Renters Increasing Faster Than Rental Property Supply

landlord, 21 July 2009, No comments
Categories: landlord skills, management and motivation

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Image by Center for Neighborhood Technology via Flickr

Yet another good reason to consider rental property ownership…

In a recent article published on the Multi-Housing News website (March 26, 2009), President and CEO of Associated Estate Realty Corp, Jeffrey Friedman noted that over the next 10 years there are expected to be 450,000 new rental households per year. However, on the supply end of the equation, the number of new apartment starts is only around 200,000. “We know there is no overbuilding,” says Freidmen. If this trend continues, he notes “In fact, there will be half as many new apartments built as new renters coming into the market.” >

Another observation he makes is that the current unemployment level in the US will probably keep vacancy rates in the 5-8% range and make it more difficult for landlords to raise rents while unemployment levels remain high.

You can read the full article at http://www.multihousingnews.com and search for “New Renters Will Outstrip the Supply of Apartments Despite Economic Downturn, Says Associated Estates CEO”, March 26, 2009.

Property Managers, Attorneys, Coaches and much more coming to Landlord Business Insider!

landlord, 20 July 2009, 1 comment
Categories: Uncategorized

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It’s been a busy few weeks for me with property issues, but I wanted to let you know that I have been lining up a bunch of posts that I think will be extremely valuable to readers. A few weeks ago, I surpassed my 50th post to this blog! I appreciate the many emails that readers have sent over the years, thanking me for providing this blog and my book How To Buy Your First Rental Property and Beyond. And, those “pats on the back” have continued to motivate me to keep this blog series going!

So, based on the questions that I have gotten recently from folks, I thought it would be interesting to do a series of articles, posts and interviews covering:

Professional Property Managers who can discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using management firms versus doing it yourself.
Real estate attorneys that can discuss everything from evictions (landlord-tenant issues) to asset protection (LLCs vs sole proprietorship or partnerships).
Real estate coaches that can talk about how to get to the next level and stay motivated!
How to buy the RIGHT property and rent it out to make a PROFIT.
The critical types of insurance you must have to adequately protect yourself when owning rental properties.
Tips and time saving things you can do to help get better tenants, keep good tenants longer, get paid rent on time, track and manage your properties more easily, and much, much more! (I always wanted to say the much, much more part!)

So, keep bringing me your question and comments. My goal is to make landlords smarter, stronger and more profitable!

Respectfully,

Steven A. Boorstein

Landlord & Author

www.LandlordBusinessInsider.com

www.ManageRentalProperty.com

www.HowToBuyRentalProperty.com

www.iLiveNaturally.com

Water bills creeping up in a rental unit, but you don’t know why?

landlord, 10 July 2009, No comments
Categories: maintenance and repairs

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Image by Editor B via Flickr

Are your water bills high in one of your rental units, but you aren’t sure why? If you’ve already ruled out leaky faucets, pipes and outside hoses, tenant’s washing their cars (and their friends cars and filling inflatable kiddie pools, etc.), or a bum water meter, then maybe it’s a toilet that’s the culprit.

You can’t always hear or easily see a toilet tank that is leaking. If you look inside your toilet, you’ll find a rubber flapper which is normally at the bottom of the tank, over the hole which allows the water to go from the tank to the bowl. When you flush the toilet, the flapper is pulled upward, which allows water to go from the tank into the toilet bowl and “flushes” the toilet bowl.

If the flapper is not creating a tight enough seal when it is down, water can slowly leak into the tank. Slowly enough not to be seen, but over the course of the month it could result in a lot of water wasted, and an excess water bill! The quick fix is to buy a kit which normally runs about $10-$15 and replaces the inside “guts” of the tank.

But before you spend a couple of fivers and a half hour of your time on the repair, here’s a simple test you can do to see if this is the problem:

1. Make sure you don’t have any toilet cleaning tabs or solutions that color the toilet water. You want to do this test with clear toilet bowl water!

2. Add a few drops of food color to the tank (preferably a darker color like blue or green) .

3. Wait an hour or so and check to see if any of the colored water in the tank has leaked into the bowl.

4. If it has leaked, you can usually replace the “guts” of the toilet pretty easily. The cost is nominal, usually around $10 or $15 bucks for the do-it-yourself repair kit at the local home improvement or hardware store. The time to do the repair is probably about 20 minutes to a half hour if you are handy, maybe more if you aren’t.

5. Reap the water savings of a non-leaky toilet and feel good that you are helping to conserve water! (Save green and be green!)

Just another day in SMART landlording!
-Steven Boorstein
Landlord and Author

A "real life" example of why even DIY Landlords need a good network

landlord, 20 June 2009, No comments
Categories: landlord skills, management and motivation, maintenance and repairs

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In a recent post, I asked the question, “Do you do your own repairs?”

I don’t want to rehash that post, but just give you a personal example of why it’s important to have a network, even if YOU do most of your own repairs.

Last Saturday, I came down with some kind of terrible virus. This one hit me hard. I felt like I had the flu (“Swine flu?”, you ask. Well, I don’t know… maybe. I went to the doctors, but they didn’t test me for it. If it was swine flu, I don’t wish it on anyone.). The next day, Sunday, I felt even worse. That was also the day that one of my tenants in a unit about a half hour away phoned me to tell me they had a problem with their water heater– as in, NO hot water.

So, here I am, 7pm at night on the phone with the tenant. I feel achy. My eyes hurt. I am getting chills which are alternating with periods of hot sweats and I’m totally exhausted. My first reaction was to tell the tenant that it was probably the pilot light on the water heater, hoping they might know how to relight it and take care of the problem. The issues with that line of reasoning, unfortunately, are that neither do they know how to relight it or am I comfortable with them attempting to do it anyway.

I tell the tenant I will be there first thing the next day (Monday). They hang up relatively happy and I’m now thinking how I can beat traffic on Monday morning to get there as quick as possible and hope I’m feeling OK. However, Monday morning I wake up, not much better than the day before, and after vomiting, realize that “it ain’t gonna happen.”

It’s now 8am and I call my plumber. This guy is good. He’s responsive. He knows the property and is familiar with some of the tenants. Most importantly… at 8am, he answers the phone. I sound so bad, initially he doesn’t recognize me. In under two minutes, he’s got the info he needs, tells me not to worry and assures me he’ll take care of it. He does and, in fact, it wasn’t the pilot light like I thought, but another issue which he easily fixes– but would have stumped me. And, while he was there, he headed off another major problem that was developing, which I would have had to call him for that day anyway.

So, my acute illness reaffirmed two important lessons for me. First, having a personal network of repairmen and contractors that can help out in a pinch is very important. Second, concentrating on calling these professionals in the beginning, rather than trying to do it on my own first, is a smarter business plan for me. Even if I had been feeling well, going out to the property and trying to take care of that issue myself would have resulted in at least an hour and a half or two hours of my time. Time that would have been wasted because I couldn’t fix the problem anyway. I don’t mind spending money on a valid repair. And I don’t mind spending time to diagnose or fix one, if I can save enough money. But I hate spending money AND time, when I could have just paid a repairman or contractor a reasonable price for the repair and spent almost none of my own time in the process.

Hopefully, you never get have a rental repair issue while you are ill, or on vacation, or at work. But, since it IS likely to happen at some point, my advice is– start putting together your own personal network of repairmen and contractors. And… learn when to stop wasting your time.

Regards,
Steven A. Boorstein

Landlord & Author

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