Financial Freedom One House At A Time
Move-in inspections I was out doing service calls on some of our rentals yesterday. There’s a reason for that. It’s mainly that I like to handle the repairs listed on a newly installed tenants’ move-in inspection sheet. First, let me tell you about the importance of the move-in inspection process, and then, I’ll explain why I like to handle those repairs myself. During the lease-up process, which is…
Start the ball rolling Does this scenario sounds familiar? Rent is due on the first and late after the fifth. After 5p.m. on the fifth, you send a letter of demand via email and a text that says the tenant needs to pay or move from the property by the ninth. If not, you’ll have to file dispossessory at court. On the morning of the ninth you…
What can an in-home tell you? I’m sure you have all heard the horror stories of some poor landlord who took the first person with money who came along and rented to them their nice, newly renovated rental home only to have it destroyed in a matter of months, right? While that does happen, there’s something you can do as a landlord to limit and pretty much prevent…
Our first occupied sit-out We recently had to do one of the most uncomfortable things I feel like a person has to do as a landlord. It’s called a sit-out. If you don’t know what that is, a sit-out is the culmination of the dispossessory proceedings. It’s where the landlord has to go in and physically remove all of someone’s personal possessions from the interior of their property…
A big fat jacket Last week, we made an analogy between how you protected yourself from the elements as a kid when you played in the snow and how you should use that same logic to protect your assets. Both should be done in layers. We talked about layers commonly used to protect financial assets — things like corporations and how the corporate shield is a great line…
Why do an in-home interview? We have three properties on market right now for rent, and the quality and amount of applications coming in is great. This is a stark difference from the craziness we experienced in late fall of last year. Then, we had 200 applications submitted for just one property. And of those, only 20 percent were filled out completely, but most of the applicants didn’t meet…
Enough is too much Rent is due on the first and late after the fifth of the month, according to most residential leases. On the sixth, a letter of demand should be issued to any tenant who has not paid. That letter should read something like this: “Dear Mr. and Mrs. Tenant, The purpose of the letter is to let you know that we did not receive…
Do your tenants meet your core values? We recently welcomed a business consultant by the name of Gary Harper into our office. Gary is with Sharper Business Solutions, and He and his wonder wife Susan, helped us with a number of things ranging from writing out a vision for our company to properly defining all of our departments. They also helped us set up an accountability chart for those…
Fighting for rental space This year has been very strange as far as rentals go. First off, rent rates have skyrocketed. In 2018, we have seen two-bedroom, one-bath houses rent for as much as 3/2 floorplans were renting for just two years ago. With the spike in rent prices, odd things have started happening. For instance, we’ve had con artists trying rent people our houses. In previous…
So, we recently had tenant applicants do some things that were new to us. One walked out of the lease-up, and the other called us rude. Let me explain what happened and why each instance was actually good. The first one happened on a Tuesday. We’d been trying to find the right tenant for a vacancy we have up in Dalton. We found some people who looked great…