All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

LOL pat....

Hmmm Stephen ...I see update and then Quote. I'll try clicking on the Update.

Thanks! (Or else get a big magnifying glass. :(

Ok, I've got it. Right after I posted to you it changed from update to Edit.

But I'm only allowed so long to edit my stuff. So I better not write a lot of Stuff, because I won't have time to edit my stuff.

:)

Good grief, I knew I should have proof read my answer. Is there an edit button that we can go back to?

Meant to write with the price of gas and all.

Like Landlording, Realtors are seen differently by the public than what they really are.

I had one client who I worked with for over 3 months to find a home say to me, "Gosh I'm so glad you are paid on top of your commission for showing me these homes, with the price of gal and all". I laughed and replied, "Oh, we don't get paid.....not until we actually close on a house" and she looked shocked. But the I told her not to worry about it, that I enjoy showing homes and making sure my clients get what they want.

I did finally have to let her go because he just wouldn't listen to me regarding placing an offer high enough to beat her competition. Some times ya just gotta let go.

Nancy Neville

Anyone who is looking to rent a place over the Holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas are usually those getting evicted. Not always, but 97% of the time they are.

I never discouraged anyone. Let them apply. Establish a legal rental Criteria for your rentals and have it displayed where everyone can see it.

Let them fill out an application and submit the application to you along with an Application fee of $25 or however much you charge to process the credit check.. If they don't have money to pay for an application fee....oh well, guess they don't get the house. Too bad so sad! And if they do have the money, do they meet the criteria you have? If not, you're off the hook, and if they say they do meet the criteria, a credit check will never lie. I bet you anything that they will not qualify in a million years. Problem solved.

Do everything professionally and you don't have to worry about "Testers" and "Lawsuits" Get that Criteria typed up, make sure it's legal, and make sure it's visible for all applicants to see. On a table, taped to the wall, to the Kitchen cupboard, wherever you can display it.

Nancy Neville.

QuickBooks has been around for many years and is quite dependable and stable! I guarantee you that you will be impressed with QB 2014. All I can say is wow!

Nancy Neville

Actually my husband and I did buy many properties on one street. It was intentional so that we had somewhat of a control over the neighborhood. When we did our open house and had another vacancy across the street coming up or available, we'd show everyone that home as well and tell them that whomever got this house first (going by the criteria qualification process and who qualified first) they would, if they qualified, be able to get the house across the street.

Nancy Neville

Hi Paul:

First of all I have to clear up my remark regarding Vonage Phone. Vonage Phone acts as an answering machine. I always let my phone calls go to the answering machine (Vonage Phone) first and then I call the caller back. Therefore, when anyone leaves a message on the answering machine (Vonage Phone via the Computer) it is legal! (Besides I'm the type of person that I need time to think about their message before responding. If it's a bad message, I need time to deal with it calmly and professionally and not fly off the handle because it's something I didn't want to hear)

When I call them back, our conversation is not recorded, just the time I called, who I called, how long the call lasted, etc. It proves to the court that I indeed called the person back if and when a tenant states that I never did.

Then I follow up my conversation with the tenant or customer with a letter, confirming our conversation. So, once again, when people leave a message on your cell phone, home phone, they know their message is being recorded and therefore is completely legal.

Now, off to your question Paul. Would I re-invest in Detroit? Not as a residential investor. And I wouldn't invest in Commercial Property there either, UNLESS it was on the Water Front, but you better have the funds to invest there.

Right now is not the time to invest in "falling" cities, even though the Realtors (I am one, but won't resort to that) will try to entice you. Or because the media needs YOU to invest in the city in order to bring it back.

In order to bring back Detroit, the crime needs to get fixed. There is a shooting every day, break in's etc. Just listen to the news! Invest your money close to you, in a decent neighborhood. It doesn't have to be a grand neighborhood, but a safe neighborhood. Do some research. Sit in some court hearings and see how many landlord/tenant cases they do every day. This tells you alot!

See if the neighbors take care of their lawns, are the lawns well groomed. People can be poor, but poor people like clean! And they love spending their times on flowers, and working outside.

Your Exit Plan should begin even when young, just like we should plan for our burial when we are young, or insurance for us and our family. That's the time to invest in our "Senior Years. Get the expense over with while we are young.

Plan for an Exit plan in case you become disable. What would you do if you fell off a roof fixing it and became disabled? Could you afford to hire Independent Contractors or Property Managers to take care of things for you. Trust them? (And please be careful of Property Managers, many of them have never been a landlord and don't have a clue how to take care of you. Their lease agreements stink and they have the tenants best interest at heart and not YOURs. Whereas, a Property Manager should have everyone's best interest at heart.

Once you retire from the business, whether you are young or old, (and many landlords stay in this business until they "croak", so when to retire is up to you), you can do other things. Like getting into selling Real Estate. Being an Investors contact person,( which I am) Writing Books - Self Publish. (which I do) Mentoring. Consulting. Supervising (Which I do). Invest in Commercial Real Estate. Plan for all this. Save your money for all this.

But one thing for sure, study the market. Take Continuing Education Courses in Real Estate (I do all the time. I am a professional student) and get involved in every aspect of the Industry you want to be a part of.

You've got to have the "Love" of the job. I'm 66 years old. Do I sound like a woman who would be happy sitting around an old folks home playing Bingo? Do I write, talk, think like an "Old Woman", that people like to sterotype when they see someone with wrinkles! :)

Age is only a number. And if old people can be elected to the White House and still be there until they croak, (well I guess comparing people to the White House may not be a good thing) then I think you and I can do it too, and do it quite nicely as long as we have the intelligence, the physical ability and the "love" for it!

I hope you can tell that I have the Love for it. That I enjoy teaching others and helping others. That it comes through with what I write and what I say. My mission is to answer those questions truthfully, even though it may be something people don't want to hear.

Take care Paul

Nancy Neville

Every post is "right on". I am a retired landlord. My husband and I did own properties in Detroit for 30 years and the outlining areas. We owned 40 properties and it was EXCITING. It was a CHALLENGE. But you know what? We were so busy and happy doing what we were doing that we didn't anticipate growing older, therefore the best advice I can give you is to make sure you have an EXIT PLAN! Especially for the day that YOU cannot physically do all the work yourself. Even though we had various handymen to help us with the work, we still did the physical labor ourselves for awhile, until the old bones were causing us to eat Tylenol like candy, then we turned over most of the labor and repairs to our handymen, but the more dangerous Detroit became, the more our handymen stopped working for us, because their vans were stolen and their toles taken, and even one of our men, lost his life. And soon we found ourselves having no handyman want to come to Detroit and work with a ten foot pole and we were alone. Trying to take care of 40 rental units and everything else that is involved in being a landlord including handling my own court cases, was overwhelming, and in 2009 we finally sold our homes and took a great loss.

When I first began being a Landlord I didn't have a clue how to get tenants to pay their rent. I was frustrated every moment of the day, to the point that I wanted a Divorce! I wanted out! But my husband's favorite words to me were, "Yea, sure, just pick up your baseball glove and go home to mommie and daddy. You're not a loser! You don't quit! You're a winner! " And I knew he was right. I wasn't a quitter! Being a Landlord is and was and still is, to this day, what defines me and is who I am and always will be.

So...being a person who has always been a business woman from the day I was born, yep I was born with a pencil behind my ear, and a calculator in my hand, I decided that I had looked at this entire adventure completely wrong. Instead of looking at landlording as a business, I viewed it as just a person who bought houses and rented them out, just like every newbie feels when they first get into this business! And, that, my BP friends is where we go wrong!

That day, I developed a business plan and I put it into action. I no longer fought with tenants over rent verbally or ever, I never got frustrated because I let my Lease Agreement and the law work for me. And I had a plan. I had rules and regulations in the tenants lease agreement which is a legal document I studied the landlord/tenant laws and the City Ordinances of where my properties were located. And I began setting up my home office like it should have been setup, with the right equipment to help me be a winner.

Everything I did I put it in writing and I mean everything. Every conversation I had with a tenantand I followed up that conversation in writing and sent it to the tenants confirming our conversation of that day.

I purchased Vonage Phone and all voice message were recorded and a record stored to my online account. The day, the minute, the hour, how long the conversation went, etc. And it kept a record of my phone calls to them! Vonage became my very best friend along with Stamps.com. Stamps.com recorded every letter I sent, the date, the time, and how I sent it. Two very powerful tools that helped me from going to court over every little thing. It proved my cases in court and I never lost a case ever in my landlording career and I handled them all myself for 13 years.

Once I viewed landlording as a business, it began to run like a well oiled machine. My tenants were happy because they found stability with me, and my tenants stayed with us long term, some for 20 years.

Do I miss it, yea I do, but I'm still involved in other ways now.

I hope I have given you incentive to stay the course, just be careful where you invest. Develop a plan, and have an exit plan. Take care of your tenants. Make them happy, and you and your family will be happy.

Always make sure that you have profit of at least $100.00 per rental unit when all expenses are paid. Not every house will have repairs done to it every month so you will have big profits most of the time if you run this as business and do things right.

One other tip. Try to buy as many houses as you can and keep buying. Having one house or two or three won't cut it. You have tenants who won't pay their rent. You will have vacancies. You will have repairs that you didn't anticipate, like furnaces, new roofs, water heaters, things that go wrong. The more houses you own, the more those houses keep you running and going and able to pay those repairs without stress on you and that's what makes you happy. Having enough Equity in your investment, in your rental homes, helps maintain that investments and it just doesn't get any bettere than that!

Good luck to you

Nancy Neville