As a landlord of a growing empire of 7 & counting rental houses, no matter the amount of times you have placed a house or the amount in your emergency fund, having a house come up is for rent is stressful. Even a professional like myself still stresses about their ad. I don't know about you, but having to cover that extra $1,400–$1,900 mortgage payment is not how I wish to spend my funds. Traveling to Bahrain, Fiji, or even going … [Read more...]
How to Find Quality Tenants
As a self-managing, empire building landlord, tenants are the most important part of my business. I have learned over the years tenants can either make or break your success. No vacancy with the tenants paying their rent on time means we have enough money to cover our mortgage, expenses, and even provide extra money to pay me a "salary" (check out out our Bare it All October Income Report to see our actual numbers). If our tenants had not … [Read more...]
9 Commonly Asked Questions Regarding the 2016 BAH Rates
Today, as with every mid-December, the 2016 BAH rates were released. If you have not checked your rates for next year you can find the calculator here. For some this is great news, but for others it may not be so great news. It all depends on if your rates have increased or decreased. Today, as I was noticing tons of comments and questions about the 2016 BAH rates, I realized there were a lot of common misconceptions and questions. Over the … [Read more...]
3 Ways a Landlord Can Split the Utilities
Renting your rooms out or having roommates are two great ways to live rent free. The simple act of putting up with others in your space is a form of sweat equity -- one that we took part of during our first years of marriage. It was one of the things that allowed me, not only to graduate grad school debt free, but also allowed us to have a significant savings account when we bought our first house. As we have discussed in the past, renting out … [Read more...]
80 Questions to Consider When Interviewing Your Next Property Manager
A very important part of being a landlord is the property management side. For some, the decision is to self-manage and for many others they wish to hire a professional property manager. Property managers are a HUGE and amazing asset. The thing to remember when finding a property manager is not everyone is created equally. That is something I found out the hard way (read about my experience here) and the ultimate reason that I decided to … [Read more...]
How One Landlord and Property Manager Got Served Humble Pie
I am a self-managing, transcontinental property manager. I am the first one to tell you I want to build an empire. I am not a reluctant landlord. In fact, I have become a proud rental owner six times over and own seven homes. I wrote how my plan started out hiring a property manager and then that just didn't work out when I had the shock of my life over the fees and cost. So I decided to figure it out for myself. I am proud to say that I have … [Read more...]
Amazing Tax Benefits You Get for Owning a Home
Homeowners have AMAZING benefits that some realize and others don't. The effect on your taxes can be large even though the credit is often little given ;) ESPECIALLY as military members Two Food for Thought Questions Are you Married or Single? Do you itemize or take the standard deductions? If your answer was Itemize for the second question its most likely that you own a house. For MOST people the largest reason they itemize is due … [Read more...]
How to Choose the Best Lease Term
There are many different types of lease terms and they have different pros and cons. Here are a few examples... Three Lease Terms to Choose From: 1. Month To Month (M-to-M): Pros: A short term lease allows either party to break the lease with 30 or 60 days notice depending on the lease. Cons: Tenants can break the lease at any time with proper notice. This is a problem if there are definite moving seasons in your areas. Ask … [Read more...]