Why vacant multi-family empty - Landlord Forum thread 350761

Why vacant multi-family empty by Stephen (WA) on February 21, 2017 @20:40

I know that the subject line doesn't describe this well, sorry.
I just received a form letter from a realtor wanting to know whether we want to sell our multi-family rental property. The letter claims they have a client who is looking for properties. They stipulate that the property be vacant at closing.

So now my question, why would a buyer of multi-family rental property want it to be vacant? I can understand if they looked at a specific property and decided it needed to be upgraded so they want it vacant. But for me, rental property should come with tenants. I don't want to write a big down payment and have zero income.

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Re: Why vacant multi-family empty by Anonymous on February 21, 2017 @22:51	[ Reply ]

I get one of these letters every day. And it's a form letter, just goes into the round file. I get 3 separate letters for each of my 3 buildings. Just toss it

Re: Why vacant multi-family empty

Re: Why vacant multi-family empty by Maiko (AL) on February 22, 2017 @12:28	[ Reply ]

They want to screen their own tenants and not inherit problems. Also, the may have determined value adds that can improve the rent roll and having existing tenants never works out when raising rents en mass.

Re: Why vacant multi-family empty by Anonymous on March 3, 2017 @21:13	[ Reply ]

Why? Control maybe. Now let me guess, you never even had your property up for sale, they contacted you out of no where, more or less, right? And they want it empty at the time of sale, should you decide to sell. But like you've said, WHY would someone want to buy a vacant complex? Well technically your's isn't vacant, yet. This situation is so close to home for me that I'm physically trembling recalling how enraged I was when I found myself on the "other end of that stick" back in August of 2014. I was once the...shall I say "displaced tenant", along with the other families who occupied the other 9 units in my old apartment complex. Now granted, the building had been in serious need of some major repairs, mostly roofing repairs.The 10-plex was Built in the early 70's with a flat roof. This is OREGON- it's been known to rain quite a lot in these parts. Fast-forward 40 years, and woooWEE there was water damage, at least 3 units were in need of immediate repair, even though all units were currently occupied except for one upstairs unit, the only unit that had not undergone complete remodeling just two years earlier.The 9 remodeled units were now renting out at $550.00 per month, except for the one remaining upstairs unit which was still $435.00. The other 9 units were occupied with dependable,rent-paying, long time tenants including myself and my two young sons. I had actually been there the longest, 10 years. During those years, I watched our very nice, friendly, trusting, frustrated and exhausted landlord, who owned the complex out-right, go broke getting ripped off over and over by younger and much less responsible tenants FROM HELL!! One family in peticular moved in on the 1rst, give or take, with cash in hand, first-last-plus deposit equal to one month's rent. Fantastic. I guess no one ever told them they were suppose to continue that "rent-paying thing" as long as they lived there because over the next year, the landlord collected a total of one-half month's rent from that unit. If I told out loud here and now all of the horrendously insane acts, behaviors, stunts, low-life's, loud parties, drunk tenants entertaining even drunker guests, guests who NEVER actually left after the parties because better than a dozen once visiting guests, now lived with those tenants on a permanent basis and did NOT pay rent. Two incidents stand out in my mind, one morning after being kept awake all night by my down stairs neighbors and all 10 or 15 of his roomates, my sons and I step out onto our deck to greet the sunny day, but instead of humming birds, butterflys or swaying trees, we get greeted by some smart-ass, still intoxicated from the night before, standing down on the grass in front of another tenants front door- releaving himself right out in full view of all of us, children included! Another time, three of the downstairs neighbor's "guests" came upstairs to my apartment around 3am and broke in with a library card while my husband was working graveyard shift. I locked myself and my 4 year old in the bathroom and called the cops. If you think they got evicted, think again. By now those new tenants upstairs were starting on their third year of rent-free tenancy, since ripping up and ignoring three or four attempts by the landlord to evict them. Another year later, that couple finally split up and MOVED OUT, leaving behind 3 or 4 teenagers who basically "flopped" there in that empty apartment, two cats, and their three pit bulls. The teens "squatted" there waiting for college classes to start back up without paying rent, and without taking care of the abandoned pets. They left the dogs out to starve and fend for themselves. I took in the two cats they left behind. I made enough repeated calls to police, animal control, and the landlord, and out they went, FINALLY! Downstairs vacated also, after the ONE TENANT who was actually suppose to live there lost his job. Now came the remodeling, and the moving in of some much better tenants, and things settled down. In our situation, the landlord/owner actually wanted to sell the complex,I can't say that I blamed him. About two years later, out of no where, the landlord shows up with three other people carrying clip boards, taking notes down as the LL showed them all through the complex, stopping to introduce each of us silently mortified tenants to the new owner, and property mamagement company, who would now be in charge of who stays and who goes. I new this would end bad. For all of us. And it did. This buyer didn't bother asking the seller to empty out all the units before selling, they waited until our old landlord had had enough and was broke, and bought it from him for a third of the amount he'd originally asked. The new lady landlord was so sweet the day she came by to draw up a new lease agreement with me, she reassured me that nothing was going to change, if we had pets, or needed two parking spaces that was fine,like a "grandfather clause" or something like that. They were there to collect rent, get to know all of us tenants, and start fixing up the property. They would not be raising the rent. Oh, and shut my mouth would I ever love to name names. Here is where this strikes a nerve; mine, along with at least three other tenants' leases were only three months from expiring when new management took over. Others had been on a month by month lease,so when she first came around to renew everyones lease including mine, she only renewed for three more months, after telling me the lease was for one year, starting from mid May, 2014 when they bought the complex. The tenants who had been on a month by month were given a 30-day,no cause "notice of landlords intent to terminate tenancy",while the rest of us were given a 60-day no cause "NOTICE OF LANDLORDS INTENT TO TERMINATE TENANCY", and oh, how the news traveled that we were all getting eviction notices!!! Everyone paniced, including me, how can this have happened, nevermind how suddenly, and after lying to all the tenants, but people who pay their rent don't get evicted...right? Eviction is a bad thing, a horrible thing, only low-lifes, and criminals, and umemployed, non-paying people got evicted. And without cause?? Of coarse it's without cause, because I did nothing wrong to cause myself to be evicted, neither did the other 9 paying tenants and their families. There had been some talk among tenants about possible evictions for all of us, but I was the one tenant who refused to listen to that because I knew that good tenants do not get evicted. We were all good because we all paid. One tenant had just reported a bedbug problem to the new management, thinking that this was the way to get their problem handled quickly, by notifying the manager. The tenant expected the go-ahead on hiring an exterminator, which he the tenant himself had already offered and planned on paying for out of his own pocket.By that afternoon, notices were being served, and their's was first, instead of being granted permission to exterminate(at tenant's own expense), the tenant got the boot. Management took him to court, and won. This was due to the verbal and semi-physical confrontation that took place between the wife and the new lady manager,when she served them their first notice. See, that tenant made a seemingly very common mistake among tenants who have never been through this tangled mess of tenant/landlord rights and laws and responsibilities. Everyone paniced, started packing and most of them actually stopped paying their rent at that point because they figured why bother, right? We've already been evicted, they can't hurt us any more than that, so why pay?? My rent continued, while I started researching on line about tenant/landlord rights, responsibilities, and LAW. NOW HEAR THIS, those notices threw everyone into such a panic, and just like the first tenant evicted, they all got mad, refused to pay rent, one guy just quietly moved out during the night, and a couple of tenants actually "gutted" their appatments before leaving, by stealing the light bulbs, window blinds, door knobs, light fixtures, removed cabinet doors from kitchen, and one angry tenant actually took all the interior and the exterior doors off the hinges and threw them out of his second story window onto the side street where tenants' guests could park. Now, if these tenants hadn't been evicted before(remember the "no cause" notices??) they were certainly evicted now, and remaining tenants were taken to court, sued, and given 10 days to vacate the premises. One family still remains homeless after two years of trying to get another chance at renting. Their record and reputation as a future tenant was shot. Another displaced tenant and their kids are currently squatting somewhere, after spending a year and a half sleeping in a tent on a friend's property. I learned a few hundred priceless things about landlord/tenant/and eviction notices and processes, proper procedures in eviction, what your landlord can and cannot do to evict, and on and on and on. That was time and effort well spent. I fought too, but I did it the right way. If I'd only happened to start researching this one week sooner, none of us would have had to move. And none of us would have gone homeless. When you the tenant receive any piece of paper from a landlord with the word NOTICE on it, then you need to understand the language of the notice before you react. None of us had actually gotten an "eviction" notice at all, those are for non payers, or violent tenants who are a danger to other tenants...OR for a new management company to use unlawfully to frighten, threaten and scare the current tenants into packing up and fleeing,before eviction could take place, or set them up to make a mistake like non payment of rent or destruction of the property, in order to give management actual cause to evict through the court. And that's how they did it, emptied every unit, except mine. I too was frantically looking for housing somewhere, anywhere, else. My credit was less than okay, but I wrote letters to the new manager, when I needed additional time granted to me in order to find housing I could afford and qualify for. My no cause "NOTICE OF LANDLORD'S INTENT TO TERMINATE TENANCY" was originally 60 days to vacate, meaning we "had to be out" by October 15th, 2014, or(the notice stated somewhere)we would face eviction in court. By that time I had over 55 active rental applications out, and had been placed on 13 waiting lists, with a very good chance of getting a call any day that an apartment was waiting for us. I continued to pay my rent, and I sent a written request for extension on my 60 day notice, I had to send this same request every 14 days extra that it took me to find housing. On December 17th, we moved into our new place. KNOW YOUR NOTICES and what they mean, BEFORE going and slashing your landlord's tires. That old apartment complex of 10 units sat empty for over a year after that. I seen some minor sporatic repairs being done by the new owners, the repair guys doing the work on the place had taken my old apartment to live in while repairs were done. Another year later, which is now, there is a brand new pitched roof going up over the building, but even now there are only two apartments being occupied. They're primary goal from the get-go was to buy the owner out dirt cheap, Imediately start getting rid of all the tenants by any means they could, then find the cheapest way possible to repair the building's roof, without actually having to put a lot of money into it, then later make up for what they did spend by jacking up the rent. This is a little different than your situation, but I'm willing to bet your prospective buyer has the same ill intentions as the property management company did in my case.