All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

The people who flock to this site are entrepreneurial. We may each have a different strategy for doing real estate, but everyone here is entrepreneurial. The differences of opinions are useful because I learn more from the people who have a different world view than I do (they force me to think through why my world view is still the one I want to have).

In a free market economy, there's no such thing as an unfair price.

Landlording isn't the only profession where hard decisions have to be made.

For example, a judge told a group of us once about the emotions of presiding over a criminal trial. The defendant's young children are sitting in the front row and the judge has to sentence their parent to some serious prison time (or worse) because of what the jury found their parent guilty of doing. On the other side of the courtroom are the young children who no longer have a parent because of what the defendant was found guilty of doing. The judge has to follow the dictates of the law and some innocent people are probably going to end up being disappointed when it's over.

In one post, the OP alluded to the marketing rah-rah that is often used to draw people into real estate investing. "Make big money investing in real estate" sells better than "sometimes you might have to evict a tenant during the holidays." But the truth of the matter is sometimes you have to evict a tenant regardless of the time of the year and you know your former tenant (married with children, but no longer employed because a major company went out of business) might become part of the homeless population.

Some people such as myself don't have the stomach to do what might have to be done as a landlord, which is why I stay mostly with publicly-traded securities, including those with a value tied to real estate. When one of my investments needs to go, I can sell it during market hours and not feel bad about it. I have no idea who buys it from me because the stock exchange anonymizes the parties to the transaction (only the exchange and the SEC might know because they monitor stock transactions in their ongoing search for market manipulation and insider trading). The performance of my investments is determined by others who get paid to make the hard decisions and carry them out for me.

The real value of real estate investing is there is something available for everyone, ranging from hands on to hands off.

I hope your husband recovers OK, but to head off any additional issues, here is a question for your lawyer: Are you now exposed to a greater liability risk if this vicious dog living on your property injures someone else?

A Florida lawsuit (involving a convicted sex offender rather than a vicious dog) is being filed against the owners and managers of an apartment complex, claiming they could have prevented a tragedy if they had been on the ball. In your case, you already have firsthand knowledge of the potential danger and while I'm not a lawyer, I would think you might be held accountable by a civil court if you don't take steps to remedy the situation before someone else gets seriously injured.

When a fellow tenant's dog bit me on the hand last year, the leasing office took photos of the bite and had me fill out and sign a report about what had happened. I was subsequently told the dog was evicted, but I don't know if the owner followed the dog out the door or was allowed to stay. The apartment allows pets (with vaccination papers) as long as they are not of a vicious breed. There is a also a clause prohibiting "aggressive behavior" no matter the breed. The dog that bit me was small and the bite marks cleared up quickly.

Florida has a leash law and the owner had the dog on a leash, but was distracted by her phone. The dog lunged at me (it had a reputation of being aggressive, but hadn't bitten anyone yet). What got me piqued was when I showed the owner the bite, she seemed indifferent (no apology or anything). One of the maintenance staff witnessed the event and encouraged me to report it to the office. I didn't report the incident to the authorities, but I understand Florida has a one-bite-and-your-out law that prohibits the judge from giving the dog a second chance.

Silicon Valley is a boom and bust economy (as are many other areas of the country). Layoffs are part of the fabric of working there.  You just get use to it.

One of the company's board members, in a moment of extreme candor, told a trade journal on the eve of one layoff (the tech economy was extremely slow at that point and everyone knew something drastic had to be done) that tech companies have to be proactive with layoffs because if they aren't, they will end up with people who don't know how to find another job. The good workers would leave for greener pastures on their own.

Some tech companies went so far as to put their workers in the bottom 10% of the performance reviews on a six-month probation. This might sound harsh, but a decade earlier, I had worked for a company that never laid off anyone (although the people they wanted to let go often started getting calls from headhunters). I found it frustrating when trying to do my assigned job and my fellow workers would ignore my need for cooperation.

The extreme job intensity was also stressful. After more than one episode of burnout, I figured out that if I had enough income from passive investments, I wouldn't need a job anymore to pay my bills. Publicly-traded REITs (which were yielding 6% at that time) became part of my wealth-building strategy.

BTW, this thread reminds me of a discussion we had in business school: Do businesses have a responsibility to society? Or are businesses, which must always comply with the law, responsible only to their owners for maximum profits? There is no right answer, only much ongoing debate that goes back centuries.

One of my business professors would joke: Management is the world's newest profession and it has a lot in common with the world's oldest profession. Perhaps landlording, when done properly, is a profession that falls somewhere in-between.

You have to play the hand you are dealt and not the hand you wanted. The ovarian lottery can be brutal.

If you become a landlord and have no street smarts, your tenants will quickly teach you the street smarts you need to know.

I have several email addresses (my Yahoo email account allows me to set up disposable email addresses so I will know where an unexpected email really came from). I change to my real email address when I determine the other party is legitimate and not a spammer. I use the name I've been called all my life on all email accounts, which happens to be different than my full legal name I use on official legal documents (I go by my middle name).

I use the lack of response to an initial email inquiry as an indication the other party is not someone I want to do business with. I figure if they are non-responsive pre-sale (when they would be on their best behavior), I presume they will also be non-responsive post-sale (when they might have to deal with an issue that has come up).

Check out 70MillionJobs.com.

This site doesn't address real estate licenses specifically, but it does address the broader issue of finding a job when you have a criminal record.  The company was founded by a person who served time for a felony conviction.

DISCLOSURE. Although funding is now closed, I invested the $100 minimum in the company's Reg CF offering on the Wefunder crowdfunding platform earlier this year (https://wefunder.com/70millionjobs).