All Forum Posts by: Rob Lane

I feel your pain.  Have had to fire several over the years.  How much  do you know about construction?  You can be your own general contractor and hire handyman to do work for you but I highly recommend all investors be on their job sites frequently and help out with the work.  How much time do you spend at Lowes or Home Depot?  There are handymen all over those stores wearing their shirts with their phone #s.  Tackle them and get them to go to your job site with you.  You have to be aggressive with these guys.  You also have to understand that after they do all these things for you they will be out of a job and have to find another one.  Their loyalty is going to be to the people who hire them most frequently.  One of my friends had a plumbing problem at the same time I did.  My friend was upset the plumber took care of my problem at a rental before his problem at his personal home.  When my friend will use my plumber once a year, I use my plumber every week.  I wish you luck 

Rumor has it that a lot of manufacturing jobs are coming to Indiana and Michigan areas over the next couple years which will hopefully help your properties appreciate.  They will appreciate over time anyway or it certainly has in OKC.  I don't particularly like rural areas as I had 3 just sold 2 and trying to get rid of the last.  Does not fit my business model of driving an hour  round trip to fix something.  The 2 houses I sold went for a lot more than I anticipated however does not come close to the appreciation that my OKC homes have gained.

If you are cash flowing that much off 1 property in your  area why not buy more? 

No you do not need an LLC before investing. I would recommend an LLC before renting the property.

LLC's are meant to protect the owners personal assets. Basically an extra layer of protection to protect you from litigious tenants. LLC's unlike shareholders in a corporation are not taxed as a separate business entity. All P&L's are passed through the business.

Yes you should put your properties in an LLC

Ive had a few of these over my 20 years.  I think a lot of these tenants  from my experience are just lonely.  Its typically the tenant who is either retired or works out of the their house.  If it continues I would just have a talk with them and tell them you will start enforcing a $50 service call.  I also have in my contract the discount rent policy which says if a tenant pays on or before the 1st of every month and takes care of all minor maintenance issues they can take $50 off their rent. 

If you are that good at school have you ever thought about getting your realtor license?  4-6 weeks and you could be one.  Great commissions, learn the lingo, learn selling skills and people skills.  No bank is going to loan you the money until you have typically been on your full time job for 1 year. 

I self manage all mine.  But even with 25 homes I have been bored to death over the holidays.  Im closing on a house Friday with a massive warehouse attached.  Im getting into Air BB this year and finally going to move all my equipment, trailers, etc over to the warehouse so my house doesn't look like a construction site any more.  So I cant wait to get busy again. 

I have a few stragglers in my portfolio.  I even has some that have been slow pay for years but they always end up paying after I show my  frustration.  What I do is text.  Every month I will text them on the first.  If they had $400 on their balance from last month I just put your new balance is $1200 and that keeps things straight with tenant and you also have in writing.  I get mad at myself sometimes for not holding their feet to the fire like I should. 

But that is only with a couple of tenants everyone else is pretty good.  You also might try adding a discount rent policy in your contract.  This is what I do.  They get to take $50 off their rent each month if they pay  on or before the 1st and take care of minor maintenance issues. 

Feel free to look at my contract its on millionairemaintenanceman.com under forms.  Hope this helps. 

You can use my contract as a template.  Go to millionairemaintenanceman.com and look under forms see if that helps you.  Congrats on your first house. 

I say take care of the customer.  Turnover only leads to costing you more money and time.  Space heater are fire hazard.  A landlord in KS is about to go to jail over this I here. 

Yes full time jobs are important.  I bought my first house which was a duplex at 21, the other side paid most of the mortgage, I had a company car with my sales job which left me no expenses and money to invest.  Although I focused on my sales career which I  would say turned out pretty great I always kept investing in rental property (residential only) and kept living in my $66,000 house to keep expenses low.  All my friends careers were going great and they spent their money on $500,000 homes and luxury import vehicles.  I retired at 40 which was 3 years ago.  All I do now is play with my rental properties or pretty much what I want to do.  The only thing that sucks about it is all my friends are still at work.  So yes, focus on your career to feed your real estate monster.  It was not an easy path as I spent most vacations and weekends working on rental properties but now l would say life is pretty awesome!  And do not quit your day job until you have the proper cash flow.  Good luck.