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Landlord Tenant

Landlord Tenant

Getting Tenants in Tough Times

by Brendan O'Brien | November 17, 2009
Thumbnail image for Getting Tenants in Tough Times

The U.S. rental vacancy rate is now the highest it has ever been, at 11.1%.  This is not at all what we expected when the housing market crashed and mortgage companies started going out of business in record numbers.
At that time, the prediction was that landlords would actually benefit, because people who weren’t able to [...]

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Landlord Tenant

Landlords Beware: Discrimination can cost you Millions!

Thumbnail image for Landlords Beware: Discrimination can cost you Millions! by Winston Westbrook | November 10, 2009

It cost billionaire Donald T. Sterling millions.
On November 3rd of this year the Justice department received the biggest settlement on a housing discrimination lawsuit.
Donald T. Sterling has agreed to pay $2.725 million to settle allegations that he discriminated against African-Americans, Hispanics and families with children at apartment buildings he controls in Los Angeles.
The Justice Department [...]

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Landlord Tenant

Getting “The Rent I Need”

by Brendan O'Brien | November 2, 2009

I was astonished to hear these words coming from a seasoned investor – somebody I respect a lot.  “I need to rent the place for at least $1,200,” he said.  “I won’t rent it until I can get at least that.”
The rental unit in question had been sitting vacant for about six months.  It wasn’t [...]

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Landlord Tenant

Vacancy and Credit Losses: Unlocking a Property’s Potential

by Kyle Koller | October 26, 2009

Owners of income property understandably cringe when they hear the words “vacancy and credit losses.” After all, anything that negatively affects net income is cause for distaste. Yet, vacancy and credit losses remain a necessary and unavoidable cost of doing business. Being able to understand and differentiate between vacancy and credit losses is vital to [...]

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Landlord Tenant

A Day in the Life of a Mobile Home Park Owner

by Frank Rolfe | September 29, 2009

Many people ask me what it’s like to own a mobile home park. They expect stories of exciting shoot-outs, drugged-out topless dancers bashing in windows with baseball bats and Jeff Foxworthy humor. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

I, myself, thought that would be the normal agenda when I bought my first park. The first thing I did during due diligence was to get a concealed handgun license. I was certain that my role would be that of Wyatt Earp in cleaning up trailer town. But again, a day in the gun class and the shooting test were all wasted. It’s just not like that.

“Well, then how is it?” you’re asking. The answer: boring. Really boring. Here’s why.

NOTHING EVER HAPPENS

In a typical mobile home park, the phone might ring once per month for a lot for rent (normally an RV) – that’s the whole sales side of the thing. The yellow page ad comes up once a year, so that kind of handles marketing. I show up in court to evict someone every once in a while. But that’s about as much action as I get.

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Landlord Tenant

Why Mobile Home Park Rents Can Be Pushed Higher Than Others

by Frank Rolfe | September 22, 2009

1967 Elcona Mobile HomeMany landlords are scared to push their rents right now. In the self-storage industry, for example, landlords are considering rent reductions more than increases, and many real estate owners feel lucky if they can leave their rents unchanged this year. Articles are abundant, talking about the inability of office and commercial landlords to maintain current rent levels if they want to attract or retain tenants.

Rents Falling Everywhere – Are Mobile Home Parks Immune?

Well, it’s a different story in mobile home park land. And it highlights some of the key reasons that mobile home parks are the best niche in real estate investing.

So how can you raise mobile home park rents when every other landlord is stopped dead in their tracks? Several reasons:

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Landlord Tenant

Landlords: More Details on Transferring Utility Costs

by Brendan O'Brien | August 11, 2009

FOLLOWING CARBON FOOTPRINTS TO YOUR BANK--CAP ...Last year I had a gas bill for $1400. That was almost one-third of my entire rent for that property for the month. This year, however, I could get bills that are even higher. Meteorologists are predicting the coldest and snowiest winter for the Northeast in years.

In this property, I currently pay for heat (natural gas) and water/sewer. The water/sewer bills aren’t actually that high around here, although they are the lion’s share of utility costs for many property owners in Western states. Regardless of location, however, utility costs are killing landlords. They are rising much faster than inflation. Rents, on the other hand, are rising much more slowly than inflation, if at all.

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Landlord Tenant

Landlords: This Is One of The Many Benefits of Treating Your Tenants Like Gold…

by Jason Hanson | August 5, 2009

I ask two things of my tenants: to pay the rent on time and to treat the house with care. Before they move into a property I let them know the importance I place on these two things. I tell them that my “supervisors” are very strict and will evict people in a heartbeat who don’t pay their rent.

I even make tenants sign an additional document besides the lease, called “Company Payment Policy”. This one-page document states in plain writing that my company has ZERO-TOLERANCE for non-payment of rent. I’ve never had a problem getting anyone to sign this, and obviously if someone refused, that’s not the type of person you would want in your property anyway.

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Landlord Tenant

How To Get Rid of Crazy Tenants

by Jason Hanson | July 14, 2009

Image by Mr. T in DC via Flickr

Do you know why most landlords think the rental property business is tough? Do you know why I and other investors make so much money off of these “tired landlords”?
It comes down to one thing: They don’t know how to properly screen tenants. And today I’m going to [...]

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Commercial Real Estate

Is This the Bottom for Commercial Real Estate Prices?

by Ted Karsch | June 23, 2009

Even the most bearish economist is predicting that commercial real estate prices will fall up to 40 percent from peak to trough. However, the data released yesterday from Moody’s Investor Service shows that in April commercial property prices plummeted a record 8.6 percent. According to Moody’s data, commercial property prices fell a total of [...]

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Commercial Real Estate

Apartment Building Foreclosures Create a Buyers Market for Apartment Buildings

by Ted Karsch | May 19, 2009

Many apartment buildings are now facing foreclosure because of falling prices, stricter underwriting guidelines and 5 year mortgages becoming due. For the astute buyer of apartment buildings these apartment building foreclosures could represent an investment windfall.

Image via Wikipedia

As a glaring symbol of the burst bubble in national residential real estate prices, the National Association of [...]

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Landlord Tenant

Be Proactive with Undemanding Tenants

by Brendan O'Brien | April 18, 2009

Image by TheTruthAbout… via Flickr

So you’ve got five residential tenants.  Joe consistently pays late.   Christine got in a fight with her boyfriend and kept everybody awake on Christmas Eve.  Alex leaves his trash out in the halls.  Richard calls you around the clock to complain – about the other tenants, but also about the traffic [...]

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Landlord Tenant

How to Place your Rental Listing for Best Results

by Brendan O'Brien | March 28, 2009

Finding qualified tenants is one of our biggest challenges. Last week, I talked about marketing empty rental units as a big funnel. Why a funnel? Because one end is an enormous group of people – the people who might rent a residential unit. The other end is just a couple of people – qualified prospective [...]

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Economy

“I Can’t Pay The Rent” – A Landlords Take on What to Do

by Brendan O'Brien | January 25, 2009

I am in a very fortunate position right now.  All of my 13 units are rented, and all the tenants are paying on time.  It’s great!  And it’s not going to last.
I know that because even in good economic times, I’ve had a couple of tenants every year who found that at some point, they [...]

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Commercial Real Estate

Buy an Apartment Building With a Tool Chest of Knowledge

by Ted Karsch | December 31, 2008

When people first decide to buy an apartment building it is common for them to make a few easily preventable mistakes. The most common error that I see new investors make is not having what I like to refer to as the “investor tool chest”.
For example, if you wanted to build a house you would [...]

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