Managing Tenants & Toilets - Jay P. DeCima

Managing Tenants & Toilets (eBook)

Street-Smart Landlording Techniques for Small-time Real Estate Investors

Jay P. DeCima (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2019 | 1. Auflage
332 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-0983-0486-7 (ISBN)

According to William Nickerson; Author of the most famous real estate book ever written for do it yourself investors 'How I Turned $1000 Into a Million Dollars In My Spare Time,' investing in the business of income property puts you on the right side of the capital fence and pays you for your courage and imagination...Owning income producing properties will allow you to achieve financial independence and a quality of life second to none. If you are comfortable with ownership and setting down the rules by which renters may live in your properties - owning and managing small income properties offers you a vehicle for self-'employment and personal freedom that is difficult to match in today's society. Owning income producing properties will allow you to achieve financial independence and a quality of life second to none. If you are comfortable with ownership and setting down the rules by which renters may live in your properties owning and managing small income properties offers you a vehicle for self-employment and personal freedom that is difficult to match in today's society.

TECHNIQUES YOU WON'T FIND ANYWHERE ELSE*Control tenants without personal or emotional confrontations*How to collect late fees by offering tenants an alternative*How to eliminate drugs without costly evictions*Save time and guesswork qualifying tenants by phone*How to stay out of hot water dealing with black mold*Selecting the right tenant for the right property*Buying the right insurance so you don't lose the ranch *Learn to act quickly when your tenant goes bonkers *How to control most tenants with short handwritten memos*Jay's eleven (11) magic landlording herbs and spices*What to do when your tenant leaves all his stuff behind*How your insurance agent can help you manage tenants *How to convince HUD tenants to jump through "e;your"e; hoops *How to protect yourself hiring non-contractor handymen

INTRODUCTION

The guru on the late night TV cable channel said it was easy as pie to become a millionaire buying real estate. He said you don’t even need any money for the down payment. I musta dozed off because I can’t remember if he ever told us how.

What really caught my attention, however was a stern warning to his listeners --- “You mustn’t allow yourselves to become landlords”, he said. “You’ll end up fixin’ toilets in the middle of the Super Bowl!” WOW! What would be the odds of that happening?

Years ago, I remember watching Jackie Gleason and Art Carney on the popular TV series “THE HONEYMOONERS” I learned that toilets are flushed 14 times a day on average! Mr. Carney understood toilets ’cause he spent his whole TV career working in the sewer pipes. Based on Carney’s flushing knowledge, I quickly applied some third grade mathematics to my rental properties. At the time, I owned 186 units, apartments and duplexes – 12 with two toilets each, all flushing every day. When you multiply 198 toilets times 14 daily flushes, you’ve got swirling water 2772 times a day. That breaks down to 115 flushes per hour, which means my tenants are pulling toilet handles two times every single minute.

The point is – I know about flushin’ toilets just about as well as anyone. Not only that, but I’ve personally been involved fixing and fiddling with toilets for more than 50 years now! In fact, I probably have more toilet seniority than Mr. Carney! In all my years of fiddling and flushing, I’ve never once been called out to fix a toilet during the Super Bowl. Can you just imagine the odds? The way I see it, the TV guru on my local cable channel is completely full of baloney. I’m even thinkin’ about changing cable companies. Let me say this loud and clear, especially to all the new investors who need to hear the truth --- There’s nobody fixin’ toilets on Super Bowl Sunday. That would be totally sacrilegious! Don’t you agree?

LET’S BE SERIOUS ABOUT LANDLORDING

Managing your property and tenants efficiently is the key to making real money and becoming a successful INVESTOR-LANDLORD. Good management is even more important with fixer-upper properties because of the extra skills and coordination required to upgrade the property and cycle in new tenants willing to pay increased rents. Extreme care must also be exercised to maximize cash flow while fix-up work progresses. I will discuss in detail some DOS and DON’TS as we go along, but for now just accept the following fact: THE NUMBER ONE REASON SO MANY BEGINNERS FAIL IN THE RENTAL PROPERTY BUSINESS IS BECAUSE THEY NEVER LEARN HOW TO MANAGE THEIR PROPERTIES AND THE TENANTS WHO LIVE THERE.

Without the proper knowledge or education, ownership often starts out bad and progressively gets worse until the owner simply gives up altogether. Hopefully, you will take landlording very seriously like I suggest and avoid such a painful experience.

There are so many things that can go wrong when you meet your first tenants that it’s nearly impossible to list them all at one time. In this book I will address the most common problems so you can steer around them and hopefully save yourself a whole lot of grief! On a positive note, let me just say that most problems in life never seem quite so bad when you’re looking back. Of course, that’s after you’ve already been through the ringer a few times, learned the ropes, made your mistakes and gained the confidence that can only come from real life experiences. That’s where I’m at today. In my mind, there’s no management problem I can’t handle, at least none that I think I can’t handle!

Allow me to take you back a few years because it hasn’t always been that way for me! You see, I haven’t always been a landlord. I haven’t always worked on fixer-upper properties and most of all, I haven’t always known how to deal with my tenants effectively.

I met my very first tenants back in the early 60’s after buying and fixing up bank take-back houses (REO’S). Everything you’ll be learning in this book I’ve done. Many of my best ideas came to me in the middle of the night while desperately thinking of ways to solve tenant problems and improve my cash flow. The point is, what I am telling you, I’ve already done for myself and I guarantee my techniques will work for you as well. There’s absolutely no way on earth to successfully operate two-hundred “fixer-upper” rental properties without developing a good reliable management system. It’s that good reliable management system that will make all the difference in your success or failure, same as it did for me.

Most people who hear me lecture about fixer properties and landlording know that I’m basically a “hands on” operator. Some of my best ideas have come from that over-worked technique called “The Cut and Try Method”. Also, many strategies I’ve adopted and use today were learned at seminars or from others who have gone before me. What you will learn in this book are techniques and strategies that have withstood the test of time and a whole lot of on the job application. I have devoted no time nor space for “Disneyland” theories or “Drip-Dried” formulas that might sound good, but lack the true test of application. These pages are intended to help both the new investor – and perhaps even some who are not so new, get off the launching pad and become street-savvy landlords.

10 PERCENT CONTROLS 100% OF THE INCOME

Nowhere on this earth in a democratic society does 10% of anything have almost total control over everything associated with it except the business of managing rental properties. 10% of the gross income is generally about the highest fee charged by professional property managers for managing rental properties and overseeing the tenants.

Most beginning investors simply do not understand that property management makes almost all the difference in the world between a successful rental investment and a down-right miserable failure! And yet, this important task is generally priced at 10% or less of the total rental income generated by the property. I don’t mean to suggest that 10% is not enough to pay for a good management service. I’m merely emphasizing that in the rental property business, every management dime controls the other 90 cents of every rent dollar collected. I think it’s very important to understand this money relationship if you wish to achieve financial success as an investor-landlord.

My good friend and very street-savvy investor who operates small apartment properties in Oakland, California says it like this: “There’s no such thing as PROFESSIONAL PROPERTY MANAGERS. “That’s a contradiction of terms, he claims!” There are owners who manage and there are hired managers, that’s the only difference.” I’m in total agreement with my friend. It’s been my experience that management fees are pretty much the major consideration for most hired managers and the quality of service differs very little whether the management fee is 3% or 10%. What’s very often missing regardless of the fee is something called proprietorship. Unfortunately for most small-time Mom & Pop investors, proprietorship is the one ingredient they can’t afford to be without.

I strongly recommend that all new owners start out managing their own properties so they can learn the ropes. Learning how to manage and control properties is no small job and it’s far too important to be left in the hands of someone whose primary motivation is a monthly management fee. If you don’t agree with me on this, that’s perfectly alright, I understand! It hasn’t been that long ago since I believed in “tooth fairies” and Mother Goose!

To some, a 10% management fee may sound like an over-payment for this type of job; but remember, it’s that 10% management fee that controls the flow of every rent dollar collected. To me, that’s a great deal of trust you’re placing on the manager. Ask yourself the following questions:

• WHO IS TAKING THE RISK WHEN YOU PURCHASE A PROPERTY?

• WHO BENEFITS MOST FROM OWNING A SUCCESSFUL PROPERTY?

• WHO PAYS THE EXPENSES EVERY MONTH WHETHER ALL THE RENTS ARE COLLECTED OR NOT?

• ULTIMATELY, WHO’S TO BLAME FOR SUCCESS OR FAILURE?

If your answer to each of these questions is “YOURS TRULY”, CONGRATULATIONS! I think you’re beginning to see the big picture. I hope I’ve convinced you that a 10% management fee is indeed the most important dime in the world when it comes to your personal success or failure as the owner of an investment rental property.

As you become a more experienced landlord, certain parts of the job will become second...

Erscheint lt. Verlag	28.2.2019
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Betriebswirtschaft / Management ► Spezielle Betriebswirtschaftslehre ► Immobilienwirtschaft
ISBN-10	1-0983-0486-1 / 1098304861
ISBN-13	978-1-0983-0486-7 / 9781098304867

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