The Successful Landlord Blog

So this weekend, bright and early on Saturday morning, I got a very frantic call from a tenant who said that they awoke to find that the their air conditioning system had failed and it was F-R-E-E-Z-I-N-G in the house.

About a half hour later, I got another call from the same tenant urgently asking that I get back to him ASAP because, again, their A/C was not working and they couldn’t heat the house.

I called him back soon after and promised that I would get someone out there as soon as I could. The HVAC company went out to the property, fixed the problem and all was well.

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It never fails to amaze me how tenants behave when they’re about to get evicted. I haven’t had to file for one in a while but something I heard today completely reminded me about this behavior.

For some unknown reason, tenants seem to have the perception that it takes between 3 and 6 months before they will actually, physically get removed, by the sheriff, from the house they are supposed to be renting. I say “supposed” because they are actually “supposed” to pay rent to live there.

To illustrate the point: I’ve had family members call me, before the tenants are due to appear in court, to ask if we can “work things out.” Read the rest of this entry »

First off I’d like to wish everyone a Happy New Year for 2009. May it be the economic turnaround year that we’re all looking out for.

So the other day as I was preparing the spreadsheet I use to track income and expenses for my rental properties in 2009. After finishing that task, I had a chance to look back at the spreadsheet for 2008 and noticed a few things.

• The constant expenses incurred by the properties (property tax & insurance) are lower than they were last year. This is a good thing since rents are ridiculously low due to the downward pressure exerted by a glut of housing units available for rent. Read the rest of this entry »