My name is Marvin and I'm a Bad Landlord...

Hello everybody. My name is Marvin and I’m a bad landlord. (everybody: hello Marvin…)

It’s my hope that with this blog I can accomplish a few things for our Bigger Pockets community. First of all, we’ve all been hearing on many podcasts from super-overachievers. Nothing against this; they have a lot of good information that the rest of us mere mortals can benefit from. I’ll warn you – in this blog you’re going to hear me gripe repeatedly about … "our next guest is just crushing it: 16 years old, doing 11 deals an hour and worth eleven billion dollars…" What can I say? I’m envious and haters are going to hate. Just know that it’s not real hatred.

So what about the rest of us? Middle aged (or older), job, family… It’s a little harder to be crushing it under these circumstances. But it’s not impossible, and that’s why we persevere. It’s my hope that with this blog I can:

• Help you to feel much better about yourself after you hear the mistakes I’ve made (and continue to make).
• Maybe some others can learn from my mistakes, saving themselves the trouble of making those same mistakes
• As I learn from my mistakes and find solutions to my problems, I hope to share those solutions with you.
• And yes, there’s something in it for me – hopefully. In airing my dirty laundry publicly, hopefully I can use the BP community as an accountability partner.

So why am I calling this blog “Bad Landlord”? Just keep reading…

First off it was years after I read "Rich Dad Poor Dad" that I began investing in real estate, even though it was what I knew I had to and wanted to do. I finally began in 2004, buying a 2 BR/1BA using a HELOC on my primary residence for the down payment and initial rehab. Today this is known as house-hacking. Then it was my only option. I was never going to save enough for the 20% down so I saw this as a shortcut.

Since then I’ve made almost every mistake you’ve heard about on BP:

Tenant – “Is it ok if I’m a little late with my rent this month?” ME – (I’m a nice guy) “Sure”… guess where that led… I’ve done rehabs that were way over my head (thinking I was saving money) and I’ve moved at a snail’s pace. (Since beginning in 2004 I’ve bought 5 more properties. (Don’t blink or you’ll miss me…) I still have no idea how to plan or budget a rehab (although my guesses are becoming a little more educated). I still haven’t advanced beyond using the MLS to find deals (it works but not quickly). And I’m far from having a reliable team of contractors that I can call on for rehabs or even estimates. I’ll be going into more of these shortcomings and issues in excruciating detail in future installments of Bad Landlord and hopefully discussing solutions. Fingers are crossed.