Most management software can build a month of owner statements in a few minutes. What eats the afternoon is checking them, because one wrong charge on one statement is enough to make an owner question all the others. Zac Thompson's thread on owner statements last week got me thinking about this, ...
I manage single family rentals in Omaha, and many of the owners I work with live out of state. One Nebraska rule surprises owners who are used to a longer deadline at home. Under Nebraska Revised Statute 76-1416, a landlord may not take a security deposit of more than one month's rent. A landlord...
One clause in our lease does more heavy lifting than any other: one rent payment method, written in, same for every house. Across our 236 doors in Memphis — mostly single-family, heavy Section 8 — we used to get rent in a mix of ways: cash, money orders, apps, partial payments dropped off at diff...
The worst time to find out a contractor is unreliable is when a pipe bursts and a tenant is calling. We run 236 single-family rentals in Memphis, mostly Section 8, and we don't test a new contractor on an emergency. We test them in small paid steps, months before anything breaks. The first job is...
If I could go back and talk to my younger self when I first started buying rental properties, this is one of the conversations we'd have. One of the things that I think confuses people, especially because I'm the broker for a property management company, is they assume we manage tenants. They'll ...
A Section 8 lease-up is not slow because the tenant is slow. It is slow because the steps run in order, and one missed step resets the clock. Here is how we run it across our 236 single-family doors in Memphis, mostly Section 8. First, the house has to be rent-ready on our 21-day turnover schedul...
This is my first experience as a landlord and my first tenant. Just three months into the tenancy, the maintenance requests keep coming; loose door hinges, blinds issues, smoke detector issues, and now reports of no heat, a disposal that won’t run, and an ice maker that isn’t working. What makes ...
One thing I’ve learned about evaluating rental properties is that the numbers can look great on paper, but unexpected repairs can quickly change the picture. A roof that needs replacing, an aging HVAC system, plumbing issues, or even a repair you didn’t discover during the initial inspection can ...
An owner sees strong occupancy and higher rents throughout the year, then gets to December wondering why the property produced less money than expected. The manager investigates. Collections are generally good, there haven’t been unusual vacancies, and accounting confirms the statements are corre...
We had 2 tenant turnovers this year that exceeded $10,000 in repairs each. Most of that cost was attributed to drywall repair and painting. With security deposits of one month's rent ($2,100 to $2,500 for us), we're left paying for 75%+ of the costs of tenant damages out of pocket. Our lease agre...
My sister and I own our parents' home 50/50. She and her husband have decided to purchase the home and they want to move in Dec 1st so they can put her current home up for sale. Once their current home is sold she will buy me out. If they were not going to purchase it, it would be listed for sale...
For investors who use property managers what do you look for in your property managers? How do you select who to move forward with? What do you prioritize the most in your decision? Also, what kind of investment properties do you have managed?
Does anyone know if accepting money from a tenant that owes 3 months of back rent voids the eviction process? he zelle me pocket change weekly . So I dont know if that will affect the eviction process. I hardly care now about getting that back rent, I just want to be thru with him.
I self-managed my rentals for years. Here's how I'd decide: - Self-managing is worth it if you're local, have reliable trades, and treat it like a business: written screening criteria applied the same way every time, a solid lease, move-in photos, and a set maintenance response time. - Hire a PM ...
we've got a water heater just for our 3rd floor bathroom its a 19 gallon small one and recently it tripped the breaker and the breaker wouldn't reset. Asked my guy, he said 99% of the time its the element when that happens, turns out my multi meter doesn't work so need a new one of those so I cou...
Hi BP, I'm renovating a bathroom for my rental. What are some good ideas to have it effective for a low cost? What size tiles, which color? How to elevate this bathroom for the lowest price?
A vacant unit earns $0. Taxes, insurance, and utilities keep going anyway. That is the whole mindset behind how we run turnovers. We operate 236 rental doors in Memphis, mostly single-family and heavy Section 8. Our 3BR Section 8 rents run $1,395-$1,950. Do the math: every vacant week is roughly ...
I've been developing a property management app, and I'd like to get some honest feedback from other landlords. One thing I've found frustrating about owning rental properties is keeping track of expenses, organizing financial records, and getting everything ready for tax season. I'd rather not sp...
When a neighbor complains about your rental (noise, parking, guests, trash), how you respond matters more than how fast. A few steps that keep it from turning into a bigger dispute: 1. Get the details. Thank the neighbor, then ask what happened, when, and how often. Write it down with the date. 2...
Move-in day is where a good tenancy gets set — or where the first month of problems starts. We run the same system on every one of our 236 doors in Memphis, mostly single-family, and we don't wing it. Here's the system: 1. The house has to be rent-ready first. We run turnovers on a 21-day schedul...
Landlords and property managers: what would you want in an insurance-readiness package before a loss? I recently helped some people pull their insurance documents together and built a personalized readiness package. It left me with at question for landlords and property managers. You pay for insu...
A few STR owners have reached out to me lately about switching to a 30-day-minimum hybrid. Sometimes that's the right call. But there's a question I think a lot of owners skip: should this property just go back to a long-term lease? Full disclosure: I co-host STRs for other owners, and most of my...
Entry is one of the easiest places for an owner-tenant relationship to go sideways, and most of it comes down to notice. Four habits: 1. Put it in writing. In California, 24 hours' written notice is generally presumed reasonable (mailed notice takes longer). Check your own state's rules. 2. Say w...
We run 236 doors in Memphis, mostly single-family, heavy Section 8, and one habit saves us more arguments than almost anything else: photos at move-in and move-out, done the same way every time. Same rooms, same angles, both times. Exterior, every room, appliances, floors, walls, fixtures, and th...
Most tenant problems I see are not repair problems. They are communication problems. A small leak becomes a big one because nobody said anything for three weeks. A late payment becomes a fight because the rule was never clear in the first place. We run 236 doors in Memphis, mostly single-family a...