Letter of demand Most landlords in our area have their residential leases set up so rent is due on the first and late after the fifth of each month. That scenario means that on the sixth of the month, a letter of demand should be issued to any tenant who has not paid. This letter is often referred to as a “pay or quit” letter, and it should read…
Living in a rehab When Ashley and I got married, we bought the house she grew up in from her mother in Villanow. Now, if you don’t know where Villanow is, you are not alone. It’s located in Walker County and borders Whitfield County and the Johns Mountain Wildlife Management Area where state Route 136 and state Route 201 intersect. Villanow isn’t a city — it’s a little…
Problem solving a poor baby We had a bad night this week. As a matter of fact, it was one of the worst I can remember in our child rearing career. And it all started while we had the kids working at a flip project we just finished on Sunday. Real estate investing is our family business. As such, we try to get the kids involved as much…
Do it wrong, do it long When I was in middle and high school, I was on the football team. Notice how I intentionally phrased that statement. Let me explain. When I was in middle school, we lived in a little town in Madison County called Hull on the outskirts of Athens Ga. As such, I went to Madison County Middle School. There, I wasn’t just on the…
Kill it, or keep it? I’ve written to you before about the story of the goose and the golden egg. Just to remind you, it’s about a poor farmer who discovered he had a goose that would lay a solid gold egg each day. The farmer would sell that egg and then live lavishly off the proceeds. Eventually, he became impatient with receiving only an egg a day and…
Real estate is not a house business This statement may sound counterintuitive, but real estate is not a house business — it’s a people business. It just so happens that the setting in which you are interacting with the people includes houses and mobile homes. But think about it — without people wanting to rent, sell and buy the houses, the properties themselves wouldn’t have any value. This…
Explaining the four jobs of a tenant I’ve written to you many times about how we “hire” people to do the four jobs of a tenant. And I’ve said those fours jobs are the standard by which we choose our tenants and also how we decide to “fire” them when they’re not performing. And just to remind you, the four jobs are: 1. Take care of the house….
I felt like I was lied to Today I want to share something with you that is interwoven with real estate, but is really a message I hope that you’ll share with the younger people in your life. It all started when I stopped by a flip project this week and began talking with my lead man, Charles, about a recent article he had read about the shortage…
Train, train and retrain your tenants I tend to be an open book, especially when I mess up, because it holds me accountable and helps me to learn from mistakes. So, with that fact in mind, I’m going to tell you about something I messed up on with a rental, and then, I’ll tell you how we remedied it. I got a little lax with doing inspections…
Do you take pride in your rentals? As I’ve told you before, I like doing service calls on our rentals. One of the big reasons for this is I get to see how our tenants are keeping the properties. We pride ourselves on good customer service, which includes a fast response time on service calls. So when something breaks, I’m often there within a few hours. As such,…