The Successful Landlord Blog

Today Landlord-Success.com is 3-years-old! Yay for us! It’s been a hard road sometimes what with the crazy, criminal and just plain dumb tenants, contractors who act like they really shouldn’t be in business, municipalities who behave like they’re trying to lock you into a payment plan and service providers who like to throw their weight around (enabled by the city governments.)

On the other hand, I’ve met (online only but in-person hopefully soon) some really cool people. There’s Clifford who is a web entrepreneur and recovering software engineer like me, Jessica who is THE model for any Realtor or property manager thinking about joining the 21st century and a few other landlords who are in the same boat as me.

All-in-all, it’s been a fun ride which shows no sign of letting up any time soon. While we wait for the economy to dig itself out of the enormous hole it’s in, we commiserate, console and cheer each other on enabling each of us to get where we’re heading.

Thanks everyone and here’s to another three years!

Recently I had a situation where I had three tenants living as roommates and their lease was coming to an end. When I asked them if they wanted to renew the lease, they told me that one of the roommates would be moving out and that the two remaining would not be able to cover the third one’s share.

After doing some quick math, I determined that to continue to live there, the two remaining roommates would have to come up with an extra $133 per month.

So basically, this crew will be footing the expense and general pain-in-the-you-know-what of moving all because they can’t find a way to come up with an extra $133 per month.

It’s unbelievable to me that people choose to live so “close to the wire” that they would allow any little unexpected expense that comes up to completely throw their finances out-of-whack, thus incurring late fees for that month. Read the rest of this entry »

So I’m sure that at some point you have heard a “ringback tone” while calling someone’s cell phone.  A ringback tone allows a mobile user to personalize the ringing sound that their caller hears when dialing their cell phone number. Instead of hearing the familiar ringing sound until they answer, you will hear for instance, a song by Justin Timberlake or, god forbid, Britney Spears or some pre-recorded message.

Is it just me or is that not the most annoying cell phone “feature” to be offered by a wireless carrier?

Apparently, this feature was first offered by a South Korean wireless provider and it was so popular that they had to scramble to keep up with the demand for it. Why, I have no idea.

As a landlord, when I call a tenant’s cell phone and hear Britney Spears trying to sound like Eartha Kitt (Catwoman in the original Batman TV series) I immediately feel like hanging up and sending a letter instead.

Also, it seems that they’re not even smart enough to know that an appropriate use of a ringback tone would be to have it play when their friends are calling and not when anyone is calling. Duh.

My favorite is when they setup a “custom” ringback tone which consists of them recording their favorite song, via the cell phone, by holding it up to a speaker pushed way beyond its limit. Now THAT’s enjoyable!!