Here we go again ... more rental woes UPDATE post 39

[Deleted]

Our current tenant lost her job and is moving out in Aug. Here (France) if you get laid off / fired you only have to give one month's notice. Her Aug rent check bounced, but we have a one-month security deposit (the legal maximum here, ha).

She (or somebody she hired) installed a washing machine badly, and caused 4.5K (euros, I'm going to talk in euros) of water damage. This happened in November, the week DH got out of the hospital after a hospital superbug. I asked him to please deal with the insurance, because he was off for two months due to his infection.

DH being DH, he finally did it ... in July. Long story short, because the damage was over 1600e, the renter insurance won't pay, and our NOO insurance won't pay. It has to go through the building's insurance. That's the law here. She is RESPONSIBLE for the damage, ie she caused it, but she is not LIABLE for it because it's over 1600e. This process is going on now, but of course in August, nobody in France works. In retrospect I obviously should have dealt with the insurance myself rather than wait for DH to do it, but I can't turn back the clock. 

We are considering selling. There are new CGT laws due to pass 1 Sept that will make selling more acceptable than in the past 18 months after Sarkozy changed the laws. But, the place is worth 180K, and we only owe 23.4K. So we would rather "hang on" so we can get that 850e in our pockets every month when it's finally paid off.

I am getting VERY fed up with dealing with all this. But I feel like I have to keep plodding on, since neither of us earns much and this is how we increase our net worth. And although it seems like yesterday that the tenant smashed that apt to bits, in reality, that happened in 2009, so, 4 years ago. We have had 4 years problem-free with that apt.

I'm not even sure why I'm posting this LOL ... maybe for confirmation that I'm not crazy thinking that having rentals / tenants is two steps forward and one step back?! Which would still mean that we are moving forward LOL?

Initially this place was supposed to be paid off in 3 years when DS3 (our youngest child) starts college. We refied last Sept and now the timeline is 5 years, not 3. But, DH is STILL due a settlement for his accident nearly two years ago, and we plan to use part of his settlement to get that timeline back down to 3 years. 

[Deleted]

Yes, it's the same place, and no, you're not LOL.

[Gardening Grandma]

OMG, debthaven. I am so sorry. As if you hven't already had enough on your plate.

Is selling a viable option?  (I am soooo glad we sold DH's rental last summer)

[Deleted]

GG, believe me, I was thinking of you and your DH selling that rental when I posted LOL! Thank you. And I hope that your DH is getting better every day.

It is VERY tempting to sell but we feel we are almost at 850e/mo income on that apt. It's actually half of a tiny house, and the owners of the other half wanted to buy our half, "whenever we were ready, no rush".

We wrote to them to tell them we were ready to sell. Turns out in the meantime the DH inherited part of an apt in Paris (our place is in a close suburb, on the subway line) so they chose to buy the other heir(s) out. So they are no longer interested in our half.

ETA: I am 53 and DH is 56 (we are 3.5 years apart). I feel that I have to "keep on keeping on" until we get to 56/57 and 60, ie early retirement age. I have always considered this my "second job". But I admit I am getting really sick of it.

[Deleted]

You are crazy to be a LL when you can invest the proceeds, say net E140k in the S&P 500




According to my Phil Script, a lump sum investment of $140,000.00 bearing an annual return of 11% could grow to $3,204,921.52 in 30 years!

[Deleted]

Yeah, Bonny, like I'm going to be around in 30 years LOL!

ETA: Look at my new signature! Finally we owe less than 60K! 

[raeoflyte]

You're so close (even with 5 years) to paying it off. I don't think I'd sell.

Tenant problems suck though.

[Deleted]

Thanks Rae! Your comment made me so happy, I guess I really DO want to "hang on"!

[Deleted]

On a more serious note, I don't know that there's a clear answer Debt.

Tomorrow we will be discussing with our financial planner investment options including selling our San Diego area house next summer and investing those proceeds vs paying off the mortgage slowly and raising the rents or paying off one of the recently refied mortgages. We need to anticipate that the very lucrative oil royalty income that is making over half our current retirement income is going to diminish and disappear over the next 3-5 years.

As you know, I've been concerned about your relative illiquidity, the big hit these repairs take on your liquid funds and your over-investment in RE. Hey, what are friends for if the pot can't call the kettle black?

[Deleted]

LOL Bonny! You know I always appreciate your comments (on and off the boards)

But OUCH on the SD house! I know that's the one you wanted to keep for your "little old lady" days ... I'd probably choose to sell Phoenix! 

[bean29]

DH and I own 2 rentals. One the tenants pay about 2x the market in rent w an unwritten understanding we will sell it back to them. We owe about $7,000 on it. They stopped paying rent about 3 mos ago. My other rental prop is currently vacant bc there is a rather serious plumbing issue that needs correcting. Various family members know it is vacant. One brother has refused to do any work for DH even though DH was offering to pay him. He was having issues with his GF several weeks ago and he asked his mother to tell DH to let him live in our apt for free! DH reminded his parents that he had offered to pay his brother to work on our house and brother said no. DH said no way will I let him live in my apt. Then last weekend a brother that has owed us $4,000 for years called DH and asked him to let his drug addict son live there. DH initially said he could live in the lower which is zoned commercial and we have not rented out for a long time, but then he realized nephew really wanted to live in the upper which comes with a 2 car garage and a private yard and I told DH he did not have to feel guilty saying no b/c even his brother's wife refused to take the kid in. Then I reminded DH he had borrowed nephew $ when he graduated and told him if he was not paid back to never ask for anything again. DH finally told his brother there are consequences for your actions and your son needs to deal with them. I had told DH that his brother vouching for his son was meaningless as they never felt a need to repay any other loan from us.

I would rather not own rental property. We have never gone a year w/o a problem. DH seems to feel it is the path to riches. It will pay in retirement if family members don't scam all the income away in the meantime.

Sent from my MB855 using proboards

[Deleted]

Aug 7, 2013 19:11:02 GMT -5 @debthaven2 said:

LOL Bonny! You know I always appreciate your comments (on and off the boards)

But OUCH on the SD house! I know that's the one you wanted to keep for your "little old lady" days ... I'd probably choose to sell Phoenix! 

I sent you an e-mail but for the benefit for anyone who cares, lol; your confusing the house with my mom's condo. Both are in San Diego County.

The house is the one we bought in 2005. At the end of 2004 we got an unsolicited offer on the half interest we had inherited in the crappy retail center in the Inland Empire. Dumping that was a brilliant move because not only would it had dropped like a stone during the mortgage melt-down it was going to eat us alive with repairs, not to mention what was going to happen to the under capitalized mom and pop tenants. But there was going to be a pretty big tax hit on the sale because there was a large tax deferred gain from a prior 1031 exchange. I think I remember it being something like $125k. So we thought about it and asked ourselves if we thought we had another real estate need. We thought we might need to spend an extended time in San Diego since both of my parents lived in the county (but about 60 miles away from each other). This house was about 30mi from each.

Of course life being what it is, my mother suddenly dies in 2008 and the real estate market goes in the toilet. Oh and DH's company starts closing up shop and it looks like if he doesn't go to Germany he can start looking for a new job elsewhere in the tech field at age 51.
We decide to hang onto the house until the market goes up and I p*ss off DH by figuring out how to hang onto Mom's condo.

Our lease with our nice tenants is up June 15th. They may renew for another year if the husband gets into the school he wants. We're meeting with our financial planner and will be modeling our scenarios; sell the house and invest the net proceeds (probably around $200k), continue plodding along with slowly paying down the mortgage and raising the rents, or taking some of our invested funds and paying off the mortgage and use the rent as part of our retirement income.

It's not exactly an apples to apples comparison. Although my quick and dirty modeling makes the "hang onto the property and let it appreciate" look attractive, there is tenant and repair risk that investing in mutual funds doesn't have. Both the real estate and the mutual funds have market risk. Oh and the mutual funds carry a paper cut risk from opening up the prospectus.

We do need to plan on doing something as about half of our current income (oil royalties) are predicted to dry up. Of course if MIL goes sooner than we thought we'll probably just kick the can down the road until we're done with her stuff.

We are pathetic!

[Deleted]

Aug 7, 2013 19:46:19 GMT -5 bean29 said:

DH and I own 2 rentals. One the tenants pay about 2x the market in rent w an unwritten understanding we will sell it back to them. We owe about $7,000 on it. They stopped paying rent about 3 mos ago. My other rental prop is currently vacant bc there is a rather serious plumbing issue that needs correcting. Various family members know it is vacant. One brother has refused to do any work for DH even though DH was offering to pay him. He was having issues with his GF several weeks ago and he asked his mother to tell DH to let him live in our apt for free! DH reminded his parents that he had offered to pay his brother to work on our house and brother said no. DH said no way will I let him live in my apt. Then last weekend a brother that has owed us $4,000 for years called DH and asked him to let his drug addict son live there. DH initially said he could live in the lower which is zoned commercial and we have not rented out for a long time, but then he realized nephew really wanted to live in the upper which comes with a 2 car garage and a private yard and I told DH he did not have to feel guilty saying no b/c even his brother's wife refused to take the kid in. Then I reminded DH he had borrowed nephew $ when he graduated and told him if he was not paid back to never ask for anything again. DH finally told his brother there are consequences for your actions and your son needs to deal with them. I had told DH that his brother vouching for his son was meaningless as they never felt a need to repay any other loan from us.

I would rather not own rental property. We have never gone a year w/o a problem. DH seems to feel it is the path to riches. It will pay in retirement if family members don't scam all the income away in the meantime.

Sent from my MB855 using proboards

ok Bean I just read your post. You are MORE pathetic!

[Miss Tequila]

Aug 7, 2013 19:46:19 GMT -5 bean29 said:

DH and I own 2 rentals. One the tenants pay about 2x the market in rent w an unwritten understanding we will sell it back to them. We owe about $7,000 on it. They stopped paying rent about 3 mos ago. My other rental prop is currently vacant bc there is a rather serious plumbing issue that needs correcting. Various family members know it is vacant. One brother has refused to do any work for DH even though DH was offering to pay him. He was having issues with his GF several weeks ago and he asked his mother to tell DH to let him live in our apt for free! DH reminded his parents that he had offered to pay his brother to work on our house and brother said no. DH said no way will I let him live in my apt. Then last weekend a brother that has owed us $4,000 for years called DH and asked him to let his drug addict son live there. DH initially said he could live in the lower which is zoned commercial and we have not rented out for a long time, but then he realized nephew really wanted to live in the upper which comes with a 2 car garage and a private yard and I told DH he did not have to feel guilty saying no b/c even his brother's wife refused to take the kid in. Then I reminded DH he had borrowed nephew $ when he graduated and told him if he was not paid back to never ask for anything again. DH finally told his brother there are consequences for your actions and your son needs to deal with them. I had told DH that his brother vouching for his son was meaningless as they never felt a need to repay any other loan from us.

I would rather not own rental property. We have never gone a year w/o a problem. DH seems to feel it is the path to riches. It will pay in retirement if family members don't scam all the income away in the meantime.

Sent from my MB855 using proboards

Family can't scam money if you and your dh put your foot down and stop giving it to them.

I don't lend money. I don't let family or friends rent from me. I don't work for or hire friends or family.

I have never been scammed or taken advantage of because I never put myself in a position to be. And if I ever was dumb enough to loan money, it would be back by proper paperwork and I would have no problem taking legal action for nonpayment.

[resolution]

It's scenarios like that which keep running through my head every time DH suggests we get another rental. We have been very fortunate with the one, but it seems like adding risk even though i know mathematically it would cut the risk to have more.

For bean29 , if your rental is sitting empty for long periods because you can't find the right people to make repairs and your husband has trouble saying no to relatives, then you may be better off with a property management company. They have a bad rap here because you have to pay them and "no one cares about your property like you do." But if you are poorly equipped to deal with your property, a good management company would still make you money by getting repairs done promptly and getting it back on the market. 

When I first turned my house into the rental there was no good way to keep it a secret. Everyone knew I was moving out of state and kept pressuring me to let a coworker could move into it. I knew the coworker couldn't afford it and I didn't want to start off either losing money or being the bad guy to everyone at work. It was very easy for me to say I signed a contract with a management company that any tenants would have to meet their financial qualifications, which immediately ruled out the unfortunate co-worker.

[bean29]

Aug 8, 2013 8:16:17 GMT -5 resolution said:

It's scenarios like that which keep running through my head every time DH suggests we get another rental. We have been very fortunate with the one, but it seems like adding risk even though i know mathematically it would cut the risk to have more.

For bean29 , if your rental is sitting empty for long periods because you can't find the right people to make repairs and your husband has trouble saying no to relatives, then you may be better off with a property management company. They have a bad rap here because you have to pay them and "no one cares about your property like you do." But if you are poorly equipped to deal with your property, a good management company would still make you money by getting repairs done promptly and getting it back on the market. 

When I first turned my house into the rental there was no good way to keep it a secret. Everyone knew I was moving out of state and kept pressuring me to let a coworker could move into it. I knew the coworker couldn't afford it and I didn't want to start off either losing money or being the bad guy to everyone at work. It was very easy for me to say I signed a contract with a management company that any tenants would have to meet their financial qualifications, which immediately ruled out the unfortunate co-worker.

My rental is empty b/c my DH is a control freak and he dosn't like to let other people do stuff.  He wants to do it himself.  We probably could rent it as is but DH feels the plumbing issue needs to be corrected.  Yes, I pointed out to him that the lost rent would have already paid the plumber.  Renting just the upper  covers our costs...we wanted to convert it from a mixed use commercial to a duplex but the city changed the zoning and told us we can convert it to a single family or keep it the way it is.  There is a lot of similar business property in the city..it is cut of so not a great location for a business.  Converting it to a single family would require a lot of work, we just don't think it is worth sticking the $$ into it.  We own it b/c DH used to have his business there, he moved his business to a better location.

DH does not trust property management companies.  He does not feel they would do much different than he does.    He has some customers who were using one and the guy stole their $$ and their houses went into forclosure b/c he did not pay the house payments.  The guy went to jail though.

Our other tenants have a personal issue.  DH was going to check with them and decide how to proceed.  I hate to screw them out of the house we always have intended to sell it to them. [ETA they have been there at least 5 years and we have not had problems with them at all]

IIt's not exactly an apples to apples comparison. Although my quick and dirty modeling makes the "hang onto the property and let it appreciate" look attractive, there is tenant and repair risk that investing in mutual funds doesn't have. Both the real estate and the mutual funds have market risk. Oh and the mutual funds carry a paper cut risk from opening up the prospectus.

I totally agree with Bonnie's comment above.  Couple that with the fact that state laws seem to assume landlords have deep pockets and legal representation on retainer and are ridiculously in favor of protecting deadbeats ie. pushing any resposibility the state may have to make sure people don't become homeless onto business owners.  If you don't pay you should get out.  It should be clean and simple.

MT and resolution when DH gave the $$ to his brother he pretty much knew he would not get it back.  It is not really counted anywhere as an asset on our "books" .  DH is pretty firm about not doing anymore for them - the one brother didn't have a chance in hell of getting anything out of DH, the other one caught him off guard and as I said..he was thinking we were not in a position to rent it (the lower) out, but the work has already been done to make it a rental.  My issue was having to evict a tenant that did not pay you and rent and you never asked for any rent (DH may or may not have asked for rent BIL was offering $400 but my thing was I need sec+deposit and I don't rent to people I don't think will work out) DH was saying it was temporary but my BIL was talking about how much his kid had and that he was vouching for him so I felt in their minds once kid was in he would not have to move.    I told DH where is he going to go?  Who is going to take him? and there is a good chance he will damage our rental.  DH must have decided I was right b/c  he finally said no.

[Deleted]

Bean, the laws here are similar, totally pro-tenant. We all have different dynamics but sometimes when DH says he will do something (because nobody can do it as well as he will) it never happens. In those situations I wait a while and then either do it myself if I can, or hire somebody. With time I've come to realize that often he's relieved. So personally, I would hire a plumber, or give my DH a "deadline". It's a shame not to get the rent. But most importantly, if the place was rented out, his family would stop asking to live there. I'm glad your DH finally said no to them! 

I understand this may not at all change your DH's feelings about management companies, but FWIW, we pay our own mortgage. Ours collects the rent and transfers it to our account, so we pay the mortgage ourselves. We are sometimes tempted to do without them but then we lose our nerve (I guess because there are always "issues").

Resolution, I agree, that is one of the reasons we use one. DH sometimes wants to "help somebody out" so I say, sure, no problem, here is the number of our property mgt co, feel free to pass it on. Knowing full well they will NOT rent to (true example) a 40-year-old woman who is flat broke but just moved here from the UK hoping to become a famous singer.

[Deleted]

Hey bean29,

I hope you know I was teasing you in the earlier post. We had 9 really good years without much tenant drama and then there was the year from hell where we had to shell out 5k to replace flooring from tenant damage and the two evictions. It seems like when it rains it pours and it's hard to keep the end game in mind when that's going on.

From time to time I have to pull myself back from the situation and remind myself why I'm doing this. With our situation with the San Diego County house, one of the top reasons we bought the house has changed. But it was only one of about 4 reasons. It may still make sense to hold onto it but the economic side is going to be more important.

I agree with @debthaven2 to give your husband a deadline or you'll get someone in using the logic that not only are you losing $850/mo in income but the largest potential pool of prospective tenants because most people prefer to move in the summer. I'm a control freak too about my real estate but I do have a real estate background which includes property management and I don't have a paying job.

[bean29]

Yeah Bonnie,

I knew you were kidding.  I don't like to push the control freak too much.  It just gives me an ulcer.  I pretty much just put in my 2 cents and let him decide what to do.  If I handle him this way he usually listens to me.  If I push too hard he digs in and does what I don't want. 

I was kind of upset when I realized he had let the whole summer pass and we will end up renting in the winter again.  But b/c this apartment has a 2 car garage we usually get fairly decent tenants no matter when we put it up for rent.  Before this issue came up I told DH to ask the neighbors to park in the garage so it did not appear to be vacant but I guess he just thought that would create extra problems.  DH is very concerned about the building being vacant and the insurance issues so he is self motivated to deal with it.

My most optimal thing would be to sell but I was over there recently and it needs a lot of TLC if we were going to sell it.  I wasn't too worried about it b/c the interest rate reset and the payment went down by the amount of rent we were collecting so our net outflow monthly is still the same.

I will check on hiring a plumber but I am not even clear on what needs to be done.  I think it is similar to an issue DH and his Dad corrected at his parent's house.  DH has been working  on finishing our basement.  That was my priority so I decided I could live with the apartment being vacant if my basement got finished.  The basement would not be where it is though if DH had not hired a former tenant to do carpentry.   

[Deleted]

DH has been working on finishing our basement. That was my priority so I decided I could live with the apartment being vacant if my basement got finished.   

That's a good reason! But also a good excuse to hire a plumber, since your DH is too busy / tired dealing with the basement to deal with the plumbing at the rental.

It looks like the tenant's exit visit is scheduled for next Tues, Aug 13. But, the (volunteer) building manager isn't responding to the PM's mail / emails asking about the building insurance, I think she's probably away. So, it will just have to wait. Thankfully we re-fied last Sept so the mortgage is only 445/mo instead of 700. DH is talking about doing the paintwork himself, but paintwork is too difficult for him now. Thankfully I've got a very full schedule come Sept, and some side jobs as well. I know it will work out but it is SOOOO frustrating.  

[8 Bit WWBG]

You're all crazy!  Rentals are automatic riches!  We all need to buy rentals in our 20s so we can live off the rent in our 40s.  I can't hear you.  LA LA LA LA LA LA MONEY LA LA LA LA LA.

[seriousthistime]

I rented out two houses in the past. Both were my former residences. They were both intermittently okay with reasonable tenants alternating with horrible, irresponsible tenants (heroin addicts in one house, and graduate students who sawed one of the interior doors in half, mounted it on a platform in the backyard, and used it for target practice with their empty bottles from beer, wine, and hard stuff). There was broken glass all over the backyard and it made mowing virtually impossible until we got up most of the pieces of glass. The back-breaking work of picking up shards of glass that are only partially visible in really tall grass? Not my idea of fun.

No rentals at the moment, but I'm thinking about getting a duplex when I move to a warmer climate, live in one side or maybe rent both sides out and live in a small place of my own. The thing that's stopping me from doing that is I have two siblings with housing and money issues, and if I have two small-ish rentals, guess who will be knocking on my door. I would rather have them live WITH me than have them live in a rental I own; at least I'd be able to say that no, they can't have two big dogs living in my house, not even temporarily vs. learning that they moved in two dogs, three months ago, into a 600 sq. ft. rental I own. Because I know how they do it -- so-and-so was moving out of town/just watching their dog until they find a new home for the dog/one week max/dog is no trouble/new home found but turns out the kids are allergic to dogs/dog comes back/looking for another new home for the dog/new home found but that guy had to move back home when he lost his job/it's a really good dog...getting attached to the dog... dog attached to me/gonna keep the dog, it's a really good dog/dog needs a canine companion/dog #2 moves in... Rinse and repeat with unspayed cats.

So if I ever got a rental, I wouldn't be able to tell my siblings.

(I have nothing against dogs or cats.  I've had both, have a dog now, but my siblings' animals can spiral out of control in both quantity and quality.)

[2kids10horses]

Ok, Debt, here's my "Back of the Envelope" analysis...

Rent is 850 per month, right?  Equity is about 150,000? 

Now, I don't know how much your expenses are for taxes, insurance, etc, but what I've used for "rules of thumb" is that two months of rent per year usually cover it.  Your experience may vary. 

So, you get to keep 10 months of rent every year.  (On a fully paid for rental.)  So, that would be 8500.

8500 / 150,000 is 5.6% return on equity.  Not bad, but not great either.  (I get 875 per month on a house I paid 70,000 for.  That's 12.5%.)

I'm thinking you should be able to get close to a 5% return on either a bond, or some kind of dividend paying stock investment.  The ETF "SDIV" (a global dividend paying ETF) yields 7.8%.  That would get you about 11,700 per year.  That's a lot better than 8500, and no work!  That's just one fund, there are others that are similar.  (I'd spread it around over 3 or 4 funds.)

Something to consider.

[toomuchreality]

I could never be a property owner.

I don't know how you all do it, and maintain your sanity!

[Deleted]

Serious, in your position, I'd make sure to keep quiet about any rentals!

2K, thanks for working that out. For now we're in waiting mode because of the insurance and repairs, but we think we prefer to hang onto it. DH also doesn't want to make any decisions until he gets his settlement, which should be in the next few months (if indeed he gets one, but he should).

[Deleted]

No big news, but several small updates:

- Our PM saw the apt and said that there was much less damage than she expected, given the estimate. She think the contractor inflated his estimate. (This is the contractor that completely redid the apt in 2009 after it was trashed by the horrible tenant. I'm thinking he is taking advantage and I will obviously get other estimates. This said, his is the estimate we all sent to our insurance companies, so it's the "official" estimate.)

- The (volunteer) HOA lady got back from vacation late last week. She emailed us today to tell us she would contact the building's insurance co ASAP and get back to us.  

- I learned that although the new CGT laws will be retroactive to 1 Sept, they won't actually be voted in until December. That means if we did decide to sell, we'd have to keep the apt vacant till Dec, plus the 3 or 4 months it takes for the sale to go through here. That's NOT ideal for us, 7-8 months with no rent.

So, although there is no concrete news yet, at least things are looking "less worse" than they did a few weeks ago, and they are finally moving forward. 

For now DH and I are still planning to get the apt redone (paintwork + one Ikea kitchen unit replaced) and rent it out again. If ever it doesn't rent by Dec, when the new CGT laws pass, we'll reconsider. (I don't think that would happen.) But we will probably be without rent for Sept, and being realistic, maybe Oct too, depending on how reactive the insurance co is. 

Also, we think DH will have received a settlement for his accident by Dec, but of course we can't be sure.  

ETA: I'm trying VERY hard to remember that this apt has been problem-free since being trashed in 2009, reno'd in late 2009/early 2010, and re-rented in Feb 2010. So we have had NO problems with it for 3.5 years LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA. 

[Deleted]

Here's wishing you a speedy repair and lease up. Can you rent it for as short as six months?

ETA:

LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA.

LOL, not that it's relevant but "LA" is the Arabic word for "no"  

[Deleted]

Another update

I REALLY messed up by not contacting the insurance co when DH didn't. I also REALLY messed up by allowing the building manager to "do me a favor" and get another estimate. Her estimate sucked, and left off half the work. Thank goodness our rental manager was there to defend us. 

Long story short, the expert came, and accepted the building manager's 1K estimate, with half the work missing. Our rental manager supposedly got it up to 1600e. 

Also, our rental manager got us a 2K estimate for the work ... AFTER the expert turned up. Obviously, they sort of suck, but I have WAY too much work to do it myself, so for now, I'm dealing. 

Long story short, it will cost 2K to put the apt right, and we should be getting 1.5 or so back from insurance. 

I nearly killed our rental agent when she told me "of course they didn't accept the contractor's 4.6K bid, he was going to repaint the entire apt, not just the damaged wall and ceiling." YOU KNEW THIS AND YOU DID NOT POINT THIS OUT TO ME?! If I had known I would have asked him to redo his estimate just redoing the damaged wall / ceiling, but I did not realize it. Obviously I still have a LOT to learn!

I also did not realize that our RE agent had their own contracting company. "Because they never wanted to tell us before, because it would look like they were trying to drum up work." But once you told me, beech, WTF couldn't you get that estimate in BEFORE the insurance adjustor showed up?!  

We honestly considered selling. At this point, DH still doesn't want to sell, but if you get me on a good day (for you) I might actually consider PAYING you to buy!!! The apt is adorable, it isn't even an apt, it's half a house. But it has reversed accomodation, and it has a pump, and it's half a block away from a huge mosque. So it's not exactly a "vanilla" rental/ purchase. But it looks like DH MAY be just a few months away from a settlement from his accident. So, we DH has decided I should carry on with this PT job, even though I'm now working more than FT. At least until DH gets his settlement. 

At which point, I say, either we pay off the loan to get some cash flow, or we sell. 

The good news is, the agency's contractor starts fixing up the apt tomorrow, and it should be finished by next Friday. And we can keep the security deposit to compensate for the unpaid Aug rent. So we will only be out 1.5 mo rent, assuming the apt rents by mid-Oct. 

I SO want to change my nic to "IHateRentals"! Gowron, please take note lol!

[Deleted]

Oh Debt, I'm so sorry.

Short post as i'm in Yosemite in the middle of the Gov't shut down and with limited wifi access.

Have you found another tenant yet or is a vacancy still an issue?

[Deleted]

Rukh, it's not in Paris proper, it's in a close suburb (but on the metro line). I try to remind myself that we have had 3.5 painless years since it was trashed / reno'd / re-rented.

Bonny the agency thinks they have a couple who are interested but the couple hasn't yet dropped off their papers. Fingers crossed. Have fun in Yosemite!