Posts tagged as:

rental-property

Real Estate Investing

Transferring Utility Costs – Opportunities and Challenges

by Brendan O'Brien | July 25, 2009

Electric meterRising utility costs are one of the many challenges we multifamily landlords have been facing in this “perfect storm” economic climate.  Landlords who traditionally paid for utilities are searching for ways to transfer those costs to tenants.

If your utility costs are worse in the winter, as they are here in New Hampshire, now is the time to look into a submetering or RUBS (ratio utility billing services) system.  Of course, any benefits from transferring utility costs will begin as soon as you implement the system.

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Housing

Tenants Are People Too! What Renters need to know about Foreclosure.

by Joshua Dorkin | March 13, 2009

Seems like an obvious statement to even the most casual observer. However, renters occupying properties in foreclosure seem to be looked at through a different lens. In Nevada where I live, for example, renters do not have to be told their rental home is in foreclosure. They don’t even have the right to a grace [...]

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Real Estate

Landlords: Don’t Get Axed By Your Tenants

by Brendan O'Brien | January 16, 2009

A couple of weeks ago, newspapers in my part of the world were buzzing with the news of a local landlord who had allegedly been attacked by his hatchet-wielding tenant.
The landlord, Edward Berthiaume, occupied one unit of his multifamily home, and the tenant, William Skarbinski, occupied the other.  At 1 a.m. on January 7th, Skarbinski [...]

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Landlord Tenant

More Interview Questions For A Property Manager (And Some Answers)

by Brendan O'Brien | December 6, 2008

When I put up the first group of questions you should ask a prospective property manager, one commenter asked: what are the correct answers?He had a point and so I’m going to review some of the answers to last week’s questions first before I hit you with a few more questions.I am also thinking of [...]

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Landlord Tenant

Some Questions To Ask A Property Manager

by Brendan O'Brien | November 28, 2008

This started out as “Some Questions to Ask Your Property Manager.”  But if you’ve already hired a property management company, you’re a bit late – you want to ask these questions before you make the hiring decision.   You may even want to ask them before you settle on a property purchase.
In some cases, you’ll hire [...]

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Landlord Tenant

Does Every Dog Have Its Day?

by Brendan O'Brien | November 15, 2008

Here are two fallacies that often strike new real estate investors.   The first one bugs me only a little – the second one bugs me a lot. 
The first fallacy is the one peddled by late-night infomercial stars.  It’s the idea that it’s really not that difficult to find an old house, buy it for [...]

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Commentary

Investing in Main Street Versus Investing in Wall Street

by Ted Karsch | October 21, 2008

With the Dow Jones Industrial Average having seen a steep decline along with most other major US and international stock indices, many American investors now are in despair about where they should position their investment capital. Meanwhile, the savings rate for American consumers has never been lower. As the credit markets continue to tighten and [...]

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Landlord Tenant

Top 3 Tips for Qualifying Your Renter / Tenant

by Troy Schuricht | October 3, 2008

What Make A Good Renter?
Is a good renter someone with great credit, or large deposit or maybe  high income?  The approach landlords take in qualifying their renter could be changing because of the housing crisis and the large number of foreclosures.
The main objective of renting your home should be to have a qualified renter that will pay rent [...]

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Landlord Tenant

Landlords: Here’s a Long, Long List of Tenant Rules

by Brendan O'Brien | September 28, 2008

Okay, I’m not going to post all of my tenant rules here (although I will if commenters want to know).  This is more about why tenants need rules, why I have many more rules than most landlords, and how I enforce rules with a minimum of pain.
The TV That Woke Me Up
When I started landlording, [...]

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Blogs

The Good Rental Property And Its Evil Twin

by Richard Warren | September 1, 2008

Very early on in my investing career I received a great lesson in rental property ownership.  In the early 1990s I saw the potential for the Las Vegas market and decided that it would be a good idea to have long-term investments in the area.  At the time there were about 5,000 people moving there each month [...]

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Landlord Tenant

To Over-Do or To Under-Do? – That Is The Real Estate Investment Question

by Mike Farmer | June 17, 2008

I guess it’s a philosophical difference. I know several investors who have a bare-bones approach to getting rentals ready and maintaining them. I see their point because they are looking at it as a revenue generating object. Maintain just enough to protect the object and the investment.
On the other hand, I tend to go in [...]

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Commentary

Real Estate Investing In A Rental Village

by Mike Farmer | May 13, 2008

Not too long ago I went to a neighboring town to check out an investment possibility for an investor I work with – rental subdivisions. The owner had built these homes in a college town 15 years ago and they were all basically the same style, cottages — some 2/2, some 3/2, 1400 sq ft [...]

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Blogs

Rehabbing A Rental Property

by Richard Warren | February 11, 2008

Last week we discussed rehabbing a home for personal use (Getting Started in Rehab ), this week we will explore rehabbing for the purpose of renting. Of the three main types of rehab, personal use, renting and flip, the rental falls in the middle in terms of risk. If the rental market is strong where [...]

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Landlord Tenant

Landlords: The Importance of Investigating Outstanding Violations

by Joshua M. Marks, Esq. | January 9, 2008

In many municipalities, a Certificate of Occupancy (often referred to as the “CO”) must be obtained by the seller and delivered to the buyer prior to or at closing. This insures that the buyer is aware of any outstanding violations or pending assessments against the property. However, some towns do not require a [...]

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Commentary

A Rental Property Management SNAFU Story

by Joshua Dorkin | July 12, 2007

I’ll get into more details at another time, but I thought many of you would be interested in this situation . . . I have a few multi-family properties out of state and have used a management company to operate them. To date, this company has done a phenomenal job managing the properties, but [...]

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