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Take Time to Be a Dad: Recently I was riding with an experienced 81-year-old investor. He grew up a poor sharecropper in Mississippi. What he’d learned from his meager beginnings was how to work. I mean, really work. He would pick 300 lbs. of cotton a day. He kidded that he was the slowest out of his 12 brothers and sisters. You know, I always admire guys like him. Nothing was ever...
The four jobs of a tenant Rental property that produces a positive cash flow is the Alpha and Omega of real estate investing. To have positive cash flow, you need to have a tenant that pays well. But is that all that you need them to do? The Answer is an emphatic “No”. When we lease up a tenant, we tell them that we’re hiring them for four jobs. Think about that concept for...
Right now it’s 5:38 a.m. My back, hands and neck hurt, and I’m not the alert morning person I normally am. Straight up: I didn’t get enough sleep. I worked on three different rentals yesterday. It was a full day. Rental No.1: We had a busted pipe. When I got the call, it was 30 minutes till Home Depot closed. That meant if we didn’t get all the right materials on the way, the pipe...
Rent is due on the first and late after the fifth for most rental properties. See if this scenario sounds familiar. It is 5p.m. on the fifth and you get a frantic call from a tenant. They’re giving you every reason under the sun for paying late. They say things like, “Please, please give me until next Friday.” Next Friday comes. No payment. Before you know it, two months...
Ashley and I recently took our toddlers to the Ripley’s Aquarium in Gatlinburg, Tenn., for the first time. Boy did we have a time. Notice the omission of the word “good” in that last sentence. The time we had was stressful and not fun. My three-year-old decided he wanted nothing to do with the exhibits. Instead, he wanted to plow up and down the halls pushing the “stroller of...