All Forum Posts by: Mark N.A

For my lower-income rentals I'll make an appointment and say my brother-in-law will meet up to show it.

Then if I get a call from the prospect that no one is at the rental I'll say something like: "Damn my shiftless relative for not showing up! I'll come over and personally let you in!"

That's one reason I like my properties close by.

Your best bet is to be very very very nice to your tenant because they hold more leverage over you than you hold over them.

My real question is how did you get into this situation?

Hey Josh --

You've got his contact info -- reach out to him and let us know what's up.

Brandon, where I'm at we've got a lot of excess overbuilding and a local property manager was complaining to me how his absentee owners were calling him and yelling WHY CAN'T YOU RENT MY PLACE! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?!

Same with repairs.

There oughtta be a rule that LLs manage their own properties for a year before they hire someone else to do it. Not only would they know what was what, but they'd sure recognize a bad PM pretty soon.

I never want my tenants to do any repairs and encourage them to call me.

Most recent case in point, I've got a nice tenant who didn't want to bother me with a leaking bathroom supply line. His repair involved duct tape. Luckily I found it before the floor rotted.

I like this philosophy because if I sell a property after any length of time and still have that expense dough I'm a dad-gum genius.

OTOH, if I need that money for expenses and have already set it aside and accounted for it in my returns I'm still kinda smart.

Putting an end to non-recourse loans will also have a positive effect in reducing defaults.

Though I heard that some states will not allow this. Could that be true?

Couple of years ago I added a few clauses to my lease stating exactly what constitutes abandonment and what procedures will then occur.

In my experience different population segments have different priorities.

My lower-income tenants want a decent place, rent they can afford, close proximity to other family members, neighborhood familiarity, and walking distance to amenities like fast food restaurants and grocery stores.

But start moving up the ladder and school district becomes very important if the family has children.

But what's really 'fun' from an investment standpoint is when you get a School Superintendant (like we have) full of progressive theories who likes to tinker with school redistricting.

Man, I've seen some nice neighborhoods suddenly tank in value as numerous families move just to keep their kids in good schools.

Interesting point, Jeffrey, about a certain subsection of the population not voting due to the reasons you gave. And I agree with that.

However, I remember a very important election a couple years ago where chartered buses met at churches and other gathering points to ferry large numbers of people to the voting booths, sometimes with a stop at a fast food restaurant on the way. Could definitely happen again.

Unfortunately, we, as 'housing providers' (to use the PC term), have no PACs, lobbyists, unions, or other well-funded special interest groups to collectively speak for us, or even to hire one bus.

Landlords as easy targets is not an original thought of mine, but something touched upon in one of John T. Reed's books. His advice, FWIW, was to mitigate that risk by only investing in SFHs.