PDX Renovations

Tag: #renovations

  • Why Your Inherited House Will Become a Rental Nightmare

    Why Your Inherited House Will Become a Rental Nightmare

    Inherited House

    It’s understandable that having just inherited a house along with the financial and maintenance responsibilities, not to mention the emotions of losing a loved one, the new owner may wish to simply buy some time while sorting through the options. An owner may think that installing a tenant is the answer (at least temporarily) to the issues I described in my last blog post “4 Headaches of An Inherited House”.

     

    But the owner of an inherited house who has never managed a rental before may be in for a rude awakening! Consider these scenarios before putting yourself into a rental nightmare situation – a quick home sale might be a better choice.

     

    • A house new to the rental market, perhaps recently occupied by an aging or sick individual, may need major work to bring it up to code standards for a rental.

     

    • Screening applicants before the lease is signed will have you weighing the implications of the credit issues many individuals carry after years of a bad economy, not to mention a past divorce or foreclosure.

     

    • The laws are strict about landlord do’s and don’t’s. If your tenant turns out to be a disaster of late payments, failure to perform upkeep, and even calls from neighbors with noise complaints, you can’t just chuck ‘em out without going through the hoops according to the law.

     

    • What if they aren’t paying – or are paying late every month? If the house didn’t come with a mortgage on it, as a first-time landlord you may find yourself being too lenient – until they have built a rent backlog it is unlikely they can ever meet. Again, you must follow the legal requirements to take action on rent payment problems.

     

    • Renter phone calls reporting problems such as a lack of hot water or that the air-conditioning stopped working mean that you drop everything and deal with this as an emergency, along with a potentially major outlay of capital funds. It’s even worse if the renter procrastinates telling you about the new lake forming in the basement or the warping front steps. Renters are notorious for not reporting or delaying telling you about problems.

     

    Rentals require a source of backup funds to deal with unforeseen repairs, as well as considerable diligence, patience, and fortitude to deal with renters. If you are wishing for more time before final disposal, or you think it’s too expensive to get the house in shape to sell, a rental could actually make things worse rather than better. A quick home sale to a company like PDX Renovations, who are professionals with such issues, can often be a better long-term solution than renting.

     

     

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    Question or Prompt for Response – open-ended, relevant

    If you’ve been a landlord, what advice do you have for first-timers?

     

    Call to Action

    Get an all-cash offer on your rundown house within an hour of our viewing  – find out about PDX http://bit.ly/W4S55u #pdx

  • 4 Headaches of An Inherited House and Why You Want to Sell Fast

    4 Headaches of An Inherited House and Why You Want to Sell Fast

    inherited house

    It may have been grandma’s house while she was alive, fragrant with the smell of baking cookies and enriched with the love she had for all her visiting children and grandchildren. But it’s been a month since she passed away and nothing has been done for the property while everyone was focused on the funeral service and getting the estate process underway. –  inherited house

    Only a month, and already it looks as if “The Addams Family” is in residence! The un-mowed yard and dying landscaping, storm damage to the picket fence and window shutters, and the formation of a new lake where drainage is blocked with debris have all begun the deterioration.  And that’s just the outside.

    In spite of sentimental attachments, inherited houses tend to fast become a heavy burden for an heir(s) who have no interest in taking residence.  It is astonishing how quickly even a previously well-maintained property will take on a look (and reality) of decrepitude once no one is living in it and maintaining it.

    Be assured that regardless of unpreparedness you are to be saddled with this responsibility, the longer it sits vacant, the more the positives erode and the negatives increase as it evolves into a “neglected property”.   It is frequently best to let it go on to a new owner who will care for and treasure it as did your loved one, as quickly as you can arrange a sale.

    Here are 4 reasons why you should sell your home fast –

    • Cash is needed to pay the property taxes, perhaps an existing mortgage, HOA fee, and other obligations, as well as insurance. Unless you pay what is owed, after only 2-3 months liens and foreclosures will have the same consequences as for any other property.
    • Unless maintained the house and yard will deteriorate even faster than an unpaid mortgage loan. The downhill slide detracts from the marketability of the house. The out-of-pocket cost to the heir(s) can go well beyond paying the neighbor kid to mow every once in a while.
    • No matter how beloved the previous resident, count on the neighbors to become quickly aggravated at the decaying vacant house on their block and to report it to the city, bringing you a city nuisance action. If the deterioration goes far enough – and that can happen faster than you think – at some point, you could even be facing condemnation.
    • Thinking of installing a tenant while you sort out the long-term decisions? Before you can rent it, defects must be addressed almost as if you were selling to meet marketability, ordnance, and building code standards. Prospective tenants must be screened, and once they are in you’ll be dealing with whatever issues they bring, as well as ongoing repairs and maintenance.

    Time will not stand still while you ponder if you should sell your house. As property conditions fester, options for either sale or rental become more difficult, even impossible. Act in your own long-term best interests, keep the memories and photos and let the property go forward to a new owner before the problems have a chance to grow.

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  • Why You Should Avoid Leaving Your Inherited House Vacant

    You may wish you had some time before you must deal with all the issues of a house you’ve inherited, including maintenance and repairs. More time to decide about selling or leasing; time to work out questions about the will and the estate. But vacant houses rapidly become problems not just for the owners, but for the community as well.

     

    • City governments, as well as the neighbors, look on houses sitting vacant and un-maintained for more than a few weeks as an escalating nuisance. Overgrown yards nurture destructive rodents that will bring trouble to neighboring properties. Empty houses attract vagrants and drug dealers, and even neighborhood children who stumble into mischief of injury.

     

    • Vacant houses can be stripped of everything from cabinets to plumbing by thieves. The damage can be so extensive that the structural integrity of the house is compromised.

     

    • Barely-maintained vacant homes quickly lose marketability for either sale or rental. No one wants to live in a home overrun with bugs, with gutters stuffed with debris and major work needed in the yard – not to mention interior damage. Poor conditions develop after only a short period of vacancy and escalate over time.

     

    • Insurance coverage issues can multiply as fast as the mice and squirrels taking residence in the attic. Insurance agencies are reluctant to cover vacant houses, knowing the risks of major claims only too well. When insurance can be obtained the premiums are frequently higher than usual.

     

    • When utilities have been switched off there are unique issues to switching them back on. The sudden surge of new water pressure can cause faucets to run and even find weak points in the plumbing. And what is a new rush of heating or air-conditioning blowing out of the vents? Have rodents been snacking on the wiring?

     

    • And finally, back to our first point about how local governments view vacant houses …  Some municipalities are diligent about community hygiene when it comes to structures. The city recognizes, even if the owner does not, that structural problems escalate and can create a hazard of both collapse and fire, as well as becoming a breeding nest for rodents, stray cats, undesirable plants and more. Condemnation and even destruction may follow. And the owner will get the bill for the bulldozers!

     

    Letting an inherited house sit vacant and poorly maintained allows all the negatives to grow. A fast sale is usually a better option for everyone concerned, for both short-term and long-term considerations.

     

     

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    Question or Prompt for Response – open ended, relevant

    Have you had a house with an extended vacancy – what were the largest problems?

     

    Call to Action

    Get an all-cash offer on your rundown house within an hour of our viewing  – find out about PDX http://bit.ly/W4S55u #pdx