All Forum Posts by: Robert Steele

In my experience it seems that a lot of them never jumped back into the stock market. They've been burnt too many times and are looking towards REI instead. These kind of people are usually paying all cash.

Others I think, like Dion DePaoli alluded to are being suckered in by HGTV shows which never show the bottom line. That Property Wars is a completely orchestrated show I think unlike Flip this House from the last flipping craze that ended in 2007 where they actually bought the houses and rehabbed them (then fudged/glossed over the end results).

Kyle J. Chad Ballard as I said I have not actually had a tenant use the option to pay by credit card so I don't know. I just have the ability to do that if they want it. I would only use this in the case they had no other means to pay because of the merchant fee.

I have thought about the charge back too. I think it would be pretty hard for them to dispute it when I have a signed and dated authorization form. I guess the trick to preventing a charge back would be to use a separate account for rent payments via credit cards and drain it immediately.

If any of my tenants ever hit the skids and pay by CC I'll let you know.

They pay by credit card again :)

Good point Dawn A. I guess I should emend my previous post and move credit cards from the "take while not late" to "take while late" column. I haven't taken one yet although I have the ability to through my merchant account.

The way I see it is if the tenant has no money to pay the rent but they do have credit then its better to pay the 2-3% merchant fee and get paid than have to evict and not get paid.

I have been getting the impression over the past two years that more and more people are entering the world of REI.

When I started a decade ago I was somewhat of a pariah amongst friends, family and work colleges. Now days it seems that every man and his dog are jumping on the REI band wagon.

Just this past year I've seen work colleges buying them, neighbors buying them, friends of friends buying them. I even overhear people talking around the water cooler about how so-and-so are getting into the landlord bushiness. Just look at the number of new member introductions popping up here on BP everyday - it's getting hard to wade through them.

Is this the impression you are also getting and if so why do you think it is occurring?

And if you are one of these newbies why are you jumping in?

I can understand not taking excuses and IOUs but why not credit cards?

By the way you forgot one:
d) Sh*t

10Y Treasuries (which mortgages rates follow) just hit 2.50% - the highest since debt ceiling crisis.

That was almost 2 years ago for those of you not keeping score.

I offer payment by checks in the mail, cash in hand, direct debit and credit card.

If you are late or bounce a check then its cashiers check/money order or cash in hand only.

There's definitely been an up tick in mortgage rates lately. We are at the highest rate in more than a year now according to this chart from Freddie Mac.

Even Bernanke said in reference to the spike in interest rates: "We were a little puzzled by that".

Do you think that if this persists house prices will go down as buyers buying power is reduced or will home prices go up due to increase demand from buyers that have been sitting on the sidelines and are now afraid of missing out on locking in historically low interest rates?

Sounds like a glock block.

If you have the stomach for it you can make big bucks by investing where other landlords fear to tread.