All Forum Posts by: Karl B.

Roughly two years ago I was dating a surgeon and she had a conference down in Tampa/Clearwater and asked if I wanted to come along. 

I joined her and Tampa was cool (On Swann is an amazing restaurant and their bread pudding made me see God) but Clearwater was amazing. Super cool people and a lot of fun things to do. 

We stayed in Ben Mallah's hotel lol. I got her the Ben Mallah discount. 

I told my parents when prices drop maybe I'll get a property in Clearwater. 

Something similar happened to my dad. He had a tax credit and they didn't apply it and then because they didn't apply the credit they claimed he owed money and then charged him late fees.

He tried calling them NUMEROUS TIMES and waited hours and half the time his call was somehow dropped. 

They're absolutely inept. If we ran out real estate businesses like the IRS ran their B.S. we'd be run out of town. 

That is wild. The best thing all of us can do is meet with our local apartment associations and as a group reach out to local lawmakers to enact improved, landlord-friendly squatter laws on a local level.

These fun answers make me want to be a lender now. This was epic:

7. My dog needed his teeth cleaned

That is great. 

Here are the best reasons I've heard from tenants who were late on rent:

-'My son used my debit card on some Christmas presents for himself and I just found out and am canceling the orders. Once the money is back in my account I'll send the rent money'

-'My car ---- the bed and needs fixed'

-'The storage facility I have some stuff in charged my credit card 10X what they should have'

-We had an unexpected bill'

-'My credit card/debit card/bank account got hacked' (this one has happened multiple times to different tenants)

-'I got another job that pays better'

It's market specific. Some investors have a great experience with their local Housing Authority. In my main market I get better rents from regular non-Section 8 renters. 

Also, the 'guaranteed rent' statement is not always true. I had a Section 8 tenant who was too lazy to show up to her appointment with the Housing Authority and they froze her voucher meaning I didn't get paid. 

It was more of a headache than it was worth. If someone wants to buy a 25K house on the east side of my town and do Section 8 then I get it - but anyone with a house in a halfway decent C-class neighborhood can get higher rents by not participating in the program.

Like Super Mario Bros. the rent ate the mushrooms and grew larger in size! 

In the future ALWAYS send notice VIA writing (whether VIA text or registered letter) and not verbally. 

If the mushrooms are still visible and you aren't comfortable living there due to it potentially being unsafe I recommend contacting code enforcement: 

https://www.atlantapd.org/about-apd/divisions/chief-administ...

Howdy!

I've watched a lot of channels and find a lot of social media real estate stars to be either annoying and/or they give incorrect/generalized information. Here's who I tend to watch:

-Ben Mallah - This guy is very successful and I've learned a lot from his question and answer Q & A livestreams. He also has videos which are mainly entertaining and funny - mainly his day-to-day stuff 

-Ken McElroy - Genuine guy who has a lot of good insights, especially in the commercial R.E. space and real estate forecasts. He posts a lot of videos and backs his opinions up with a lot of good statistics and research

-Used to love Meet Kevin's real estate videos - now he's morphed into covering the economy as a whole (which includes politics, stock investing, etc). I still watch his stuff and they're good videos but to call it a R.E. channel wouldn't be accurate

Most tenants will try and pull one over on you whether you're nice to them or not. 

I have a duplex where I have longtime tenants I placed. They're both paying under market rent as I haven't raised rent on them. 

I come to find out one tenant is smoking in the one unit and the other tenant has a puppy - both lease violations. 

Of course, this makes me unhappy. Know how I'm going to reward their behavior? 

That's right! We're going to market rent, baby!

Point is: you can be more than fair to a tenant and some will reward you with lease-violating behavior because they believe you'll never find out. And I don't consider them bad people or overall bad tenants - it's just a phenomenon where some people pay rent, spend a few years in your property and think they own the place and can break the rules of the lease.

I start by waking up and checking my phone. If there are no calls or texts from tenants I breathe a sigh of relief and smile. 

I go to the gym 3X a week and so on those days I typically eat a leisurely breakfast. After that I typically go to the gym an hour or so afterwards though some days I have to meet with a tradesperson/show a property/run errends/ etc. and try and get that done prior to the gym. 

The nice thing about R.E. is I can often have a flexible schedule and can plan it the way I see fit. 

During this time of year it's tax time and I'm getting all of that together which takes a while. I literally have 1000-1500 bills and receipts to log between the properties, etc.

During the spring/summer I'm typically doing rehabs and am dealing with tradespeople of all kinds. I'm also enjoying the weather and am socializing with friends and family. 

As mentioned I schedule everything as I would like. Sure - once in a while something comes up unexpectedly - whether a tradesperson calls and wants to show up to do work with little heads-up or I'm dealing with a problem or issue - but that doesn't happen very often. 

If I don't feel like doing real estate on a specific day I typically don't have to. The flexibility is nice. I really don't adhere to a structured schedule; as long as I go to the gym 3X a week and am happy with the amount of work I get done in my real-estate, investments and personal life it's all good.

"Old McDonald rented from Nathan 

E-vic-e-vic-tioooooon!"