All Forum Posts by: Phil Reames

There is no more liability allowing guns than there is allowing knives, hatchets, or anything else.  If someone stabs someone in your house do you really think you would be liable because you allowed knives?  If someone chopped someone to death with a hatchet in your rental do you think you would be liable because you allowed them to have a hatchet on the property?    You are not responsible for someone else's actions.  

Since you have a CCW yourself I find it hypocritical that you would try to limit the rights of your tenants to be able to protect themselves.  Personally if I were renting from you and I was injured by someone in your house and you had denied me the ability to protect myself I would sue your *** off for not protecting me.  Talk about liability.  When you deny my the right to be able to protect yourself you are taking on the responsibility to protect me.  

I would suggest you amend the language of your lease.  

I would recommend Investor Carrot websites. I switched to them from a competitor. I never got a single on line lead from the competitor. I have gotten many leads from my Investor Carrot website. I implemented their Craig's List marketing ideas and have driven people to my website and gotten leads for free. I also set up a ppc campaign with AdWords. I'm only spending $10 a day and I'm getting leads from that as well. I have been so pleased that I am starting to implement some of their ideas on my financial planning website as well. Adrian at Investor Carrot is awesome. He has really helped. Feel free to Pm me if you have questions. My site is listed in my signature if you want to check it out.

Absolutely! 

Use OnCarrot. I was using a competitor company and never got a single lead. Switched to OnCarrot and get consistent leads. They have educational modules that teach you how to use Craig's List to drive traffic to your website for free. They have educational modules that teach you how to use Google AdWords to drive traffic to your site for a small amount of money.  I'm only spending $10 a day on AdWords and I'm getting leads in my market.  

Here is a link to their demo.

https://oncarrot.com/demo/

In the interest of full and fair disclosure I will get a referral fee if you sign up with them. I promote them because their sites work! In fact their system works so well I am using it to implement some marketing ideas in my financial planning practice as well.

PM me if you have any questions. My site is listed below this post so feel free to check it out.

Don't reinvent the wheel.  Use OnCarrott.  I was using a competitor company and never got a single lead.  Switched to OnCarrott and get consistent leads.  They have eduational modules that teach you how to use Craig's List to drive traffic to your website for free.  They have educational modules that teach you how to use Google AdWords to drive traffic to your site for a small amount of money. 

In that case it may be easier to use this as a way to get the current tenant out and start fresh with a new tenant.  It just seems to me that it would be easier to bring things up to or at least closer to market rents with a new tenant instead of fighting that battle with a current tenant who is used to lower rents.  

Since it isn't being used as a vacation place for your parents anymore another option might be to sell it and be done with it.  If you want rentals maybe take that money and find rentals that will actually cashflow properly.  Maybe even a lease to own to the tenant who is already in there.  Just some ideas.

I agree with @Sherman Ragland.  If she is a good tenant then give her the long term lease with built in rent increases.  If rents are going up at 4% a year then put it right in the contract.  One of the risks your are taking is what if rent increases go up to 5%?  So you will be missing out on 1%.  I think that fact that you have a long term tenant with no vacancies to deal with outweighs the small amount you would be missing out on.  

I agree with Teri S.  Arm up!  You are your own last line of defense.  I'm a concealed weapons instructor here in Michigan who has trained over 3,000 people to carry concealed weapons.  

Call the police. File a complaint. Get a restraining order, and ARM UP just in case all of these other steps fail.

A lot of keyword research.  Find keywords that have low competition but are still generating decent search volume in your area.  Also limit the geographic area that your ads are shown in.  I'm getting leads for about $2.50 per click.  You can set a maximum budget per day.  

So instead of going after a main keyword go after a secondary word that has low competition but decent search volume in the area you want the ads to run.  There are a lot of videos on Youtube about how to find low competition keywords.  It is a bit laborious doing the keyword research but well worth it.  Once you do the research you can use it for PPC and you should also work the words into the content of your website.  That way you can slowly move your website up so that it comes up on the first page of google searches.  When you are showing up on the first page you start getting organic visits which are free.  SEO is well worth it.  

I was talking to one of the bigger developers in my area recently and he said this is starting to feel like 2007 all over again. Doesn't mean he has stopped doing deals. Just leaving the skinny deals alone.

Two things.  

Nobody ever thinks it will happen to them (getting sued) until it does.  And then it is too late.  Protecting yourself ahead of time is almost always the best course of action.

Professional advice is almost always worth more than the price you pay, provided you do your due diligence on the professional in advance.