Prayer request in a financial matter

**guest002** · 10-08-2009, 11:26 AM

I was notified yesterday via email from our property manager for the house we own in Alabama (we still have a mortgage on it - want to clarify) of this:

I just want to inform you that the tenants that are occupying your property at ... has called and said that they will be in on October 28, with October and November rent plus October late fees. The tenant lost her job, but has gotten another one.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

They were late with the rent last month, but did pay the late fees. I hope that what the told the property managers is the truth. This is a tenant we've had over a year now. This is also a newish property manager for us. We fired our old property managers after 7 years when we re-occupied the home when we got assigned back to Alabama briefly and realized they were not checking the property enough and the last tenant skipped out on 2 months rent and did not leave the house very clean.

As most of you know we are a one income family and we live in expensive California. Not our choice, but the military's (living in California).

Please pray that what the tenant told the property managers is the truth and that she will pay on what she said on the day she said. That she will keep this new job and be able to provide for herself and her family so we can provide for ourselves. Thankfully our credit card payment had not processed yet for this month and I was able to change the amount in half. I don't have much of an emergency fund, but enough to take care of November if need be. We just won't be able to pay off the one credit card as aggressively as we hoped, but that's okay for now. Creative money management, right?

**Greebo** · 10-08-2009, 12:03 PM

I share your hope that the tenant is telling the truth.

And I am deeply concerned about what you've told me about your long distance landlord situation.

If you have a long distance property with a mortgage, and you're running everything as an individual, you need 3 months of property expense reserves (including mortgage) before you even BEGIN paying extra on your debt.

So - I hope for the best - but I IMPLORE you to change how you're managing the money for this property, because a tenant being late on the rent should not have been able to cause this much anxiety in the first place.

**pinetree** · 10-08-2009, 12:15 PM

Oh my, after what my renter pulled and skipped out on us, I will say a prayer for you.

You must set up some kind of EF for the rental. The house has been empty now for 2 months while we repair it. We have a year of payments set aside for such things, plus repairs etc. ( last year we had to put in a new furnace).

**Nishu** · 10-08-2009, 12:20 PM

Hopin' it works out for you Paula. Please let us know how it works out.

**guest002** · 10-08-2009, 01:29 PM

Originally Posted by Greebo

So - I hope for the best - but I IMPLORE you to change how you're managing the money for this property, because a tenant being late on the rent should not have been able to cause this much anxiety in the first place.

I was trying to do that, but I wasn't doing that as aggressively as I could have been. I was slowly building the EF and trying to aggressively attack the CC debt. I see now that at least until I hit my EF goal in my signature I need to do the opposite of what I was doing.