All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Anyone over 18 years old on the lease, anyone under 18 years old as OCCUPANTS!

I'm back.  Took a peek at the Wave Screen Shots and I think they gave it a good try, but it is kind of babyish.  

QuickBooks has a class feature that allows you to keep track of every penny you make on your rental units and how much money you spent on each rental unit and then some, any time of the day, minute, year, month.  In great detail.   

QuickBooks is a Professional Accounting Software Program that, when done correctly, makes a landlords life easier.  

We need to keep track of every repair done to our buildings, our units, right down to the last nail, the last dry wall, the date, the cost, who did the work , the time, when.  Detail, Details Details. 

Many software programs are Ok.  Wave is OK, but QuickBooks for landlords is what is needed.  Not something cute.  Note something like money in money out.  But a program that is easy to use, has professional looking reports to impress the banks and other investors, and knock the socks right off yourself when you want to know where you stand financially, and I and 1000 of other landlords who use QuickBooks will say it is the best. 

QuickBooks can keep track of loans and Mortgages.  Fixed Assets.  Depreciation.  

It has a Balance Sheet a Profit and Loss Report, and over 60 other reports than can printed out any time you need them.  

QuickBooks can be purchased in stores all over the country.  It is sold all over the World.  Is is used all over the World.  

CPA's  prefer to use it.  Not all, but many. 

So, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I have to stick with saying that QuickBooks is the best.  But, hey, if someone can truly show me something that cost as much as QuickBooks and does everything QuickBooks can do, I'll promote it. 

Oh BTW, QuickBooks can tell you when a lease is going to expire.  It can keep track of properties purchased and sold.  It can tell you how many Square Feet your homes are, when they were built, and anything you want to know.  It is the only software program out there that YOU YOURSELF can CUSTOMIZE to fit YOU!  

Who can say that about any other software.  

Just sayin!

Nancy

Nathan I will do a search on Waves and see what it does.  I never heard of it before.  I base my opinion on the fact that I had purchased and view almost every software program out there.  So I will check out Wave...how is that?

Nancy

I must be in a writing mood.  I have a story for you.

We purchased a 4plex for $10,000.00 and put 100 grand into it.  Great neighborhood and a great apartment building.  All new Anderson windows in every room, not to mention furnaces and water heaters and walls!

Tenant moves in the upper unit.  It's winter.  He calls us and says the house is drafty.  Lots of wind blowing through the windows.  My husband and I tell him that we just put in new windows, Anderson Windows, and he insisted wind was coming through the windows and he was cold. 

We told him we would be out the next day to take a look, but before we got there he had called the City on us.  (Little does he know that we had to have it inspected and get a C of A and a C of O before we could even rent it out so no violations were filed against, but this guy didn't know that).  We asked him why since we said we'd be there this morning.  He said because we were slumlords. 

He started cussing us out about the drafty windows and acting like the big guy.    Now this guy is 6' 5" and now he is going off on my husband.  (Now one thing tenants should never do, is make my husband mad.  He is the type that will make them offer they can't refuse, if you know what I mean, that's why my husband has me.  So I knew I had to do something and quick).  So...  I ran to the car, grabbed my portable voice recorded, shoved it under the tenants nose, (I'm 5"2", so I had a long way to reach) and said, "you have something to say, you say it in this.   His wife ran up the stairs crying, and the tenant  began to stutter, and had nothing more to say.  So hubby and I and the tenant go upstairs to check out these windows, only to find out that they were opened!!!!

Ya just gotta love this stuff.   They ended up moving.  

Nancy

Simon, there is a difference between a landlord and property management.  QuickBooks is truly the best software out there for a landlord. 

However, for a Property Manager taking care of other people's properties, it could be, if someone wanted to take the time to utilize it the way I show them to.  But there are software programs out there for Property Managers that I like as well. PropertyWare is one. 

BTW,  most CPA's use QuickBooks !!!!

Nancy

Well Mohammed, As an Inner City Landlord my years of experience would equal 100 years or more  because there is nothing I haven't seen or been through.  From flying bullets, to drugs and prostitution, to Welfare applicants who own BMW's and Coach purses....then  to the most kindness and fun loving tenants I am lucky to have had. 

I have lived through furnaces being stolen from the property, water heaters taken, siding removed from  the houses that had siding,   Copper pipes being ripped out of our houses, to Ministers who rented our homes saying they could visualize themselves living there forever, but inside meaning to never pay the rent of course.

To tenants falling down stairs and taking the railing with them as they stumbled down them, to dogs chewing up the basement tiles.  To bugs, and critters, drug dealers who when they moved, dismantle the stairway leading up to the bedrooms, because the stairs is where they stashed  their stuff. 

My husband has been shot at, we have had squatters, drive by shootings, many times over.  Taken to court over grass being over 1 1/2 inches high in the alley.  (I won the case). to mice, tenant fights, leaky roofs, attached by tenants, and lots of hugs and tears from those who loved me.

All this stuff, how to interact with all types of personalities, doesn't come in books.  You don't know how you will act when faced with some of the stuff landlords face.

Neighbors and fellow workers never know the "tenant" as a landlord knows that person.  We see the other side of them.

I've seen Police Officers  leave our  house filled with roaches, Ministers using our homes as a church, one tenant wanted to use  our home as a Funeral Parlor, and work on the bodies in the basement. (Or tended to do it, until I found out their intentions the day we were going to sign the lease, and I told them no way!!!! See around kiddo!!!  LOL

Landlording was exciting!  Exhausting!  Challenging!  Sad!  Frustrating!  Loving!  Filled me intellectually.  But it was both scary, because everything we do in this business we face a great deal of responsibility. We face losing everything by just one simple mistake.  We even jeopardize our lives. 

We face Law suits, are responsible for our tenants lives, building codes, neighbors, our reputation, and worry about how to keep  our tenants long term and happy.  We face damages, evictions, staying ahead of the game every day, every moment.  Because no matter how experience we are,  something new always pops up, something new that I had to resolve or  solve  or  master.

Landlording and QuickBooks is what made  me tick.  (Hubby too) 

Sigh, sometimes I miss it, but this old gal can do more now this way than getting back into it again. 

Nancy Neville

Believe it or not most CPA's don't know how to setup QuickBooks the correct way for Landlords.  

You see a normal CPA or an Accountant who isn't a landlord, looks at QuickBooks through an accountant eyes.  They want you to do a lot of Journal Entries.  Yep, I just said the No NO Word...JOURNAL ENTRIES.

QuickBooks does all this for you behind the scenes.  Just once in awhile you may need to do a Journal Entry.  

Yes, QuickBooks can look and seem intimidating because it is so Robust!  But it really isn't hard at all.  But if you want to use all it's features, it does take some time to learn.   I have taught a quickie course in 4 hours.  But to know it fully would take about 8 hours or even 16, if one is doing a seminar and teaching it all. 

But all in all QuickBooks is a Landlords best friend.

Nancy Neville

Many questions on here is in regards to buying property.  The first thing people think of when deciding to become a Landlord is buying the property.  Once they buy the property then what? Oh my gosh, there's a lot of work to be done to the property.  Then, Oh my gosh, how do I find a tenant?  Then Oh my Gosh, now what?

So you need to have plan that goes way beyond buying that rental. 

It's easy to purchase a rental, but can you keep it?  That is the question.

My husband was the handyman (well we had a work crew, but hubby was the ultimate handyman, perfectionist to an annoying fault...even to this day everything has to be perfect)  

I on the other hand, was the Zoo Keeper, oops I mean I took care of the nasty stuff, like tenant complaints, accounting, court scenes, making the tenants comply to their lease agreement.  I was the bad guy, and my husband was the good guy. But....without each other, we wouldn't have succeeded.  We wouldn't have been able to Keep our rentals. 

He was good at what he did and still does.  This enabled us to KEEP OUR BUSINESS.

I am good at what I do.  This enabled us to KEEP OUR BUSINESS

Where we good when we first began?  ARE YOU KIDDING ME!  Dumb and Dumber!!!!

But with embarrassment and lots of goofs it forced ME to study, and finally I  became good! 

So...for you young whipper snappers out there,  there's more to buying a rental property.  If you want to Keep it, you've got to learn what it takes.  Sometimes you need a Good guy and a Bad Guy, even if you have to be both at one time!

Just a little tip from this old gal....Nancy Neville

My husband and I owned 40 rental properties.  We budgeted $100.00 in repairs for each building and if it was an apartment building or duplex, it was $100 per unit. 

Of course not all 40 rentals had repairs, so that gave us $100.00 that wasn't used per rental to be put into a  reserve (Escrow Account, which of course would be used for high expense emergencies, like new roof and furnaces)

We also told each other that if we made at least $100 a month profit on each rental as well per unit, we'd be happy.  (Even though we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt we would make $100 profit on each rental unit, but one never knows).  Plus,  half of our homes were paid off.  So we made pure profit on those homes)   Whoooeee...  

We purchased our properties Cheap  like today.  Then worked hard to pay them off.  But we bought in quantity.  The more house you have, the more money you have to set aside for the other houses that need repairs, or has a tenant who isn't paying rent, or for those damages, or to BUY ANOTHER HOUSE....hot dog!

Once you have a lot of houses in your pocket, each house will pay for each other. 

By still allowing a budget of $100.00 for each rental unit in repairs and net profit, helps take away the stress.  Anything you make over that $100.00 profit you plan a month per rental unit is like Christmas!

We managed that way for 30 years.  It wasn't until the market turned that we were forced to retire.  A ton of vacancies due to tenants leaving to buy houses and a City that kept getting worse.

But up until then, we made a pretty good penny!

Nancy Neville

First of all do you know anything about the landlord business?  A big difference between being a Broker who buys and sells.  Most Brokers I've encountered who do Property Management don't even own properties themselves and therefore have the worst lease agreement I've ever seen, leaning heavy towards the tenant and not protection of the landlord or his or her  property. 

What qualifications do you have to manage other people's properties? 

Do you understand the landlord and tenant laws of your State?

Do you understand the City Ordinances for every city your properties will be managed in?

Do you have a Real Estate Attorney that deals in Landlord Tenant Laws.  Just because they are a Real Estate Attorney or an Attorney doesn't mean they know the laws of the Landlord Tenant Courts.

It's a disaster if you've never been a landlord.  But lots of Real Estate Brokers are doing it because a lot of home owners can't afford their homes and are trying to rent them out, and who do they choose to manage their homes for them......  Brokers who don't know what they are doing.   Sad situation.

Nancy Neville