What To Do If Your Apartment Has No Heat

Once in a while, you will have a rental maintenance issue that you cannot permanently solve right away. When an apartment has no heat that is certainly one of them. There are several other types of issues like this. You may have a drain clog that you do not have the equipment to do yourself, it may …

Should I Allow a Co-signer for a Tenant?

Should You Allow a Co-signer for a Tenant? Risky tenants need co-signers.  You are considering whether or not to allow a co-signer for a tenant.  Should you? Is the tenant a marginal tenant in terms of income, credit score or rental history?  Or criminal record?  Generally, a lower income person might want or need a …

Screening Tenants For a Rental Property From a Landlord

When you are a landlord, you need to rent to good people.  Screening tenants for your rental property will be the key to your success.  The tenant can be of any race, religion, nation origin, etc. Screening tenants will determine the experience that you will have and how much money you have the potential to make …

November – December 2015 Rental Cash Flow

2015 has been a great year in terms of rental cash flow.  It is the first year I have actually tracked rent increases, vacancy and next year’s potential increases.  I have always tracked income and expenses, but as I get close to retirement, I think it is a great exercise to track these other things. I …

How to Avoid Bad Tenants

When you have places for rent, inevitably you will find tenants to avoid.  You need to understand how to avoid bad tenants.  As a matter of fact, if you screen tenants with any sort of consistent basis at all, about 95% of the inquiries will be from poor quality tenants.  There is even a scientific …

Response to a Tenant Rental Inquiry

Here is a standard Response to a Tenant Rental Inquiry that I use.  I try to pre-screen as much as possible to avoid wasting my time, the prospects time, and the current tenants time.  I do not want a random prospect walking around in my tenants home, without knowing what kind of person that they are.  Granted, …

Tenant Deposits, How to Reduce Risk

Tenant deposits are one of your keys to risk mitigation. If you are like most landlords, you think that the largest risk to being a landlord is getting your rent.  You know that deposits will protect you, and if you are calculating your numbers correctly, you will make a big profit. Make no mistake, if …

Declining Tenants that Are Persistent

Declining tenants is a necessary part of being a landlord. A tenant recently inquired for one of my rentals.  I always do on-line advertising so most of the inquiries are via email.  If they call directly, I get their email address texted to me, so I can email them my standard response.  As I have …

Warning Signs for Incoming Tenants

Here are some warning signs for incoming tenants offered as a guest post in regards to some tenant quirks that may make for a bad tenant.  It is a great list, most of which I agree with, although some are not as much of a red flag.  Some are a bit non-conventional, and others are spot …

Financial Independence With Rental Real Estate

Financial Independence with Rental Real Estate.  I often get asked by my co-workers at my ‘regular’ job, the ones who know I am a landlord, why I keep going in. Why not just retire now?  Why do I put up with the mega-corp meetings, frustrations and red tape just to bring in a few dollars. …