The Successful Landlord Blog

Today I came acorss a most excellent lock system which is PERFECT for landlords. The blog post about it was written by Anesia Springborn over at TheLandlordBlog.com.

Basically, this system allows you (as a landlord) to carry only one master key with you which will get you into ANY of your units. From the demo, it looks like it would take a few seconds to change out the lock or gain access. If you need to change the locks after a tenant moves out, simply insert another cylinder which has its own key.

Simply AMAZING! In the future we will be buying our locksets from LandlordLocks.com. Finally! I just knew there was a better way to deal with the lock situation.

So, I recently ran upon this article about the National Association of Realtors (NAR) who say that they are planning to spend up to $43 million to raise public awareness that, and get this, now is the time to buy a house.

Ok, regardless of the fact that IT IS a good time to buy a house due to low interest rates and large housing inventories, in my opinion there is no need to advertise. It seems to me that NAR thinks that the housing market is akin to the grocery store checkout isle.

I could be wrong but buying a house is typically not an impulse buy for the general population. I guess that the National Association of Realtors needs to justify their existence somehow and this is their way of doing that.

I recently read an interesting post on the blog of a local real estate agent. It shows the ratio of properties listed for sale to the number of properties sold in my area. There is a graph included which has a time span of one year.

With so many people crying about the “housing crash” and how the house they bought six months ago is now worth $40,000 less than when they bought it, it’s interesting to me that over the past eight months there was a large increase of the houses listed for sale.

I would venture to say that this is caused by all the speculative buying done by so-called “investors.” It amazes me that these people would wait until the last possible moment to list the houses for sale and then wonder why they can’t get the houses sold and all the while paying that nicely increasing mortgage payment because they took out a adjustable rate mortgage to buy the place. Here’s an interesting post from the RealEstateBloggers.com about this.
But then again, about two years ago, I was told by more than one mortgage broker that I should consider a mortgage with a variable APR because, and I quote, “Variable rate mortgages are as good as fixed rate mortgages these days.” At the time, I really had to hold my tongue as I wanted so badly to ask these people if I sound (on the phone) like I was born yesterday because in my mind “these days” are not going to last for the next 30 years (or the term of any of my mortgages).

So, today I got a call from my real estate agent letting me know that there was an inquiry on the house for rent. She let me know that the woman inquiring says that she has 3 dogs which she “won’t part with” whatever that means. We’re not trying to take your dogs away lady.

Anyway, at the end of the conversation, the lady inquiring mentions that two of the dogs are 60 pound “American Staff Terriers” as she called them. Being unfamiliar with this breed, I did a quick Google search.

Ya, these things are basically Pit Bull Terriers. And the correct name is American Staffordshire Terrier. Even if I don’t know what I’m talking about and these dogs are NOT Pit Bulls, they totally look like Pit Bulls and that’s what the dog bite victim, police, animal control, personal injury attorney, judge and insurance adjuster are going to see as well.

Thank goodness for Google + Broadband internet access. NO WAY, are those dogs living in one of my properties. I bet that potential tenant is having to go through the entire list of properties for rent looking for a gullible landlord or property manager. It’s almost like you have to try to NOT rent the place.

Ya, thanks for playing! NEXT !