing costs as if they were your closing costs. Get your calculator out and see if the taxes were prorated correctly. Did the attorney over charge? Is the origination fee correct? This one action will give you repeat business.

Just recently we had a bid to replace/repair a ceiling where the popcorn style had started breaking away from the sheetrock. The bid was for $350. We could have said go do it or say “How long is this going to take you to repair? What materials are needed and approximate cost? Exactly what are you going to do to repair this?”

Answers to all of our questions are as follows:
1. How long is this going to take?  1 day

2. What materials are needed and approximate cost? 

1. Exactly what are you going to do to repair this?”

Once we had answers to these questions, we could decide if the estimate was fair.

As a property manager, We do a lot of pretending!!!!

Isn't that a shame!!!!!

Did you know

The son thought he could sweet talk his way out of moving.  He had maneuver his was thru the justice system time after time. He really did not believe that his mother would evict him. He is 57 years old. What a shame. How could a son do this to his own mother. This situation, I really find unacceptable!!!!

Mountain Manager gave the required notice to move out in 7 days. By law we must deliver/mail a letter that states the tenant has 10 days to  get out. If they do not respond, a court date is set.

The tenant shows up at court and says he needs additional time to move.(remember he has already been there without paying rent for 3 months). By law he has 10 days to move. If he does not move he has 10 more days.

Call or email your STATE representative today. Do you think a tenant should have all this time to move, especially since he has not paid any rent? 

Remember, the landlord is the one who pays property taxes!!!!

We did evict him and  as Paul Harvey would say, "here is the rest of the story"

He is such an idiot. 4 weeks later he decides that he has the right to come back to the property and go inside.A neighbor tells me a few days after he went inside.  All the locks had been changed but the locksmith failed to change one of them. Once that lock was rekeyed, William breaks into the house.  This time the neighbor calls the police and then I am called by the neighbor. William showed the police that he still had a key and had the RIGHT to go inside. When the key did not work the police took him to jail.

Isn't that a shame!!!!!

There are difficult situations that are hard to decide the best way to handle. Here is one of the more difficult.

 An 84 year old woman calls the office. She has been renting her house to her son who has not paid rent in 4 months. Her home is a 4 bedroom 4 bath home. She rents the upstairs to her son and the downstairs to another person. Her son is paying $300 a month for a 2 bedroom 2 bath that should rent for a minimum of $500 a month. The other person is paying $300  for a 2 bedroom 2 bath which should also rent for $500 a month. The rent includes  approximately $250 a month for utilities including cable. She wants me to evict both of the tenants for non payment of rent.

The son has a criminal record. He keeps getting away with not going to prison. He is disabled and also is big on prescription drugs.

Here are some of the concerns

1.If eviction begins, will the mother ask it to stop?

1. Will the son damage the house?
2. Is he dangerous?

Stay tuned next week to see what happened

Did you know

there is a family  that have moved in near my home. There is a real good chance that they are going to be evicted real soon. The parents have begun disturbing my husband and I at 6:30am every morning, even on the weekends. They both are very inconsiderate and need to get some manners. They are not like us. They are foreigners and I am going to discriminate against them and I just don’t care.

Every morning they bang on our bedroom window beginning at 6:30am. Every few minutes they bang and then leave. Then bang again. It usually lasts until around 10am. I have seriously thought about getting a gun and shooting them but then stop.

Next year I am going to move their bird nest before they set up living quarters next to our bedroom window.

Don’t you just love “Mother Nature”

DId I get you?????

Sorry guys. It is now been proven!!  Women are smarter than Men. Who would have believed. It was on Diane Sawyer so it must be true or at least all the women believe it is true.

It has been proven that woman are better money managers. They are better at

tolerating pain and best yet they are better at hammering nails.

WHO WOULD HAVE BELIEVED!!!!

There is always two sides to a story

Some find it  hard to believe, BUT I am really a nice person. My job requires me to be thorough when renting homes for owners. Because I am so thorough, I have a reputation on not being nice or I am a witch. A few years ago, an owner came to me and asked me to handle a house which had a tenant. The tenant did not have a lease and the owner wanted a lease. The tenant refused to sign and lease so we gave him the required 60 day notice. During that time, he also did not pay the rent. We went to court and had him evicted. 

1 month later he gets 2 free websites one called www.MountainManager.Info and the other www.MountainManager.Org . On these two websites he calls me a “SHE DEVIL” and a lot more. 

It took me 3 years and a court order to have him remove the websites. I had to spend $2500 in attorney’s fees because he felt he did not have to pay rent and he could tell all sorts of lies.  He even said, “It was his right of freedom of speech.”

Many times when people say bad things about someone, there is always two sides to a story.

Protecting the owners can be difficult at best.

Did you Know

that anyone that manages property is at risk when they hire someone to paint, cut the grass, fix a leaky faucet or fix an electrical outlet who do not have insurance. 

Not general liability but workman’s compensation insurance.

If the handyman goes to a property and does any of the items mention above and is hurt or maimed on the job, the property manager and the owner are at risk.

The handyman can and will probably sue the property manager and the owner. The handyman will have everything on his side and will most likely win

Unfortunately, in the mountains, many contractors will tell you they have liability insurance and they have workman’s compensation insurance but the next question you ask is “As the owner are you covered as well”

 Many are not covered. So if the owner of, say plumbing company does the work and gets hurts, the property manager and the owner are at risk.

One owner even said to me he will just get $2 million dollars worth of liability insurance. Unfortunately, that won’t work. If the owner hired the contractor directly, he may be covered depending on his policy. BUT if the property manager hires the contractor, he will NOT be covered.

Never said being a property manager was easy.

Going Around Agents

Did you know

when an owner sign a listing agreement it is usually for a period of 6-12 months. The listing agreement explains what the real estate company will do to sell or lease the property. Most listing agreements go into great detail about who does what,when and how.

The same applies to a management agreement. The property management company lists the property and says they will manage the property. This means they will take care of everything from collecting the rent to handling repairs to evicting the tenant if needed. Generally, the property management company will also find a tenant to occupy the property.

When there is an agreement between the owner and a real estate agent whether it be a listing agreement or a management agreement the NAR code of ethics still applies.

As a realtor, If you solicit an owner and he/she has their property listed for sale or under management you are in violation of the code of ethics by soliciting them.

Patience

Did you know

ever once in awhile it’s so nice not to do anything on a rainy Sunday. I love working in my garden which is mainly a shade garden. I spend hours and hours planting, weeding,moving plants and planning. But this Sunday I could not because of the rain which was good for my garden. I watched some movies, play on the computer and did some planning on where I was going to plant my newest member to the garden. I have always wanted a “Pink” dogwood and now I have one given to me by my daughter for mother’s day. Also received from my other daughter is a Jasmine plant. Never had one of these either. Went online and found it needs 4-6 hours of sun. I found just the right place on our deck so it can wind and twist around the railing and bring a wonderful fragrance.

My husband says I have no patience. I disagree. When you have a garden you must have patience. You plant and then wait and wait for all of it to bloom. Could be a week or two but could be several months.

As a real estate agent you have to be patient. You plant the seeds for customer to come to you when the time is right to buy or sell. It seems like those seeds are now paying off.

Good job. Keep up the patience.!!!

Eviction

Did you know

I got a phone call the other day from a very distraught landlord. She was beside herself. Several months before she had called and asked how to evict a tenant. She wanted to know what were the steps. I spent 15-20 minutes with her trying to calm her nerves and give her the step by step process.

Now she was calling again. I asked, “Did you evict them?”. She said,”Please don’t be upset with me but no I did not. I wanted to work with them. They seemed so sincere and I felt so bad for them. Now what do I do?”

“You start the process by hand delivering them a letter to vacate. Give them until tomorrow and then go to the Magistrate if they have not moved.”

This landlord had given these people 3 months to get caught up because she wanted to help them. Very admirable but all that happened was SHE was taken advantage of by the tenant.

There are some wonderful tenants who choose not to buy. They have money in the bank. They like living some place where someone else takes care of the repairs. 

Then there are tenants who live pay check to pay check. If they get behind, there is no way they are going to get caught up even though they have the best intentions.

In North Carolina it takes a minimum of 6 weeks to get a tenant out of a home and  many times longer. In Georgia it takes about 4 weeks. If a tenant has not paid for 3 months then the owner will lose 1-2 more months of rent before the tenant is out and then probably another month before a new tenant can move it.

Security Deposit procedure

Did you know

Spring has come early for the mountains and just about everywhere else. Working in my garden is one of my greatest pleasures. Planting bulbs in the fall and then forgetting where I planted them. The pleasure of seeing them begin to sprout up in the spring is what I love. It is such a wonderful surprise. Not all surprises are this great.

In Towns,Union,Cherokee and Clay Counties, if the tenant moves out and have not paid their water bills, then the owner of the property is liable. These water companies are now making the owner the collection authority instead of the water company. It does not matter if you agree, this is the way it is.

There is nothing worse than having an owner contact you and say that they just received a bill from the water company for $71.27 and it is 2 months past due. Surprises like this are not fun.

Good news.

We do not return security deposit without verification of final water bill from tenants.

There were great comments about the landlord from last week’s email. One of my favorite comments was to allow the tenant in the lower unit to move out and charge the other tenant rent for both units. Don’t you just love it!!!

Another email came in from Gail Mulford with Mike Kelly Realty. She is studying for her broker’s license and said, “ It is constructive eviction”. After talking to her and at her suggestion, I googled “Constructive Eviction”

Here is the definition:

The disturbance, by a landlord, of a tenant's possession of premises that the landlord makes uninhabitable and unsuitable for the purposes for which they were leased, causing the tenant to surrender possession.

I,myself leaned toward Quiet Enjoyment and here is that definition:

Quiet enjoyment is a right to the undisturbed use and enjoyment of real property by a tenant or landowner. The right to quiet enjoyment is contained in covenants concerning real estate. Generally a covenant is an agreement between two parties to do or refrain from doing something.

OR

In the covenant of quiet enjoyment, the landlord promises that during the term of the tenancy no one will disturb the tenant in the tenant's use and enjoyment of the premises. Quiet enjoyment includes the right to exclude others from the premises, the right to peace and quiet, the right to clean premises, and the right to basic services such as heat and hot water and, for high-rise buildings, elevator service.

Needless to say, I am not an attorney but an experienced Property Manager. In my opinion, both definitions apply to this situation. It should be left to the Magistrate Judge in the county that this occurred. I think the tenant could easily win. What do you think?

Mountain Manager DOES NOT represent this owner and WILL NEVER represent this owner.

Did you know

it is not easy being a property manager. Mountain Manager does not represent this owner but what would you do in this case?

This particular tenant rents an apartment in the basement of a house. Upstairs is another tenant who thinks it is OK to play music any time he wants.

Now here is the question. Can the tenant in the lower unit break their lease if they have repeatedly asked the owner and tenant upstairs to stop playing his music after 10pm? The tenants have also called the police 2 times to try and get the tenant to stop playing the music.

In the lease it states the tenant has the right for “Quiet Enjoyment”. What would you do?

I have an opinion about this and will share it next week.

Did you know

About 5 years ago,it had become too confusing to use both the NC and GA leasing and management agreement forms. It was difficult to remember what each state had and did not have in their forms. So I asked my friends with NARPM (National Association of Residential Property Managers) to help. I put together a management agreement and lease agreement and had a local attorney make sure everything was legal. I have not looked at the GAR lease form until yesterday when I took a NARPM class on "Elements of the Lease Agreement".

I found out something that you need to know about if you are doing any leasing and using this form.

Please read Paragraph 8 below.

8. Utilities. Tenant acknowledges that all utilities and/or services are to be paid for by Tenant, with the exception of:__________________________________Tenant must connect or transfer utilities not provided by Landlord into the name of Tenant within ____days of the commencement of the lease.At any time thereafter, Landlord may, without notice to Tenant, disconnect any utilities serving Premies which are in the name of Landlord and are not being provided by Landlord under this lease. Landlord may, at Landlord's option and upon notice to Tenant, pay utilities and be reimbursed by Tenant as additional rent. For the purpose of this paragraph utilities are defined as the following: Water, Sewer,Electric Sanitation Gas and Phone.

Here is the problem with this paragraph. If tenant moves in and has not put any or all of the utilities in his name the Landlord CAN NOT TURN them off after the tenant has moved into the premises. The best way to avoid this situation is to have proof of utilities BEFORE tenant moves into the premises.

The banking crisis has made a mess for many many many people. Banks gave loans to people who really weren’t qualified. Once the owner couldn’t pay they contacted the real estate agent that sold them the house. That agent did their very best to sell the house but houses weren’t selling unless they were in foreclosure or maybe if they got lucky they did a short sale.

Sometimes the owner would contact a property management company to lease the house which would at least give them some breathing room. That didn’t always last either. Then foreclosure took place.

If there was a tenant in the house, many times they were bullied by the bank. The bank demanding they leave even though the tenant has the RIGHT to stay. The bank would tell them they had to leave even though they had a valid lease. The only way the bank could make them move was if the person buying was going to live in the house. Then the bank must give a 90 day notice.

Here are the ones that have been hurt.

1.the owner of the property

1. realtor listing the house
2. property manager who managed it
3. tenant who lived in the house

Banks need to get their act together. Work with the owners and give them a better loan. Work with the realtor and sell the property easily

Work with the property manager and allow them to continue managing the property

Work with the tenant and not be such a bully