Perrysburg Blog

It seems that every day either I or someone on my team meets a person/family/transferring couple who want to rent and not buy in Perrysburg.

And, there is, in my opinion, a substantial inventory of “hidden listings” that are not on the market but are leased by their Perrysburg owners simply because they cannot sell them in this current market.

The two sides – property owners and property renters – come together and a market is made.

Caution was advised for renters by me in a prior post – - the Craigslist Scam.

Now some advice for homeowners who can’t sell and have been pressed into the often uncomfortable roll of “landlord”:

1. Trust but ALWAYS verify.

2. Check and recheck your deed restrictions.  Some condos in Perrysburg forbid a 12 month lease.  Sometimes your nice new tenant will buy a trailer and you will get into hot water with your neighbors.

3.  Use a lawyer to approve/review/draft your lease.

4.  Never let the potential tenant bring THEIR lease to the party.  This should be a little alarm bell that rings . . . .

5. Trust but verify.  Oh, did I say this before?  Well, you cannot trust anyone anymore.   Sorry.  You have to check the veracity of the phone numbers on the application.   You have to check the ID of the tenant.  You have to check the funds behind their check.  You have to check and check and check.   And the ONE TIME you don’t do it, because you just KNOW that the family moving in, with their little girl Daisy being treated for Hypoemetholema . . . the nice family that is moving here from Heart of Gold Texas where they were pastors and choir singers . . . that family?  That’s the one that will GET YOU GOOD.

6. Lead based paint.  Know the rules.  Embrace them.  Follow them.  Or get ready to get sued into oblivion.

7.  Never, ever listen – and I mean don’t even LISTEN to the excuses and reasons and rationale from a tenant who cannot pay.  Seriously.  Can I call my tenants up and reasonably expect them to listen to me about my problems and my family issues?  At its’ base – the landlord / tenant relationship is a commercial one.  It’s a business transaction.  With multiple payment points.  And a written contract.   Homeowners of the shadow inventory of unsold homes in Perrysburg who indulge in being a professional landlord cannot then ALSO become lenders/enablers/counselors etc. for their tenants.  It does not work.

You can be a landlord.

Just think about it first.

Or, you can hire me.

Just consider my free advice.

Toledo double taxing its’ citizens.

Bowling Green sending us a new corporate HQ.

Toledo laying off their police force.

All of these things tend to increase residential housing demand and values in our little town of Perrysburg.

Now I just learned that in one years time – which if you hadn’t noticed seems to arrive very much faster today than it did years ago – in April of 2010 the rules re. lead based paint are going to change.

Currently any Realtor selling any home built before 1978 has to provide a Lead Based Paint Disclosure to the buyer.   This is a trivial thing – for not once have I ever met a seller that had known that he had lead based paint in their house.  No one tests – so no one knows.

So the disclosure has what value?

Zero.

Nada.

None.

Year after year Realtors have been giving disclosures that say nothing to people who know nothing so that people can not read them but sign them anyway.

All at the behest of the Federal government.  (And you are worried about them running GM?)

But that is ALL going to change.

Starting on 4/22/2010 ALL regular consumers and normal Joes who buy investment property – duplexes, triplexes, 4-plexes, and even single family houses – for use as rental properties have to abide by the rules that giant “Market Rate” owners of thousands of properties have to abide by.

Such as:

-Testing each and every unit ($500+)

-Building and keeping and supply an audit-proof paper trail on all work done in each rental unit.  Fine for bad paperwork?  Up to $33,000!!!!

-Containing ANY work area in ANY pre-1978 rental unit just like it is an asbestos contamination zone.

-Only using  power tools with HEPA attachments in such units.

-Seeing that ALL personal that do ANY work in such units are trained and certified.

Painting more than 6 square feet of a pre-1978 built rental property?  You are most likely going to have to hire a professional  and PAY BIG MONEY.  Or else test and prove you have no lead in your unit.

How in the world does this help Perrysburg?

Think about it . . . the NEWER suburbs with NEWER rental properties are EXEMPT from this madness.

If you have a post 1978 rental property you can just smile at this insanity.  If you want to sell it, and I am your listing agent, we will make sure to point out in our marketing that it is LEAD FREE and EXEMPT from the new law.   This will, in my opinion, have a huge impact on values and investment property demand.  Most of Perrysburgs RENTAL units are post-1978.

I could go on . . . trainers need to be EPA certified, firms need to be certified, if a child comes into contact with dust from a building as they walk on the sidewalk . . . you cannot imagine what this is going to cost.

But not to the majority of Perrysburg rental units.

Duplexes “in the Boundary’s” are hit.

Some units in Southwood Park . . . maybe.

Three Meadows  – safe.

Most of the Township – safe.

The City of Toledo – in 10 months you won’t want to own so much as a stick of wood in that town if you are a property investor.

Not unless you are either a lawyer or a commercial painting contractor.