Blog

Welcome to the Logical Property Management Blog. Below you'll find blog posts specific to Property Owners or Tenants to learn more about how we work and what you should be looking for.

2016-07-11

Screening Lawyers: When Value and Cost Aren’t Related

Some things are worth the money. Some things aren’t. Every lawyer loses some cases and wins others — so how do some lawyers charge ten times more than others? There are some pretty fundamental theorems of economics that almost everyone accepts as given. The principle of supply and demand, for example, tells us (among other […]

2016-07-04

Michigan Landlords: Are You Safe from Utility Liens?

Michigan Landlords: Are You Safe from Utility Liens? Do you owe thousands of dollars for a years-old utility bill you never knew your tenants hadn’t paid? Did you know that unpaid bills from public utility providers can easily become a lien on your property? From Michigan State Law 141.121, Section 21 of the Revenue Bond […]

2016-06-27

The Tipping Point of Poverty: When Poor Neighborhoods Go Bad

If you’re not familiar with tipping points, Google ‘Malcom Gladwell’ and read up. Dude’s a genius. As a landlord in a variety of areas stretching from downtown Detroit all the way out to the far reaches of Macomb and Oakland counties, we work with a wide variety of neighborhoods (and people). We’ve got a kind […]

2016-06-20

Property Managers Are Translators, Too

I’ve been told that “ruHra’wI’” means “property manager” in Klingon…but that’s not really what we’re talking about here. We’ve previously written at length about how a property manager wears a lot of hats. We take care of the physical structures our clients invest in, the fiscal aspect of the investments, ensuring that those properties turn […]

2016-06-13

Lessons Our (Successful!) Applicants Taught Us

Honestly, most people live up to whatever bar you set for them. Last week, we shared a few stories of lessons we learned from some of our more devious applicants. This week, we’d like to make up for that a little bit by sharing some of the flipside of the same coin — applicants that […]

2016-06-06

Lessons Our (Failed) Applicants Taught Us

Sometimes, the best lessons come from the people you didn’t catch. There’s a lot of truth to the notion that the best teacher is experience…sadly. We’d love to be able to say that we learned our lessons in quality tenant screening by reading about other people’s mistakes and taking their advice — but to be […]

2016-05-30

Property Management Hacks for the Buildings

No, we’re not talking about breaking doors down…honest. ‘Hacks’ are one of those things we can never get enough of — small insider-developed tricks that are designed to address one specific annoying problem and do it so well that you’ll wonder how you ever got by without them. Here’s some building-related ‘hacks’ we’ve learned over […]

2016-05-23

The Ups and Downs of Real Estate Investing in an Urban Area

Upside: it can be quite inexpensive. Downside: it can be quite cheap. Real estate investment is an enormously complex activity — far more complex, in fact, than any one investor can ever really wrap their minds around. That’s because property values are affected by a massive ecosystem of short-term events, long-term trends, mostly-permanent geographical features, […]

2016-05-16

Is This Home an Asset or a Liability?

Hint: Asset earn money every month; liabilities cost. Since about the end of World War II, Americans were told by every source they had available that their homes were one of the most important assets they would ever own. Homes went up in value over time, you see, so once you had your home paid […]

2016-05-09

Why Real Estate Investors Don’t Hire Property Managers

They should, obviously, but many don’t. Let’s talk about why. In the end, there’s a huge pile of reasons why hiring a property manager (PM) is a good idea for anyone who is trying to turn real estate investment into their next income stream — no one really questions that. The question that PMs ask […]

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