The Successful Landlord Blog

Currently have one detached single-family house on the market for rent. When the last tenants moved out we had to hire a landscaping crew to come in and perform a complete makeover on the yard.

The tenants had “maintained” the yard by cutting the lawn about once every 2-3 months which in Florida, in the summer, is a big no-no. For those readers not familiar with Florida lawn care, you have to cut the grass every week in the summer to prevent the grass from growing as tall as your waist.

The lawn crew we hired consisted of three men and this job took them 7 hours of work so you can get an idea of how overgrown the yard was. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, I discovered a new (to me) site that is not only visually appealing but provides some great information about the landlord business. The main feature of this site is that the information is imparted via video clips.

Host Justin Palma who seems like a really nice and laid-back kind of guy, presents a sometimes dry subject in a very  interesting way. He uses actual footage of contractors working to repair or rehab his rental units in his “In The Trenches” section and he uses his “In The Office” section to explain the business end of things. I particularly like his use of animated charts to make the office work visually interesting. Read the rest of this entry »

I will just start this post off by saying, “DUH!!”

Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system…I recently received a call from a tenant who let me know that for three-weeks now, she had noticed that there was black mold growing on the walls of a hall closet in her rental unit.

She also mentioned that two of her kids have asthma and they could not stay in the house due to the mold causing decreased breathing capacity.  And she mentioned that she’s been trying to clean the mold with bleach but it keeps coming back. Read the rest of this entry »