I have been slacking in writing posts. I suppose it’s because no movement has been made in the process. We are in day 10 of the waiting period for the county to give its notes on the survey. The surveyor said turnaround is about 15-18 days.

My wife and I (mostly I) have given over responsibility for taking care of the new tenants at our duplex. The tenants and my wife share the same ethnicity which helps with managing them. In other words, they have potential to be serious pains in the ass. The increase of $598/month in rent is nice, though. They initially paid with money orders which cannot be deposited remotely and come with a 10-day hold. I asked them if there was any other way they could pay me and the answer was, “I have Zelle but I just don’t trust sending that amount of money electronically.”. Yeah, it’s safe. Pay your rent with Zelle, please!

We are having trouble getting the nearly vacant 1BR unit at our primary residence. The current tenants are vacating this Sunday and I haven’t shown it even once. I might be getting a little greedy in the monthly ask, but the comps support it. We started at $2600, bumped it to $2700 a couple of days later because supply was pretty low. We weren’t getting any bites so I decreased it back to $2600, then $2550 a week later, $2500 a couple days later, and now we’re at $2400/month. For context, the current rent is $1770/month. Is this the slow time of year?