The Successful Landlord Blog

Up to the point I purchased my first property, the few experiences I had with real estate agents led me to believe the group was only slightly more trustworthy than snake oil salesmen; a fact which led me to learn everything I could about buying, selling, and managing property on my own.  I read everything I could get my hands on concerning real estate including law books, state codes and statutes, blogs, and websites. I learned about analyzing income and expenses, cap rates, appraisals; it was all so interesting.  I even went so far as to get my own agent’s license; and that’s when I realized I didn’t know as much about real estate as I thought. Read the rest of this entry »

So we’ve had one of our properties for rent for a few months now. Most of that time was taken up rehabbing the property from the last dirtbag tenant. We’ve got the property listed in the local Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and also on Rentals.com. Besides a sign in the yard, that’s the only advertising we’ve done and this is due to a couple of reasons:

First, typically if a potential tenant is using a computer to find a place to rent, they’re trying to be efficient because their time is valuable to them. As in, they’re not sitting around waiting for their next disability/unemployment/welfare check. Read the rest of this entry »

So I’ve noticed a trend in the landlord business over the years. When dealing with contractors, there seems to be ABSOLUTELY no trust toward customers when it comes to payment. In the past, when I’ve hired various contractors of any size, be they a one man show or a large company, without fail, they find it necessary to show up on my doorstep looking for immediate payment when the job is complete.

Now, I can understand if it’s a larger contract like a whole-house tile job and the contractor has never done business with you before, but when it’s the 6th job of that size for the same customer and they still offer to make the trip all the way across town to your office to “drop off the invoice” which means “drop off the invoice and collect payment,” I don’t get it. Read the rest of this entry »

So in a previous post I wrote about a tenant who, besides having the worst attitude possible, obviously has no idea how to handle her finances. It seems she’d rather steal than position herself appropriately for success in life. To wit:

Recently while working at the newly vacant property, I noticed the utility interface boxes for telephone and cable TV were both open and exposed to the elements. While attempting to secure them, I noticed the electricity “meter can” was also open. As soon as I touched it, it completely fell apart and its pieces fell to the ground exposing the inner workings of the meter. I gingerly reassembled the meter can (220 volts at 100 amps is not your friend) and made a mental note to call the power company to notify them. Read the rest of this entry »

So in a previous post I mentioned that honey bees had set up shop in the floor of a storage shed at one of my properties. Well, today was their day of reckoning. I didn’t want to just kill the bees due to the already ominous sounding Colony Collapse Disorder so I called in my local bee keeper, Lyndon Jones of Trevena Bee Farms.

Apparently this Colony Collapse Disorder was confounding scientists until recently. Now they know that it is caused by a fungus and a virus which kills the bees. Read more here.

Read the rest of this entry »