This time, we’re not talking about the kind with two legs and a history of rental fraud. Pests — roaches, ants, vermin, termites, and so on — can be an extraordinary annoyance at some rental properties (and then mysteriously never bother others.) If you’re dealing with a home that seems constantly plagued by pests and […]
All the better to make your investment back and start pocketing profit! Every year, millions of real estate investors spend more on taxes than they need to, because they don’t understand just how many tax deductions are available for a rental property. There’s not nearly enough room in a mere blog post for a comprehensive […]
It’s hard enough when you’re screening the actual tenants — having complete strangers on your property is a straight-up no-go. AirBNB, and similar services like VRBO and wimdu, allow someone to rent out a property they control by the night. This is great for homeowners looking to get some extra income while they’re on vacation, […]
It’s Not Like Those Instructions Made That Much Sense in the First Place… A tenant recently introduced us to a staggeringly clever website: Ikea Hackers. This is the kind of thing that every tenant with even a hint of DIY in their bones should be aware of. The projects on this website are (mostly) rental-friendly […]
Opportunity is Knocking! …Or Is That the Plumbing? Modern renters are mostly like the renters of the 90s…mostly. But some things — OK, a lot of things changed when the Great Recession reminded us that we can’t live on credit and high hopes forever. Most of these things are in some way related to that […]
Let Me Hear You Say ‘Flipping Ain’t Easy!’ It’s easy to mess up any sort of investment — the entire concept behind investing is that you accept some risk in return for getting a better return than you get from your bank account. But certain kinds of investing, like real estate, are just as much […]
Opportunity is Knocking! …Or Is That the Plumbing? Last week, we went over the fact that owning your home is, on average, about twice as affordable as renting — and why. The lack of first-time buyers created by strict debt-to-income ratio laws and high down payments is creating a slowdown in the entire consumer housing […]
If You Can’t, It’s Obviously A Great Time to Rent a House! It’s actually been a very long time since buying a home cost more than renting one — since 1991, to be precise — but there are a lot of extrinsic factors that have made renting a better option in general for most people. […]
It’s Easy to Make Money When Everything is Going Up — Can You Keep It Up As Things Turn Around? Vacancies rose by a tenth of one percent last quarter — which might not seem like much at first, until you notice that it’s the first time that the overall rental vacancy rate has risen […]
Recognize A Great Landlord With A Small Gift. (I am writing this blog post under objection, because we’re generally not self-serving enough to post a guide that might as well read ‘how to give us things.’ But we had a few tenants ask us this year, ‘is it appropriate to give your landlord a Christmas […]