Greetings, esteemed landlords and landladies!
A deal basically fell into my lap and I closed on my first rental property 4 days ago. A landlord acquaintance was looking to retire. I had been casually looking to buy, had read one book about evaluating properties, but was skeptical about it happening in the short term due to the weird market. I feel like I got a good deal, but I also feel a bit unprepared.
A few details first:
property- half a duplex in a very LCOL midsize city. 2 bed 2 bath 800 sq ft. Built in the 80s. In great shape, newish roof, furnace, AC, flooring. No serious pending maintenance.
purchase price - $85,000
20% down, 4.5% interest rate
monthly payment (mortgage, taxes, insurance) - $500
property's rent estimate - $850 a month
actual rent from inherited tenants - $800 (they asked the previous owners for a reduction in rent in return for a long term lease, the term of which has since passed and now the lease is automatically renewing every 3 months)
I have been planning to have it professionally managed. An acquaintance of mine who is a professional property manager offered a very favorable deal. He went with me to evaluate the property and sounded totally interested to have the work. He has since shown signs of flaking out, so i'm evaluating my options, including managing it myself. I am honestly not very handy with repairs, though, so I still plan to hire out basically all maintenance.
Questions:
As i understand leases, nothing needs to be done for it to apply to me as the new landlord. There is no clause in what they signed that makes the lease terminate with a transfer of ownership. The next 3 month term is up in April. They have apparently been model tenants, so my thought is just to let the lease ride and not raise rent. Any thoughts or suggestions?
I don't have much in the way of reliable tradesmen contacts for maintenance. How do you find handymen for maintenance, for those who don't do it themselves? Homeadvisor.com?
I'm reading books and online stuff about being a property manager, but there isn't much of anything about inherited tenants. Should i do anything specific for this circumstance? There are lots of checklists available for new tenants, but i don't think it sounds very appropriate to go in there to document the condition of the property they have been living in for 3 years. Is it pretty much just go meet them and tell them where to send the check?