The Successful Landlord Blog

This is just getting old. Recently I mentioned that I was about to freak out because we were about to have three properties vacant at one time. Well the third one, where the tenants just renewed the lease, went belly up. And, you know, I just KNEW something was up, here’s why.

I spoke with the tenants on the phone about renewing the lease about 45days prior to the end of the lease term and asked them if they wanted to stay. They were ALL gung-ho about staying. I then mailed them a “Notice to Renew or Vacate” and they never returned it. I spoke with them again about it and again they said they wanted to stay. Again, the notice was not returned. Finally, I showed up at the door and asked about it they signed it and I took it with me. I just refuse to let tenants go month-to-month.

This month, they mailed me a worthless check for the rent. I called them multiple times about it and they simply stonewalled me for a week. When I posted a three-day notice to “pay rent or quit” (as required by Florida law), they left.

When I went in to inspect the property, there was a very lame note written on lined notebook paper apologizing for them leaving and promising that they would make good on the worthless check, blah, blah, blah. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently a reader asked the following question about choosing a property management company:

I’m new to the [property investment] game and bought a 15 unit building in an affordable state far from my home & hired a property management company (PMC).
So far this year I have paid 40% of my rents towards repairs.  The PMC uses
its own repairmen (naturally).  I believe I am getting robbed but can find
no statistic that states the average amount a landlord should expect to pay
in repairs.  Needless to say I didn’t factor this big of a chunk coming out
of my rents and am having trouble paying my mortgage (although I’m sure my
PMC isn’t). Anyway does anyone have a guess as to what % is reasonable?

Personally, I have not had much luck hiring a property management firm for a couple of properties I was renting out while living out-of-town. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, I was changing the locks on one of the rental houses because of this idiot and came across a new (to me) product by Kwikset called SmartKey^®.

Basically, it’s a lock which can be “programmed” to recognize a new key and forget the old one. Hallelujah! No more changing locksets! And it’s about freaking time too.

A while back, I wrote about something similar where instead of changing the whole lockset, you just change the actual lock cylinder. But these lock cylinders had to be special ordered and you had to keep the keys together with the locks.

Now, with this SmartKey system, you just have to keep track of the keys themselves. In case I’ve been living in The Whitehouse under a rock, if you’ve heard of these locks, leave me a comment and tell me to wake up and pay attention. Cheers!

So this one is pretty much a rant but read on….

The other day I received a refund check from our friends at the IRS for some piddly amount of money. I debated sending it back with a note saying, in effect, “You obviously need this more than me” but I deposited it instead.

In with the check was a card (pictured) that partially read,

If you think we may have made an error, please call us. If you are certain that the refund check is too large, please return the check with a letter to the service center where you filed your return and we will send you the correct amount. If the refund is too large and you don’t return the check, you may owe us interest.

Now, what in the hell is THAT about? So let me get this straight. If we screw up, we get penalized. If YOU screw up, WE get penalized? WTF?!

Oh but wait, this is America and we can appeal an IRS decision. So we have to go to tax court to do this, but at what cost?

Why is it that nobody wants to take responsibility for their actions? Even the government? Even the IRS who can not be sued, still will not take responsibility for their own actions. Nice!