The Successful Landlord Blog

After reading this post over at RSS Pieces.com, it reminded me of why I really don’t like dealing with Realtors. Now, don’t get me wrong. I know that Realtors are not all bad and I understand that they do add value to a real estate transaction when they know what they’re doing.

Personally I believe that the bar for entry into the profession is set way too low by the state. In Florida, as long as you can pass the test, you can get a license. The state department of professional business regulation makes a lame attempt to weed out the clearly mentally ill-equipped applicants by copiously littering the test with trick questions. This, however, does not limit the morally corrupt applicants.

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So the time has come to find a new credit card for the company I have set up to do “management” of the properties we own. I am partial to Citibank as I already have a personal card with them and every interaction I have had with them, without fail, has been a pleasant experience.

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So, this weekend I realized something that I thought was interesting. Of all the books I’ve read on real estate investing, from what I can remember, none of them approach the subject of what to do, as a landlord, when the rental market goes completely to hell (see picture).

In my opinion, the rental market here in Brevard County, FL is exactly there. Due to investor speculation, there is a huge glut of available properties for rent. So much so that properties of ours that were renting for $950/mth are now renting for below $800/mth.

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I recently read an interesting story written by Chris Smith over at EquityScout.com about how Google is getting into the real estate business.

Basically it seems that Google is making agreements with larger regional Realtor boards, who usually control the data contained in their regional MLS system, to use and display the property data in their search results. Read the rest of this entry »

One of our properties is mortgaged with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. Now, I should mention that there is nothing special about this loan. It’s not an ARM or a second mortgage or even sub-prime, it’s just an investment property.

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