While fights are fun you have to wonder how much they help and how much readers learn from reading them.
I can't speak for all food fights, but this one the readers could potentially learn a lot. Eric's claims of taxes and insurance being the only operating expense and appearing to be an expert on the matter could get a lot of newbies in trouble. Bad advice requires a strong opposition in an educational forum or a reader could lose their shirt (among other things).
Frankly I would love to see more “bragging”, If bragging involves showing people what can be accomplished through investing. I wonder how much “bragging” would actually go on though. I have a small feeling that some of the “Experts” in the forum are actually only experts at knowing rather than actually doing. Maybe some experts dont brag, because they have nothing to brag about, I think that bragging would be more like “hey I read this great book, or I took this great course”
I know there are people in here that do alot of business, and I wish they would brag. Why? Because then I could sort people out who Do what they know rather than listening to someone who knows what to do..
A 4th grader could come on the forum and give book smart on investing. I want to learn from the guys that are doing it. It is hard to seek them out if they leave no evidence that they do anything.
If it upsets you that I talk about what I am doing in real estate, then maybe you need to get out and do something worth bragging about.
Last thought, you will never see me telling anyone they are wrong because of something a course taught me or a book that I read said was wrong. Everything that I talk about I do, have done or have experienced.
Eric Medemar
p.s. I promise once I stop making, so much money, Ill stop bragging, because then like many experts I will have nothing to brag about. Until then I will keep talking numbers and accomplishments. Oh, and the naysayers are welcome to still chase me around the forums, looking for my erriors.
SHUT UP ALREADY, YOU SOUND LIKE A NAGGING OLD WOMAN!
People who really know something do not talk and boast as much as you do. The fact that you are doing that, tells me you are really just a big bag of wind and you don’t know much and the others are telling the truth about you.
I am on this forum to learn as much as I can about RE investing and you are wasting people’s time posting all that crap. I believe the only one who believes you, is yourself.
ENOUGH OF YOU ALREADY!!! AND DONT SEND ME NO NASTY EMAILS EITHER. :o
This discussion seems to have gotten off track. When I first got into this about 5 years ago everyone told me we always needed to play hardball with people. Our places rent for about 600 - 850 a month. The first time someone was a few days late we thought about going down there. But we were pretty busy. We got the rent a few days later. Over the next few years it was always pretty much the same. Once someone was pretty late and we called them. They forgot. We got the rent in the next day or two. We had one renter that paid late by 5 days every month for 2 years. But they always paid month after month. Looking back basically over the last several years. It seems we have saved alot of time and our tenants have been more considerate of us and have taken better care of our property. Tenants have told us that they stayed at our property because they liked dealing with us as landlords. We have never failed to receive a months rent. Now Im sure that some renters dont pay. And if we ever ran into someone like that we would not have had a problem evicting them. Now we didnt rent places for 350 a month and maybe those tenants are different I would not be suprised. But with the tenants in the 600 - 850 a month range our approach has worked pretty well.
This is the first week of December. Christmas is coming and people want to pay late so that they can spend their money on Christmas presents. I have all my people paid up and only 1 was late. It feels good to be sitting here with all the accounts paid for the month.
This is the best time of the month…money in the accounts.
Here’s an easy one for you. As a former Real Estate Broker and landlord for the last 10 years, here’s some advice.
Your state has a Landlord and Tenants act somewhere in the state regs.
Understand it completely.
Follow it completely when dealing with tenants.
Do not take security deposits without the 15 day notice to te tenant or as required by the prescriptive regulation.
Avoid retaliatory acts that could in some states, lead to treble damages against you.
Do not take partial payments from you tenant. In many states this either delays prevents the landlord from taking any accelerated evicted procedure related to non payment of rents.
Treat all tenants the same. Never forgive a late payment, even from your prettiest or most needy tenant. Always require all payments in full and always charge late fees. Forgive a late fee just once and every tenant will start being late.
Follow eviction procedures to the letter and always evict tenants that can’t pay up in full.
I have empathy for any tenant that is struggling and can’t pay up. But I realize that the only difference between them and me are the choices they made that drove them to where they are and the choices that I must make to ensure that my mortgage payments, taxes, insurance, utilities and maintenance expenses and reserve accounts are always up to date and fully funded. I haven’t found any of the above parties to my obligations that will give me a break. And the very tenants that want a favor such as a break on the late payment are the first to complain when somethiing breaks.
This makes my choice unequivocal to me. I must err in my favor to succeed and I hope that you will make the right choices for you.
A business associate does something a little different with his late fees. He charges a rental rate at the top of the market, then gives a $50.00 discount when payments are made on time. He seldom has late fees although they are written in the lease if a tenant is late.
I agree with most of what you wrote. But I have a different view on late payments. I have been successful in my real estate ventures. I usually get my rent payments 0 - 15 days late. I have never missed a payment. I have never evicted a tenant. I have saved alot of time by not wasting time on people until they are 15 days late. Im sure I could have made 15 or 20 dollars more here are there if I was more aggresive about late payments but, first its not worth my time. And second I have found my tenants respect me and my property more due to my respect for them. In the few instances where people are late I usually call and base my words on the assumption that there was a simple mistake. Instead of calling up and being angry I simply say “Hey I havnt received Octobers payment. I know you always have paid on time in the past and I assume you simply forgot about it.” The response has been I forget Ive been overly busy I will put it in the mail today. Basically I have found when dealing with people if you assume that they are responsible tenants they are more likely to be responsible.
Its the same way I have handled other business. I have a friend and whenever he thinks a project will be late he calls up and starts yelling. The vendor starts giving a 1000 excuses for why it will be late. I usually call up and say you have done great work for me and I am 100% confident this will be done on time because you said it will be done and I have confidence in that. I have had much better luck than my friend.
You can get away with that when you only have a few rentals. It simply will not work when you have a lot of rentals, especially if some of them are in apartment buildings. Not following the lease is OK if Real Estate is your hobby, but won’t work if you’re running a rental business.
Thats right people, send your 3 or 5 day landlord notice, personally and in the mail, according to your state law, make sure u keep copies of your notices, and everithing, dates, etc, etc, just in case they say u didnt send anything, and if you got to court u have proof of everything
First I want to be clear I think there is a time and a place to go after people. I certainly have no problem with going after people in a situation where something important is at stake. I have no problem with being a mean and nasty SOB and have no problems calling lawyers and business partners and whatever is required if someone has wronged me thinking I will not pursue them. My approach to rental properties is not that I want to be considerate its that my approach has worked for my rental properties for the last 5 years. In the beginning alot of people said that we needed to have a very hard nose approach or we would fail. 5 years later I have never missed a rent payment. I dont have exact numbers but I would estimate that about 30 percent of my rent checks have been late.
There are certain situations where a solution no longer works as the scale of the operation increases. But I dont see why that would apply in this situation. There would be a problem if the solution required more time but that is not the case. In addition I know of landlords who have a similar approach to mine with vastly more rentals that have been successful.
While I dont agree that the solution doesnt scale. I might agree it doesnt work for rentals under 600. In general my units have rented for over 600.
Here’s why it does not work if you have a lot of rentals. Tenants have the right to expect that you will follow the lease and treat them fairly. When you have more than a few scattered rentals, some of the tenants will know each other. When you don’t expect one tenant to pay on time, the other tenants should not have to pay the rent on time either. If your lease says that the rent is due on the 4th (or whatever) and you don’t even call Mrs. Jones until the 15th, then Mr. Smith certainly should not have to pay on the 4th either. In apartment buildings, every tenant knows what every other tenant is doing. Before long, almost no-one will pay on time and they should not have to. The very first time you try to make a tenant pay on time when the others have not, you will get sued and you will deserve it. In fact, if the offended tenent is muslim, is black, is a woman, is an alcoholic, a drug addict, has any disability, or in any other way could be considered a minority - you will not only be sued but you also will be charged with discrimination (and you will deserve it).
When you sign a lease, you are agreeing to abide by the terms. Failing to insist that the lease is followed is a poor way to do business and invites lawsuits.
Hmm. Alot of my tenants know each other. In fact because of my approach, being a treat people well, when places go vacant current tenants often recommend their friends. When I have places across town go vacant I will frequently tell my tenants its vacant in case they have a friend looking. Now if I dealt with tenants differently you are correct this would be a poor strategy I could get sued for. But I never proposed this strategy. I treat all the tenants the same. I dont go after anyone for being a day or two late and never have. For instance this month I went to the PO Box on the 12th. All my rents were there. I took them across the street and deposited them. Since I was in the neighborhood the whole experience took about 10 minutes. A few of them were late based on the postmarks. Now I could have gone on the first. And wasted alot of time on the phone. Then gone back to the PO Box on the third. Wasted more time on the phone listening to someone tell me it was in the mail. Then gone back on the 6th. My approach which has worked for years on multiple rentals has worked well for me.
I am not saying your approach does not work. Im simply saying my approach has worked well for me. Im not proposing to treat different tenants in a different manner. Im basically saying I check my rent box usually around the 10th. And over the years I have saved countless hours by doing that.
You don’t collect your rents until the 12th of the month?!? What would you do if some rents were not in your PO box? What if when you called or stopped by they said they just don’t have the money? Then you’d decide to evict them. But how much water would your case hold if your not enforcing your lease agreements until the middle of the month?
Technically, if you aren’t enforcing your contracts to the letter, the entire thing becomes voided. You can’t break a clause and enforce the rest whenever you choose. Therefore the judge may be inclined to say that the tenant doesn’t owe you anything. Since your tenants know eachother, the following month, you might go to the PO box in the middle of the month again and it be totally empty. You call the tenants to ask where your money is, they all give you the one-finger salute, you take them all to court, the judge says “Too bad, kigray.” All because you didn’t want to waste your time asking about money that is contractually yours.
I have talked to lawyers in my state about tenant related laws. There are alot of reasons a contract can become null and void. I doubt that if someone decides not to pay they can win a case simply because I started eviction a week or two later. Additionally we use contracts that say we can collect late payments they dont say we have to collect late payments. So I am not violating the contract. I usually have most of our tenants on month to month leases. So with notice they can be kicked out whether they are paying or not. In my opinion year leases put too much power in the hands of the renter.
Again Im not saying other strategies dont work. But when I started this years ago everyone said if you dont freak out on people when they are late by a day or two they will never pay rent. After having multiple rentals for over 5 years this has not been the case. Im sure some day someone will not pay. And I will evict them and either recover lost rent or ruin their credit. (I run credit checks to make sure their is a credit score that is worth ruining). But I cant imagine a case being won based on the fact that I didnt collect late payments that are optional in the contract.
If all my tenants decided to gang up on my they would all get evicted.
Now Im always open to different viewpoints. If someone can point to a court case where a tenant prevailed based solely on the fact that eviction proceedings where started on say the 15-20th of the month instead of the 2-5th I would be likely to change my business practices.
I have seen alot of cases where a lease becomes voided because a landlord fails to maintain a property. I would be very interested if someone points to other court cases that deal with the issues we are addressing.
In the meantime is your mortgage company waiting patiently for their check to come while you wait to get paid or do you pay it out of your pocket and hope for the best? :o