The Successful Landlord Blog

Recently, I finished reading a great book entitled Retire Rich from Real Estate by Marc W Andersen, Ph.D.

This is a great book because not only is the subject of investing in residential real estate covered completely but there are lots of interesting tidbits of information that can help you decide which type of rental property is right for your market, location and temperament.

Also, the complete “life cycle” of the investment is covered. There are explanations about how to determine which property to buy, how to finance it the best way, how to manage the property properly(i.e.- deal with tenants effectively) and finally, how to sell the property and cash in.
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First off, sorry for the posting drought. Being a landlord is but one of my attempts at creating other streams of income. In the mean time, I’ve been working on the other streams, none of which are within the scope of this blog.

But as an aside, I have been reading the blogs of a couple of other people who are on this same path. They are very interesting and informative so you should check them out of you haven’t already. They are www.livelearninvest.com and www.livingoffdividends.com

So back to the matter at hand. Recently, I’ve been on a total take-no-prisoners campaign to cut my insurance costs. I’ve been attacking the insurance policies on my rental property mostly because the premiums are completely ridiculous compared to what they were when I bought these houses. I mean, I did allow for some increase in the cost of insurance (and taxes) but not DOUBLE or TRIPLE the amount. And of course, my insurance agent is not going to call and say, “You know if you did this and this with your coverage, you could save some money.”

Here’s the interesting turn of events: As a result of these efforts, two of the rental properties are (freaking finally) back in the black. This means barring of course, the need to fix a plumbing waste line or god forbid a complete re-pipe due to a slab leak. And it’s only February……

So if you’re close to something wooden, please knock it for good luck for me.

Also, I promise to post more often in the near future. Thanks for reading.