Ground Leases 101: A Financing Alternative Despite the relative return of liquidity in the credit markets, many real estate owners and developers are still facing an uphill battle to obtain sufficient funding for their projects. One way to move that project from the drawing board to the construction site is eliminate the high property acquisition costs and turn to ground leasing as an alternative. Before you get started, here are a few issues to consider before signing the lease.Don’t Be … [Read more...]
3 Ways to Overcome Restrictive Leasing Covenants
August 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment
3 Ways to Overcome Restrictive Leasing Covenants I have been buying and selling houses for over 7 years now and never really had any problems with my Homeowners Associations …. until this year. Interestingly, I’ve run into problems on three different properties in different neighborhoods just in the last few months. What I’ve encountered are HOA’s with restrictive covenants limiting an owners ability to rent properties in the neighborhood.It’s understandable why an HOA would … [Read more...]
12 Tips for Being a Good Landlord and Having Happy Tenants
August 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment
12 Tips for Being a Good Landlord and Having Happy Tenants Every landlord would like to lower the turnover in their properties. It’s costly to attract and retain good tenants, not to mention the costs you incur when they move out and you have to turn a vacant rental. It just makes good business sense to strive to have happy, long term tenants in your properties. However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have good systems in place and treat this like a business. Here are some … [Read more...]
The Disadvantages of Section 8 Rentals
August 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The Disadvantages of Section 8 Rentals It felt like I was walking into a cave. A dark, messy, smelly cave. I looked around at the walls of my Section 8 rental and saw black, only black. The tenants had decided to add some “color” to the décor. But seriously, who paints walls black? And poop? Who leaves dog poop all over the floor? And trash? How can a family of four leave two, not one, but two dumpsters worth of trash? I started calculating the cost of priming and repainting, carpet … [Read more...]
A Must Use Form for Every Landlord: Release to the Rights of Possession
August 6, 2012 By 1 Comment
A Must Use Form for Every Landlord: Release to the Rights of Possession The “Release to the Rights of Possession” form is one of the most important forms that a landlord can use. It is a must use for every landlord. It helps protect you from future claims from former tenants. Let me explain.When you sign a lease with a tenant, you legally give them what is termed “possession” of that rental unit. The tenant then occupies and possesses the rental unit for the term of the … [Read more...]
Dealing With Tenant Drama: Are You Ready?
July 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Dealing With Tenant Drama: Are You Ready?Tenants are the reason we survive as landlords. By paying their rent, tenants put gas in our cars, food on the table and hopefully a little money in the bank. Tenants, however, are human, and being human means they bring drama. Are you ready for it?Sometimes the drama is petty.“My roommate and I don’t like each other anymore, she needs to leave.”Sometimes it is more serious.“I lost my job.”You as the landlord need to be ready to deal with … [Read more...]
Real Estate in Japan – “The Tenant is King”
July 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Real Estate in Japan – “The Tenant is King”We’ve covered the basics – Japan’s got beautiful cash-flow, zilch to negative capital gain (may change, may not), and the icing on the cake – the best and safest business and residential environment one could possibly hope for as a foreign investor or business person.So, the question begs to be asked –why isn’t everybody and their dog shopping there???Well, the big boys, (GS, DBG, Fortress, TPG, etc) already are, as mentioned. As for … [Read more...]
Commonly Overlooked Lease Issues: Third Party Rights
June 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Commonly Overlooked Lease Issues: Third Party RightsThis series is devoted to highlighting those often neglected lease provisions and prevailing on our landlord readers to give them a second look when crafting their contracts. Last month, we looked at the benefits of affirmatively addressing the, dare I say, not uncommon occurrence of a landlord default on their lease obligations and potential tenant remedies in such circumstances. Today we look at third party rights.Third Party Rights: The … [Read more...]
Hong-Kong Real Estate: Leases VS Freeholds & the Chinese Connection
June 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Hong-Kong Real Estate: Leases VS Freeholds & the Chinese ConnectionAs promised, here’s a drilldown of some unique characteristics of the Hong-Kong property market, including tips, tricks, inside information etc – starting with the most significant and drilling down to the misc odds & ends –Government LeasesAll land in Hong Kong is leased from the Government, (as opposed to being freehold, which is the straight-forward ownership we’re all familiar with). While this concept may … [Read more...]
My Lawsuit From an Unhappy Tenant
April 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment
My Lawsuit From an Unhappy TenantI wrote about how I was getting sued by one of my tenants for the first time ever. To give you a quick recap, I had a tenant sign a lease and then the day she was supposed to move into the property she claimed that it was “uninhabitable” and wanted her money back.Obviously, I was not going to return her security deposit or first month’s rent because the tenant had walked through the property previously, and had signed a lease, in which she acknowledged … [Read more...]
You Bought an REO Now Where To Start?
February 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment
You Bought an REO Now Where To Start?First, Let me set the stage for you. You are a buy and hold investor. You have done all the work required to learn your market and make a great purchase. The escrow just closed and the REO property is now yours.You have a lot to do and you need to know where to start.Each REO property offers its own challenges. I will highlight how I would run the project start to finish as a buy and hold investor:Prepping Your REO For The Tenant The first thing I would … [Read more...]
Lease Issues (Part 1)
February 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Lease Issues (Part 1)In th attempts to make their lease agreement more user friendly to the tenant, landlords often omit useful lease provisions. This series will be devoted to highlighting those often neglected provisions and prevailing upon our landlord readers to give them a second look when crafting their contracts.Topic One: Landlord Defaults and Tenant Remedies Many landlords neglect or outright refuse to address the situation in which they themselves have become a bad actor. Perhaps … [Read more...]
Getting Rid of Problem Tenants with Cash for Keys
February 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Getting Rid of Problem Tenants with Cash for KeysBuilding a profitable buy and hold rental property business can be tough. A lot of folks fail to treat this as a business and end up getting into trouble. Having systems and following those systems is so important if you are to be successful and keep your sanity.It’s pretty easy fly by the seat of your pants when you only have a few properties. Later on when you have added more rentals, it gets much harder.In the beginning when I bought my first … [Read more...]
Why I’m Getting Sued by a Tenant
February 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Why I’m Getting Sued by a TenantI once read a real estate book that said, “If you’re a real estate investor, it’s not a matter if you’re going to be sued, it’s when you’re going to be sued.” Well, I’ve been in the business about 10 years and I’ve dealt with dozens upon dozens of tenants and sellers and I am now being sued for the first time ever. Here’s why: A few months ago I had a tenant who signed a lease on one of my rental properties. The day the tenant was supposed to … [Read more...]
So You Want to be a Landlord?
February 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment
So You Want to be a Landlord?Several days ago I read a great post by Michigan landlord, Dennis Fassett, in the Biggerpockets blog section (article). It would have been hysterical if only it wasn’t so true. He discussed what he called The Boyfriend Disorder. He wrote about what happens when a prospective tenant shows up to view a property and has her boyfriend tagging along. In between the laughs, I cringed.Having spent two decades as a real estate investor, half of that time as a landlord of … [Read more...]
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