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You are here: Home / Archives for landlord business

You Got Your Lease WHERE?

July 25, 2015 By Landlord Education

Paperwork Is A Key Component Of Your Business

Leases, contracts and landlord paperwork

And this includes your lease! Your lease is the single most important document you can have with your tenant as it sets the groundwork for your relationship.

But have you even read it?

I’ve talked with hundreds and hundreds of landlords and read dozens and dozens of different leases and the things I’ve seen have made my head spin.

From landlords who don’t bother with leases and just do everything verbally to hand me down leases that aren’t even legal in the state or province they are being used it.

You Need A Legal Lease

That’s part of the reason I’ve decided to work with LawDepot.com to help make sure more of you have the proper forms in place. LawDepot approached me last year about advertising on my site and I held off at the time, but the time felt right now to add them as as option for visitors here.

From leases to eviction forms and everything in between and around, they have the forms you need to protect yourself properly and to make sure you are doing your business right.

Now, to be completely transparent I do receive a commission if you do purchase through them, so it helps me as well, but more importantly, it gets the right forms in your hands.

To find out more, go visit them at www.LawDepot.com (that is an affiliate link) and see if they can help.

Alternatively you can also do some research and find a local apartment owner association. Groups like this often offer lease packages that tend top have the most current and up to date clauses and wording in there packages.

I’d definitely recommend you stay away from the off the shelf type products you find in office supply stores. These packages often tend to be extremely generic and tend to miss-out on specifics that would affect you in your state or province.

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Filed Under: Landlord Information Tagged With: dealing with tenants, landlord business, landlord education, landlord leases, rental paperwork, rental properties

I’m Just Your Typical Landlord Hypocrite

March 2, 2015 By Landlord Education

This is probably where I need to say, do what the landlord says, not what he does!

I have to confess, I’m breaking my own rules. Now I guess in the big picture that’s not a huge issue, but when it comes to a tenant owing me a ton of money and me suddenly finding myself sucked into the Eviction Spiral, it gets a bit serious.

After all, I’m supposed to be the expert, yet I’m making the same mistake I tell you not too and I guess I better tell the entire tale. So let me take you down the garden path….

Landlord story, down the garden path with a tenant

 

This actually dates all the way back to December with one of my weekly rental tenants. He’s a very clean neat individual, but a) he doesn’t speak very much english and b) he owes me money.

As we zip back a few months to the beginning of December as typically happens to many of my rooming house tenants they vacate around mid month and head back to where their families are located. It’s typical as many of the construction projects close down early before Christmas and many of the workers get to enjoy a two or three week break and trades folks are who I cater too.

So this is something I tend to see every year, then in January they start coming back, rooms fill up and it’s business as usual. Now my nice clean non-english speaking fellow named Michel had no one to go home to. No family around, nothing, so he intended to stay at my property over the break. the only issue being, he had no income coming in to pay for the room. (This is where the hypocrite part comes into play!)

As I weigh my options I have a few things to consider a) he’s a good guy, b) he’s been good about paying in his past history and c) I have a bunch of vacancies anyway and if I kick him out or he leaves I still won’t be collecting rent for that room and I don’t know what the next guy will be like and how many weeks before there could be a next guy.

So I did the easy thing, I let him stay.

Fast Forward to January

calendarI just happen to live in an oil based economy region so as January rolls around many of the projects have moved to a hold status due to the uncertainty of oil prices and the viability of some of these projects going forward if oil stays low.

Instead of starting work at the beginning of January, it turns into mid January, then late January and finally the beginning of February before he finally lands a job. the good news is, he gets paid a lot per hour, so it own’t take too long to get caught up. (Now I don’t want you to read anything into this, but I’m talking about getting caught up in February and here it is March when I’m writing this…)

Anyway, according to my rules, I should have cut bait and recast already. instead I go with my gut and give him more time. This is the part where YOU need to do what I say and not what I’m currently doing with this guy.

Now Fast Forward to Late February

Now we’re in the last week of February and I get a text update from him (he uses French to English conversion to send me texts, sometimes it is very very confusing). This set of texts though is quite clear. He will have $2,000 for me on Saturday the 28th (yes, I let a weekly tenant rack up an outstanding balance of over $2,000, please find me a wall to bang my head on).

As you can imagine I’m pretty upbeat when I go to meet him Saturday, at least at first.

You see, he lost his bank card and couldn’t withdraw the money.

Is it time to panic yet?

Of course he can’t tell me this due to the lack of conversational English between us, but he has notes that someone obviously wrote out for him in English. So now I’m stuck in a tight spot. It’s the Eviction Spiral I referred to originally.

If I kick him out, I take a huge loss, so I have to take a stand.

His notes tell me he will go to the bank after work Monday get the cash and get a new card and will have the money for me Tuesday night. Experience tells me this is the perfect getaway for him.

If he has $2,000 that is enough for him to get into a new rental place, with the 1st being the next day, it’s an optimum time for him to skip out.

But I follow the hypocritical emotional road and lay down the line, Either I get paid Tuesday or he GETS OUT!!

Even in our lack of a mutual language I am quite sure I got my point across, now I play the waiting game.

My question for you, what would you have done?  Let me know your thoughts in the comments below and I’ll add an update Wednesday about what happened!

Update Friday

Just to make this worse, I’ve extended to tomorrow. The tenant paid $200 to buy a few more days, but tomorrow is the cutoff. I meant to update Wednesday, but it’s been one of those weeks that will likely be extending out for the entire month!

Poof, It’s Magic!

Yes, I’ve had another tenant disappear…

I was at the property Monday to get some work and cleaning done there (I rented a steam cleaner for the day, so I was bouncing from property to property to get the most bang for my rental dollar) and my tenant’s room was wide open, all his items were gone, the room was quite clean, his keys were on the dresser and he was gone.

Bottom line, I’m out a bunch of money, my faith in humanity is eaten away a bit more and in the end I can still sleep at night. I tried to help, deep down I knew it probably wasn’t going to work out for me, but as part of my nature I really do want to help people (hence this site!), just along the way I may have to take a little damage.

The hypocritical lesson to pass along is if things are really tight, you can’t take this chance. You need to clamp down immediately. I could probably rationalize some of the loss as I would have had a vacant room for multiple weeks anyway, but it’s still a loss. If you have more losses than wins, you eventually lose and in Real Estate, you lose big when you lose.

 

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Filed Under: Landlord Business, Landlord Information, Rooming Houses Tagged With: avoiding problem tenants, dealing with bad tenants, dealing with tenants, landlord, landlord advice, landlord business, landlord education, Property management, rent payments

Confused About How To Properly Determine Rents?

February 27, 2015 By Landlord Education

Determining Market Rents

Determing Rental Prices For Your PRopertyA challenge many landlords face is what they should be charging for rent. When you need to determine rents, it can be a fine line between charging too much, or charging too little.

If you charge too much you end up with more vacancies, higher turnover and ultimately less profits.

If you charge too little you may end up with tenants staying longer leading to fewer vacancies, but ultimately also getting less profits.

Part of operating a successful landlord business is finding that sweet spot where you’re not too high and you’re not too low.

Many landlords wish there was some sort of tool that could help them with this and fortunately there is!

It’s a website called Rentometer.com and I’ve been using it for years to determine rents for my properties, to see how I compare and even to see trends over time.

Of course you shouldn’t limit yourself to just one source, there are multiple other ways you can get this info as well, or to help provide you with multiple comparisons just in case one is off a tad.

Fortunately for you, the president of Rentometer Mike Lapsley, provided me an article he wrote walking you through some steps to help you confidently set your rents. Here’s the article with some additional info about Mike and Rentometer for you! Be sure to leave him (and/or me) a comment.


5 Ways to Help You Confidently Set Rents

BY MIKE LAPSLEY ON FEBRUARY 23, 2015

The rental housing business is very local and it takes time and effort to understand a local market and all the nuances that go with it. Many variables can impact the rent you can charge for your rental unit including: location, building structure, amenities, age of unit, market conditions, etc. The subjective and local nature of many of these variables make it difficult for anyone to tell you exactly the right rent for your rental unit.

However, having said all that, there are some things you can do to help you more confidently set your rents. Below are a few ideas to help you set rents for your rental property:

1. Stay up to date on local economic and business activity in your market because economic activity is one of the key drivers of housing demand including rental housing.

2. Work with local real estate professionals – property managers, brokers, agents, appraisers, and lenders. Local experts are especially good at identifying the drivers of housing supply and demand unique to your market – jobs, local ordinances, zoning, etc.

3. Check local apartment listings using the local newspaper, apartment guides, Craigs List, and of course Rentometer (shameless plug!).

4. Check your local apartment or rental housing association for research and other information they may provide about local rent levels – past, present, and future.

5. Use “rent per square foot” whenever possible as a benchmark. This allows you to encapsulate into a single number all the subjective variables of rent and provides you a basis for comparison across different units, locations, amenities, etc.

The task of setting rents can be done more confidently with good current and historical data, as well as a thorough understanding of the local market and current market conditions.

Mike Lapsley is the President of Rentometer.com. You can reach Mike at: mike@rentometer.com Learn more about Mike here.

About Rentometer

Used by tens of thousands every month, the Rentometer provides rent comparison data and analysis through a simple, intuitive user interface. Everyone from landlords, property managers, owners, and renters can research and compare rental rates on Rentometer.com. Rentometer offers a basic free version as well as Rentometer Pro for users that need more detailed info, a professionally printed report, as well as additional tools to analyze the data. For more information, please visit www.rentometer.com, find them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/rentometer or on Twitter @Rentometer.

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Filed Under: Landlord Business, Landlord Information, Property Management Tagged With: determining market rents, landlord business, landlord education, landlord tips, setting your rents

Dealing with Realtors When Buying Investment Property

December 11, 2014 By Landlord Education

How to deal with a REALTOR® when buying investment property?

Buying investment properties with a realtorWhen I first started out as an investor I didn’t realize there was a difference in a Realtor helping me buy my first home versus buying my first rental property. I assumed they had the same training and knew all the answers, but I assumed very wrong.

After going through many different Realtors until we found one who understood what we were doing, we often wondered what the problem was. Well, looking back there were several very obvious problems.

The first was us not realizing what we needed and the second was the Realtor not being aware of our specific needs. Because of this we actually drove some of our first Realtors away and others we became too much work for, so they essentially dropped us.

To help you avoid some of the headaches and problems we went through I went to someone with some answers from the other side of the table. A friend, fellow investor and a Realtor Joe Samson who was gracious enough to write the following article which I am sure many of you will find not just helpful, but also insightful to you as you move forward.

So take it away Joe!


So you’re confused and left wondering why your REALTOR® never called you back when you had plenty of money in your bank account to buy several investment properties.

You were very serious when you asked him to “call me when you find a good deal”.

I’ve been a real estate agent and investor for over a decade now, and these are some of the most irritating words that an investor’s agent can hear from a client. Here’s an insider’s look into what it takes for a real estate investor to have a good relationship with a REALTOR®.

So your REALTOR® never called! You’d waited patiently and watched others how they’ve been scooping up prime real estate one after another and you’re wondering what happened to all those real estate agents that you have recently told about your plans?

Don’t get me wrong, since we only get paid after a transaction is completed, I appreciate every opportunity I can get to help a client with their real estate purchase. But in this case I have to say: “Thanks, but no thanks”. Read on to find out why this awkward scenario is not ideal to anyone.

REALTORS® and investors need to find the common ground on which they can work together. Just like the example given above there are hundreds of other pitfalls or opportunities where a relationship can easily end up in the gutter or go sour due to a bad decision that you should have approached differently.

Working with a REALTOR® during your search is the cornerstone of your journey. Selecting the wrong type of property or if your real estate agent is not fully understanding your plans during the process, then it could be devastating to your investment or you could end up wasting significant amount of your time.

There must be hundreds of opportunities where a REALTOR® – Investor relationship can go wrong. To avoid heated conversations, let’s take a look at some of the obvious, but often ignored causes of failures when working with your agent.

Taking Responsibility

As always, everything is a matter of perspective and someone else will need to be blamed for sure if the investment goes belly up.

Let’s admit it, we have all said this before: “…it ain’t my fault”!

Then who’s fault is it? Once we start pointing fingers at others, the damage is most likely already done, regardless if it’s your advisor’s fault or not.

When you hear these words: “Taking Responsibility”, it may bring back memories to you from the days when your parents were trying to beat this message into your head. Back then we have just shrugged our shoulders, but let’s face it, they were right about it.

As a business owner we’re faced making decision every minute of the day. Some of the decisions we make may be as little as answering an e-mail to a tenant, hiring the right cleaning crew or writing a cheque for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

At the end of the day, we need to realize that it was us in the first place who has decided to engage the services of our team members. The ultimate conclusion is that we opened the door for them to do business with us, therefore we need to be very diligent with whom we decide to work with.

Hiring The Wrong REALTOR®

Choosing the wrong realtorThe truth is that there are thousands of real estate agents out there right now who are waiting for your phone call. Almost any one of them is capable of filling out a standard purchase agreement after opening a door for you to a house that you are interested in. But in this case you’re not interested in buying A house, rather you are looking for THE house that is going to bring you positive cashflow with very little maintenance headaches, aka: investment property.

Asking lots of questions about the real estate agent’s past experience is a very crucial step that you can take. Working with the “new kid on the block” may not necessarily be to your best advantage. The key question to ask your future agent is if he owns any investment properties on his own. Make sure you get some details as well to verify the depth of his experience.

Find out from exactly how many properties he owns as you don’t want him qualifying his personal residence as his investment property just to give you the impression that he is the guru whom you have been looking for. Next, ask when did he purchase his properties, what were his biggest challenges as a landlord and so on. I believe that these question are vital to verifying the agent’s experience.

You may run into some individuals who might be reluctant to share these details with you. They could be claiming that it’s private information and there might be all other sorts of excuses that they could come up with for not sharing. I think that’s just baloney and it may be a red flag to me personally. Most real estate investors whom I came across were very proud about their achievements and they are usually excited to talk about their experiences.

In the housing business a word of recommendation is as good as gold. I was a little bit hesitant sharing this advise in the first place, but you can also ask your real estate network if they can recommend anyone whom they worked with in the past. Just be cautious and ask the agent good questions about how is he going to prioritize his clients when the “good deal” shows up.

Thanks to technology, service providers are becoming more transparent of their performance then ever before. Spend 10 minutes online and see if you can find any reviews or testimonials of the person you are meeting with. Someone who’s been around the block a few times should have plenty of reviews available.

Key tip: randomly select 2-3 reviews before the interview and ask the REALTOR® if you can have those client’s phone number to request a quick feedback of their experience with him. Some people may be dishonest about how they are trying to portray their image to the public, so going the extra step may be worth it.

Once you have purchased your property, part of your learning curve is becoming an impeccable landlord. Surrounding yourself with likeminded people and team members who you can rely on can make your life very easy. Since you have decided to work with an experienced real estate agent, he should be a crucial part of your going forward strategy when you are managing your tenants. Having an experienced advisor available can be a real rock for you when you will be facing some challenges. Find out from your REALTOR® if you can rely on him to ask question even after the sale is completed.

Being Emotional

For most REALTORS® working with real estate investors can be a whole other world than what they might be used to dealign with. The typical residential buyers or “moms & pops” can often go through emotional roller coaster rides before making their lives biggest decision.

On the other hand, real estate investors need to leave their soft feelings at home and they need to become fearless business owners as if they’re going amongst a pack of wolves.

Seriously! This is probably the number one cause of failure why investors loose their shirts in this business.

I’d seen it countless times after spending weeks or months of looking at investment properties and nothing was to the client’s liking. The numbers made sense, the location was great and the property was in good condition as well, yet the buyer just couldn’t pull the trigger. This is a huge turn off for many REALTOR®S when their client cannot look at an opportunity objectively. In the residential area this indecisiveness is an everyday occurrence. But when you are committed to invest in real estate, be sure to step up to the table when it’s your turn and don’t hesitate. Otherwise an unspoken conclusion might be forming in your agent’s head regarding the level of your commitment.

On the flip side of the coin, there are some real naive buyers who may be so hyped up about getting out there and buying anything just to claim their first rental property. They get so emotionally driven that if they end up having the wrong person on their team, they will fall in to this trap very quickly.

You need to educate yourself in advance so that you can make decision on your own and be able to recognize the difference between a good and a bad investment.

Having a Plan

Buying Your First Rental Property GuideComing up with buying strategies and crunching the numbers can be overwhelming for the novice investor. Expecting your REALTOR® to serve the opportunities for you on a silver plate is very unlikely to happen. Unless you tell them exactly what you are looking for.

Since every market is different, strategies need to be very adaptive to the local environment. For example: some investment methods might work well in the U.S. while the same strategies may not fly in Canada due to different rules and regulations.

Before you decide to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on an investment property you should have a pretty good idea about how the entire process works. You can gain knowledge by reading books about real estate investing in a specific market. You can also join networking groups or invite others for lunch who have purchased investment properties before.

Before approaching your REALTOR® to help you find the property that you’re looking for, you will need to be able to understand what is it that you want. Otherwise how are you going to recognize a great buying opportunity if you don’t know what it looks like?

Being a Property Addict

Have you ever caught yourself looking at houses online for hours? Were you jumping from one website to another to see if you can find that gold nugget of opportunity that only seems to be a fairy tale? Perhaps you spent countless hours surfing online at your job when the boss wasn’t around? I’ve done it too.

It’s a completely normal thing to do when you are very interested in finding a solution to a problem. However it’s not necessarily a good thing for you. According to Google, addiction can be defined as a condition of making a habit of a particular activity.

When you are looking at hundreds of irrelevant properties on a daily basis it could push you off track. Wasting your time is one thing, but not having a clear sense of understanding of your goals can trap you in a maze of confusion.

Dealing With Realtors

Being more specific could have been the main thread of my entire point throughout this post. It is imperative to clearly set-up your property targets and identify your niche. Focus your search on a selected area where you intend to become a landlord instead of being all over the city. Decide on the type of property that you are looking for. Ask yourself if the house needs to be a certain size? What is going to be the minimum number of bedrooms that you require? Are you looking for newer or older buildings? Do you like condominiums more than houses?

Having clarity in your vision is going to free you from all the unnecessary activities that you may be doing and it will bring you closer to your goals. Try to resist the urge to look at all sorts of properties all the time and focus on spotting the ones that are relevant to your search criteria. By doing this you are going to soon become an expert in your niche and you’ll be able to weed out the bad investment properties that should have never showed up on your radar.

Being an investor’s agent comes with great responsibilities and I consider it a noble opportunity to work with anyone who is striving to become financially successful. You can reach me, Joe Samson at http://www.JoeSamson.com and I will be happy to guide you along with your investment questions.

Joe is a local Calgary Alberta Realtor, so he may not be able to help everyone as I know many of you come from all over North America and the world, but the advice and information in here should definitely be able to help you with whomever you work with. If you have soem feedback or questions for Joe or myself, we’d love to hear them! – Bill

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Filed Under: Landlord Information Tagged With: buying a rental property, buying investment property, buying rental properties, dealing with realtors, investing in real estate, investing in rental properties, landlord business, rental properties

Hey Baby, It’s Cold Outside

November 29, 2014 By Landlord Education

Can you evict tenants in the winter?Winter Evictions

If’ you’ve never heard the song “Hey Baby, It’s Cold Outside”, you’re missing out, it’s a classic. If you don’t know what the rules are about evicting a tenant in the winter where you live, you could be missing out on some cold hard cash, like several months worth of rent.

The rules are different everywhere and with the temperature hovering around -30 degrees Celcius (-22 Fahrenheit) with the wind chill as I start writing, I thought winter evictions might be a timely topic.

Can You Evict Tenants In The Winter?

I think the most common answer is yes, but it can depend. I know, not very definitive as far as an answer goes. Ask tenants and they will almost all answer no, but if you’re getting landlord advise from your tenants you may have a much bigger problem…

The problem is the rules vary from state to state and province to province and it would be unrealistic to know the specific answer for every city, town, state, province, district or country throughout the world. But that’s where the internet comes into play.

I did some quick research and actually couldn’t find any places that allowed tenants to stay, just because it was winter. I started by specifically looking at provinces and states that were known to be more tenant friendly and cold.  I looked at rules in New York state, Minnesota, Ontario, Quebec and Alaska to name a few and all seemed to be pretty specific.

Evictions can take place at any time of the year if tenants are in breach of the lease. Now to be fair, I didn’t check every state, province, city and town, so you’ll want to do some local research of your own just to be well educated about it!

Winter eviction of tenants

However, just because it isn’t illegal to evict them, there is not guarantee it can be done quickly. There is a ton of leniency built into the laws when it comes to issues like compassion, hard times and basically bad luck. Here it isn’t written anywhere how much time someone has to be out of the property when evicted.

This gives judges and hearing officers the ability to make decisions based on the evidence and this could mean a quick and effective eviction in more grievous situations. While in other cases they can be given 90 days or longer, but with specific conditions in place or it can accelerate the eviction timeline. These would typically be payment conditions, but depending on the scenario they can vary.

Have you evicted a tenant in the winter? If you have leave us a comment and let us know where you’re at! Maybe we can form a mini database of info right here!

To get it started, I’ve not just evicted tenants in the winter, I’ve also done it right before Christmas and no I’m not the grinch, I just play one on TV! Looking forward to your comments.

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Filed Under: Landlord Business, Landlord Information, Property Management, Tenants Tagged With: can a tenant be evicted in the winter?, dealing with bad tenants, dealing with tenants, evicting tenants, landlord business, landlord education, landlord tips, Property management, winter evictions

Saying No To Rover, Is It Good Landlording?

September 9, 2014 By Landlord Education

talking iwth tenantsI stopped for gas yesterday at my go-to out of the way gas station right that’s near several of my rental properties and as I’m filling up a mini-van full of  a mom, a dad and at least two kids I can see pulls up to fill up as well. Behind the minivan is about a 16 foot trailer and as he gets out to start pumping his gas, a small cute little dog hops out of the van to check out the surroundings.

Now we’ve had a few cooler days recently and it was turning into quite a nice late summer day so as guys tend to do as he’s standing there filling up and as I’m standing there filling up, we start talking about the weather. Which turns into how the next several days are supposed to be great and the upcoming weekend looks like it should be fantastic.

It’s about that point that I bring up the trailer and ask, Are you just getting back, or are you getting ready to head out for the weekend? That’s when things got awkward.

It Wasn’t a Trailer, It Was Home

Tenants calling a trailer homeThat’s when he explained to me that they were staying in the trailer because their landlord sold their rental property six months ago and because they had a dog, they couldn’t find another place. He, his wife, his two (or more) kids and the dog had been calling this 16 foot trailer home for half a year. He said “Landlords are being too picky.”

His next comment was how with winter coming up quickly, that they were going to have to start thinking out of the box.

Being a landlord, and starting to feel a little defensive after hearing that, the conversation slowed down at that point, but as we both stood their filling our vehicles, it really made me ponder about pets, rental properties and what the right thing to do was as a landlord.

Now I wasn’t talking about offering up one of my properties, more along the lines of whether it’s right for landlords to not allow pets, or what the repercussions of allowing more pets in our personal rental properties would be.  It became quite an inner monologue with myself for the next half hour as I was driving to meet a landlord, whom I mentor, for coffee.

Seeing a situation where a family is stuck camping because they can’t find housing is a heart breaking situation. You wonder what’s life like for those kids and how tough things must be. School has just started, are they even going, are they allowed to go without any type of permanent address, what if they can’t find a place, what happens to them, and of course should landlords like myself be more lenient about pets?

Life Decisions Can Be Hard

Is there a right course of action when you see this going on? During coffee with Tim I quickly brought up the gas station conversation just to see what Tim’s thoughts were as well. I already knew my answers and had perhaps even rationalized them during my drive, but it never hurts to get other opinions or ideas.

Perhaps as an experiment, maybe you need to stop reading after the next sentence and go write your thoughts about this down in the comment section at the bottom of this article. I realize many of you are just passive readers, but it would be interesting to see your thoughts now and then perhaps any revised ones after the rest of this article.

So if you can, humor me and go leave a comment so far about your thoughts on landlords and pets, then come right back here.

I’ll wait, don’t worry…

Still waiting…

Done yet?

My Thoughts On Pets and Rentals

thinking about letting tenants have petsMy discussion with Tim didn’t actually change my thoughts, rather it just cemented them. It’s my property and it’s my decision and if it comes down to two equally qualified tenants, one with a pet, one without a pet, 100 out of 100 times, the tenants without the pets get the property.

It’s so 100 out of 100 that almost always my advertisements say no pets and when prospective tenants call, yes small dogs, kittens and chinchillas are all pets, but thank you for calling.

It’s not that I’m against pets. I personally have two cats and a gerbil in my household and even had a cat back 25 plus years ago when I was a tenant. And I do have one older tenant in a house with two small dogs, so I’m not entirely ice-hearted.

The problem ends up being, the risk of tenants having pets isn’t worth the reward and that is the one phrase you have to remind yourself about.

And while it might be unfair, in someone’s mind, to the responsible pet owners out there it’s not them taking the risk and the chance that that Missy may pee on the carpet, unaware to them or you. Or more often, well aware to the tenant, that Spot has destroyed the back yard and he’s left hundreds of little surprises under the blanket of snow for you to deal with in the spring now that they have moved on.

Experience has taught me that having to replace that carpet, even though it wasn’t a large carpeted area, cost me money. Not just the cost of replacing the carpet, but the extra two weeks I was vacant as I waited to get the carpet replaced. It adds up, and it didn’t have to.

Experience has taught us that cleaning up after someone else’s dog is complete crap. (Although a quick tip we learned the hard way is it’s best to do it first thing in the morning in the spring as it’s way less fun to pick up once it warms up).

I feel bad for tenants who can’t find rental places because they have pets, but I never forced them to get a pet. They made the decision and reduced ability to find good rental properties is part of the price. I understand the pet being part of the family and I understand how having pets can help kids be more well rounded (sometimes debatable).

What I can’t understand is the decision to have multiple large dogs, to know you will be a renter for an extended period if not forever and then to announce that it’s unfair that landlords don’t accept pets. Or the crazy cat lady/family who can’t find new housing. Those folks I don’t really feel bad for.

You’ve made poor or outright bad decisions that you have to live with and now it is indeed time for you to make harder decisions. Perhaps it’s time to give up that pet until you are in a position to own your own home and make your own rules.

Anyways, that’s my thoughts and I’d love to hear yours! So leave me a comment below.

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Filed Under: Landlord Information Tagged With: landlord advice, landlord business, landlord tips, tenants and pets

Learning To Landlord By Trial And Error

September 3, 2014 By Landlord Education

Learning to landlord by trial and errorSounds scary doesn’t it? Making a mistake as a landlord can cost thousands of dollars in lost rent, due to damages and in some cases even lead to foreclosure. But I run into landlords every week who got into the business with minimal to zero knowledge of even the basics of being a landlord.

Learning to landlord on the job can turn into a very expensive education and that’s where I come in. Hopefully.

With dozens and dozens of articles and videos on the site providing the basics already, I’m planning on adding even more so I can help others avoid the trial and error path.

Now, if you’ve already registered to receive emails on my site you know one of the first things I ask you is what challenges you face as a landlord. I’ve had some great responses from people and hopefully I’ve provided some answers to help you with those challenges in my replies to you.

The question I have for you in this article though is what was your most expensive mistake?

My Expensive Landlord Mistake

costly landlord lessonsPersonally, my biggest mistake when I started was not following my screening process and skipping steps along the way. During this learning curve I let in some of the wrong people because I went with my gut, rather than following my process.

This brilliant decision making cost me most of my Christmas vacation as I had to spend it fixing walls, repainting a property I had just painted less than six months earlier, cleaning and doing general fixes so I could have it ready to go for January 1st and not lose anymore incoming rent money due to vacancies or deadbeats.

It’s part of the reason why one of the first courses I put together on the site was my tenant screening course, which I give away for free because it’s so important to a landlord’s success! Since I started following the procedures I laid out I’ve only had to evict one tenant out of my regular fixed term rental properties in the last seven years.

Of course, if I had followed my rules that one eviction would have never come to an eviction which was another lesson. That particular situation involved a young couple who split up and rather than  allowing/forcing them to break the lease and both move on, I allowed the boyfriend to stay and to have his brother move in to help cover the rent. Ooops.

So maybe that didn’t fit specifically into the screening category, but it did fit into my screening system which I strayed from as I didn’t due my proper due diligence with brother number two.

Your Turn

Your Landlord LessonMy list of other expensive lessons could go on. From not doing enough due diligence one early properties  we bought to initially trying to do all the work ourselves rather than farming work out to contractors. But what about YOU?

What have some of your expensive lessons been? If you can take a few moments to leave a comment to help other landlords that would be great. By sharing some of our experiences we can make it easier for others to learn from our lessons and to help avoid some expensive pain.

Plus it may point me in the direction of my next course which hopefully helps everyone.

So leave me a comment below and let’s see who we can help with it!

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Filed Under: Investing In Rental Real Estate, Landlord Business, Landlord Information Tagged With: buying rental properties, investing in rental properties, landlord advice, landlord business, landlord education, landlord tip, landlord tips, landlord training

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