I don't think there's much else people can really tell you and the BFI forum probably isn't going to let this turn into a blog. Everybody is going to tell you the same thing anyway: sell immediately, move away, and find work there as fast as you can. I wouldn't dwell on your misfortunes too long with all you have on your plate right now. Good luck.

P.S. - And reading more, I don't think property management is going to work for you in any scenario. You won't get credit and aren't able to perform upkeep... get out of it before you find yourself liable for an expensive problem.

Yep thanks for your advice Gonso. It has been very good advice indeed. Makes a lot of sense to me. Really has confirmed the things I was thinking about before I posted. Having a second opinion really is going to make the decision to liquidate a lot easier for me. Since I have established a close relationship with my home preservation specialist at Wells Fargo, they should be willing to give me time to find a buyer. I will speak to her again on Monday. Thanks again for all of your help! I really appreciate it

If you are considering the advice from my post (moving into the apartment and selling the house) you MUST answer the cash flow issue. It makes no sense to have a negative cash flow. It sounds like you must raise the rent if that is your choice. Now, raising the rent isn't as easy as just increasing the price. Tenants may move out and you're back to a negative cash flow. If that's the case, you should just sell it right now rather than keep leaking money.

Hi mt,
The problems with owning this property is that every one of the rentals is connected to my water source, so I have to pay water and sewer for all which is:
-$120/month
Then, the garage apartment is attached the the main 3 bedroom house where I live and is inclusive of all utilities. The house cannot be sold without selling the apartment attached to it. So, the electric for the guard lamps, house and apartment is:
-$235 (This is average billing)

Then, the cable is always stolen from my house so unless I just don't have cable for myself, I pay for cable which is:

-$200 (This includes my internet which comes with phone for my fax.)

The one bedroom house is connect also to my natural gas line which is used to heat the water and for the stoves. This is:

-$60 in warm months and more in winter months since my heat is a furnace which runs on natural gas. The one bedroom and the garage apartment has no heat, so I suspect tenants use the stoves to warm up since my bill is always much higher in the winter.

I'm looking at around -$600 a month on utilities to live in the house.

The one bedroom is old and was built in 1959. There are issues with rodents living beneath it and in the attic. I have seen the evidence. The last tenant, a girl in her twenties and her 8 year old son lived there around 6 months and complained once of hearing possum or armadillo beneath the house. I tried to set a trap and caught a few possum, but they are endless since we live near a river, and the animal control in this county try to do as little work as possible. Believe me, I have had my rounds with them. So, I only charged $450/month for the one bedroom. The last tenant paid an additional $20 for cable because I rented two additional boxes for her since she asked for them. Now, I realize the price of $470 a month is too cheap for a one bedroom which includes gas, water, sewer and cable despite the animal issue. Other than that the place is clean, and I had it painted before she moved in. She just moved out this week. I allowed her to break her month to month lease by only giving me a 15 day notice and only paying me $235 this month. I'm not a very good property manager as you can see. I'm too soft.

The one bedroom house I am speaking of is on it's own parcel adjacent to my large house and the two bedroom house which also sits on my large parcel. There are two tax bills, and the tax appraisal district does not have the buildings properly appraised for each parcel. They have included the two bedroom building on the small parcel where the one bedroom is located. It is very confusing, and I have tried to fix it with the county tax appraisal but have had no luck. The have so many rules and procedures and it can only be done during a couple of weeks out of the year through a hearing. So, I give up. I know I shouldn't but it's like pulling teeth with these people.

So, the two bedroom house has been occupied by my Mom's nephew. This was her doing o.k. He has never worked since I moved home in 2006 when my Mom requested she need my help. He lives there with his Mom who was married to my Uncle. She is on disability and she collects my Uncles social security since he passed away before she and my cousin moved into the two bedroom house. My Mom was always helping people in her family, and her family always treated her like she owed them something, so therefore, she allowed them to live there for $500 a month. Now I know this is way too cheap. So, they started paying me $525 to help out with cable, but I still pay for their water. They pay their own electric and natural gas. Then, they asked for premium cable services with digital boxes so they started paying me $565 last year. During all this time, they imposed their problem of the lady having to go to the doctors and get groceries without a car. They don't own a car, so they used me to let them use my car. They have been using my car since my Mom was sick, and ever since she passed away in February of 2008. They never pay any expenses like car registration (-$75/year), car insurance (-$300/every 6 months), oil changes (-$45/5000 miles), state inspection -($60/year) and car washing. They never once cleaned the car.

So, on the first of this month, I gave them and ultimatum not to use my car anymore. If they needed a ride somewhere, and I was available, I would offer to take them. They got totally mad, and started banging on my door and on my windows cursing at me. I was almost going to call the police. Then they sent me a letter saying they were moving out this month. So, they are in the process of moving out. I still won't believe it until I see it.

Let's talk about the garage apartment. The lady who has been renting the all inclusive garage apartment for about a year now pays +$450/month. The apartment was remodeled by my Mother before I moved home because that is where she moved me. It has nice new tile floors, new cabinets, and new refrigerator. It has an electric two burner stove top and a new walk in shower and new toilet. My Mother was a sales lady and office manager for several plumbing companies all her life, so she had access to good plumbing fixtures and she wanted the room to be nice for me. It's not very big, but it's a good room other than it does not have heat and the cooling is a window unit. Luckily that hasn't broken down, and the tenant is using a space heater my Mom gave me during the winter months. Since the room is nice and it is all inclusive, I realize I need to charge more than $450/month.

But, if I didn't live in the 3 bedroom main section of the home where my Mom lived, I could possible collect at least $750/month for rent and the tenant would be liable for all of the utilities. Therefore, I would save $600 in utilities and add $750 of cash flow.

If I did this, is it fair? To have the tenant pay all those utilities for everyone? Could I depend on them to do it? If they don't pay utilities, none of us would have any.

Also, could I rent the 3 bedroom with bad carpets in 3 rooms and broken tile around the toilet? Not to mention the kitchen cabinets are old and need to be replaced.

I am a bad property manager, and I don't have money to fix things. I already spent a lot of money remodeling the outside green house, a room on the inside of the main house where my sister used to live, and two new a/c units. I had the original hardwood flooring refinished in two room of the main house. So, the main house isn't all that bad.

The two bedroom needs new carpet since my cousin and his mom have been there 6 years, and they also caused some damage to the ceiling from the a/c evaporator unit being clogged and leaked onto the drywall ceiling. There is old dry food splatter all over the kitchen counters over there too because she always cooked and didn't clean her food splatter very well.

I hope this gives a better picture of my situation. I did not mention personal expenses like food, gas, doctor or anything like that. I have a storage unit I need to pay (-$65/month), and my cell phone. I have not been able to pay any of my credit card debts.

I forgot to mention the expense of the landscaping. My mom was a master gardener and has hundreds of plants both potted and planted. I spent a lot of money trying to keep the place mowed, weeded and mulched. Now, I'm getting behind because I can't afford mulch, or helpers. I can't mow it myself anymore because the mower self drive is broken, so a young man comes over to mow when he can find me at home. If I'm not home he won't mow. And now I have a broken ankle so I can' even water the potted plants in the green house. There is no sprinkler system installed here. The main house was built in 1961.

I didn't read the whole thing because it was incredibly long. You need to figure out what you want to do with your life. If you have something that you want and can do, then sell everything and get out of this mess. If you don't have everything else, put some effort into straightening things out.

As far as the utilities are concerned, you need to pay the utilities. You can't expect someone else to pay the utilities for others. However you need to take into account that the tenants aren't paying for utilities so make sure their rent reflects that.

Look around at other nearby rental places and see what they are charging for similar accommodations. Determine if you can make a profit. Sell if you can't or don't want to put the effort into it (but you better have some job to do because just spending all of the money is going to leave you in the same position in a year or two).

Whenever you have a financial emergency, sometimes you need quick cash. The real issue is that most people cannot manage to pay the entire loan back at once on their next paycheck. Fortunately, you can just get an installment payday loan. These loans supply you with the quick cash you need and the option to repay it over time.

My father wants to help out. How can he help me in this situation? Should I ask him to pay off my balance, and then make an agreement to re pay him from the monthly rental income?