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 »

So, this story is actually from a local real estate agent who is handling the job of finding a tenant for a client.

The agent received a request to show the rental property from a woman who seemed very eager to rent the property in question. The agent, being busy with other business, did not call the woman back for a couple of hours. In the meantime the woman who just could not wait, called the agent’s broker who showed the rental to her.

After seeing the property, the woman contacted the agent and started trying to negotiate the rental price. The agent let her know that if her credit was stellar and her application checked out, the owners would consider negotiating on the rent.

After reviewing the application, it turns out that the woman who was in her 40′s had no credit, due to being married.  Her employment history consisted of nothing except a potential waitress job which was lined-up for after a new local restaurant opening. So currently, no job. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently the web site AngryRenters.com was brought to my attention. Upon viewing this “hot mess” of a site, I was taken aback by how certain politically motivated conservative groups would presume to hijack a certain socioeconomic demographic for their own purposes.

Here are some of the amusing reasons sites like this are completely irrelevant to all but those of feeble intellect:

• The site was created and run by an organization called Freedomworks which is decidedly representative of the extreme right-wing of the American Republican Party. Also see Dick Armey, Chairman.
• The site supposedly gives a voice to renters who are upset with a supposed government bailout of mortgage lenders. Except they’re not upset (see below.)
• On the site there is a “Sign the Petition to Congress” link which apparently has been taken over by people who see right through the nonsensical nature of this site. 70,000 “signatures” so far! Read the rest of this entry »