“General Grant was his usual self — that is to say, ready and also determined to do more for you than you could possibly have the effrontery to ask him to do.
Apparently he never meets anybody half way: he comes nine-tenths of the way himself voluntarily.”
–Mark Twain quote in Grant’s Final Victory: Ulysses S. Grant’s Heroic Last Year
In Grant’s Final Victory, author Charles Bracelen Flood describes how General Grant lost his wealth in a terrible 1884 swindle, and was also faced with the news that he had throat and mouth cancer. Destitute and dying, the great civil war general began to write his memoirs to save his family from financial ruin.
Grant faced his challenges with unflagging courage and good will.
He finished his memoirs just three days before he died. They were published by his friend Mark Twain and the book became a bestseller, raising over $400,000 for his family. His thoughtful, philosophical work is regarded as the best book ever written by a former military leader and president.
Using Grant’s Example
Of course, in life there are very few people who meet you 90% of the way, but those that do usually earn our admiration and loyalty.
In keeping good tenants, we should follow Grant’s example and meet them 90% of the way. One way to take good care of tenants is in quickly responses to repair requests.
Responding Quickly to Tenants Needs
I admit that when my wife, Angy, and I first became landlords in 2002, this was a low priority for us. In the first home that we turned into a rental house, we used to cringe when we’d answer the phone and a tenant would be on the line with a repair request. We knew we were going to have to spend some of our valuable time and hard-earned money to deal with a maintenance request. We would sometimes let the repair linger instead of jumping right on it.
Now, we look at tenant calls as an opportunity to show the tenants that we take their problems seriously, and we respond to their concerns immediately. We have busy schedules, but our tenants have busy schedules too.
Keeping our good tenants happy is our highest priority because it directly affects our profits. The fewer tenant turnovers that we have the more money we make. Plus, we like our tenants and want them to feel comfortable in our properties.
Put “Who you gonna call?” list on speed dial
Chuck Norris
What has helped us to respond quickly is that we now have accumulated a “Who you gonna call?” list of good repair professionals over time.
We have plumbers, an air conditioner company, handymen, Ghostbusters, Chuck Norris, and other professionals that we trust, on the speed dial of our cell phone. That way, we can get them started on a repair without delay.
We (Terry & Angy) are partners in both marriage and in real estate business.
Who says married couples can’t be business partners? And the great thing is we have never considered divorce . . . murder sometimes, but never divorce. Well, never murder, really, but maybe forcing each other to watch, in an uninterrupted viewing, the horrifyingly bad movie, The Clan of the Cave Bear.
In reality, this business has been a bonding experience, not only for us, as husband and wife, but also for our two boys, who have been active participants in the business from the very beginning.
9/11 Attacks Take the Starch Out of Us
We started in real estate investing following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. The ensuing economic recession forced our hand. The hours at Terry’s job were drastically reduced. We realized that for the security of our family, we needed to have a business on the side—a business able to provide regular cash flow in case Terry’s 9 to 5 job suddenly went away.
This led Terry to experience a very intensive period of soul searching and in-depth research (accompanied by gratuitous whining and moping). We decided that a rental house business was the best way to go. We were excited to find the rental business was an easy business to learn and to start. This business required no special license, degree, or training. And the results tempered the most important source of Terry’s whining. The rental business offered the potential to make money.
We Jump In and Hope the Net Appears
We essentially just jumped in with good intentions and very little practical knowledge. After we made up our minds that this is what we wanted to do, we simply bought an inexpensive fixer-upper house, one that had foreclosed and been repossessed by a bank. We moved into and lived in the fixer-upper house while we did the necessary repairs.
But most importantly, we did not sell our original home. We rented it out.
Angy Puts Her Foot Down – On Top of Terry’s Foot
It took a little adjustment to move into that first fixer-upper house. The first thing we did was to get one of the bathrooms back into working condition. Angy’s negotiating stance on that topic was, “I’m not living in that house unless at least one bathroom is fully operational!” At that, who could argue? Marveled by a mother’s logic, together Terry and the boys nodded their heads and dropped the labeled empty plastic bottles they held in their hand into the Recycle Box.
As we went forward with the repairs, we changed bedrooms frequently. Moving from room to room, we cleared out of one bedroom to install tile and then moved again out of the next to make room to install carpet. Huffing and puffing, we moved furniture from one side to the next as we worked through the house painting all the walls. We replaced the cabinets in the kitchen, the fixtures in the bath, the leaky plumbing and the outdated lighting.
Group Hugs
Preparing meals required serious creativity. Entertainment and rest required the same. But the support and flexibility from all family members, and a few timely “group hugs” (some through gritted teeth), got us through.
With my charming wife and business partner, Angy, as co-author, we have created a guide on how to find properties, live in them, and then turn them into a rental house, instead of selling them.
According to the “American Association of Realtors,” the average American purchases seven houses during their lifetime. Angy and I believe that those seven houses should be converted into rental houses and held for the rest of our lives. They are valuable assets that will generate monthly income for the hard years to come, and provide further assurance of long-term economic family security. Like the old folktale says: “Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.”
How does this book help the average Joe?
We show the average Joe where to find the best properties, how to pay for your houses, property inspection, the nitty-gritty steps on how to prepare your new rental house for tenants, how to attract and screen tenants, managing tenants, and complying with EPA regulations. The appendix includes samples of leases, property inspection sheets, tenant selection rating sheets, and many other valuable forms to get you started in your rental house business.
What do millionaires do that most people don’t do?
Go into politics?
Buy their own Starbucks?
Become a bearded recluse?
Well, those are some of the things they do, but according to Thomas Stanley, in The Millionaire Next Door, most American millionaires own their own houses, and they own at least one rental property.
Our perspective is, “If it works for millionaires, it ought to work for us too.”
Our hope is that this book will inspire you to buy a rental property and to receive the enormous benefits from that one bold action. Even if you buy just one rental property throughout the course of your entire life, your economic picture will almost immediately get better.
You may wonder, as we did, “Why didn’t we do this a long time ago?”
Move all of your furniture and personal belongings out of your old house. The absence of these items makes the house look bigger and the home is more inviting if it is not cluttered up with beds, chairs, food supplies, and toys. It also makes it easier to do a thorough job of cleaning the house.
This only applies to the first time you rent out your new rental house. After tenants leave in the future, they will take most of their things with them. Of course, some tenants do not follow the normal procedure, and they may leave in the middle of the night to avoid paying their last rent check.
(Occasions like this make it tempting to slip a magnetized GPS tracking device under the fender of the renter’s car.)
An incident like this happened to me a couple of years ago. Not only did the tenant leave a pile of clothing, bottles and boxes of cleaning supplies, cupboards of food, and a sofa, but also left behind a car that didn’t work. (So much for the GPS idea.)
Renters like this one are the exception. Tenants normally take all their things with them when they leave, making it easy for me to prepare the property for the next tenant, and without much effort, present an appealing yet empty house.
Step 2: Clean Up
Thoroughly clean the house. This includes painting walls (a fresh coat of paint makes the place look and smell good), washing floors, cleaning appliances (especially the oven), shampooing carpets, washing the windows, cleaning the bathrooms and checking the roof.
Step 3: Make Repairs
Take care of all repair work. Leave nothing to chance and make all repairs before tenants move in. Change broken outlets and switches, patch holes, remove stains, replace cracked and broken glass, repair dripping faucets, replace missing shingles, and fix roof leaks.
The old saying that “Left to themselves, things always go from bad to worse,” is especially true with rental houses. It’s tempting to assume that that small leak in the bathtub, or a toilet that flushes most of the time, won’t bother anyone. But trust me, you will get that call to repair the bathtub or toilet at the most inopportune time.
This doesn’t mean that everything in the house has to be new, but everything should be in working order.
It is a rental house after all, and not Buckingham Palace.
For example, bedroom doors do not have to be replaced every time they have a crack or a hole in them. I rehabilitate the door with wood putty, and a fresh coat of paint. The guy in the “Easy Repair of Hollow Core Door” video below uses drywall mud to fill the hole, with equally good results.
Buy used construction materials
Missing or broken light switches, outlets, covers can be replaced inexpensively with quality used ones. I have also purchased reliable doors, cabinets, stove tops, dishwashers, and toilets at stores that recycle construction materials, for pennies on the dollar. The Habitat for Humanity Store is one such place that I frequent for good used materials. There are 825 Habitat Restores in the United States and Canada. You can locate a store near you at www.habitat.org
Buy new or used appliances?
If broken clothes washers or dryers cannot be easily repaired, our policy is to replace them with a quality used one, or with lower end new appliances (like the Kenmore brand from Sears).
Buy bargain appliances before you need them
Craigslist and yard sales are great places to find good used appliances at bargain prices. If I see a nice working appliance for a good price, I will purchase it, even though I don’t have any immediate need for it. I’ll just store it in our shed until I need it.
I bought a like-new furnace at a yard sale for only $40 and installed it into a rental house and it has worked great. For furnaces, there are very few moving parts to worry about, and the wiring is relatively simple. As long as the motor works, you’re home free.
I once literally picked up a clothes dryer from the side of the road that had a “Free Dryer” sign taped to it. I gave it a new home and it has been working
Low maintenance yard (in the southwest)
reliably for over 10 years now. The only repair, about five years ago, was that I had to change the on/off switch on the door.
Step 4: Simplify Landscaping
The front yard of your rental houses must look great. Curb appeal gives the potential tenants a good first impression. Simple and neat landscaping gives the client comfort that the yard is low maintenance and ecologically and economically low in water consumption saving the tenants money on water and saving you time later not having to replace a yard of dead plants.
This yard went too low maintenance!
I personally like to utilize decorative rocks on our rental yards, and plants that don’t require any watering, like Mesquite and Palo Verde trees, which have long roots that tap into the aquifer.
Step 5: Re-key the Locks
One other thing that I like to do before a new tenant moves in is to re-key all the locks. This is cheaper than buying new doorknobs, and it provides security for our tenants. This protects you and your tenants in case a previous tenant has surreptitiously kept an extra copy of a house key.
With the annual approach of summer rains, now is almost the last chance to make rental house roofs water proof before the watery onslaught. As someone who has a sworn aversion for arriving too early to parties, I subscribe to the time-tested philosophy of “better late than never.”
This morning I applied some black roofing cement on some areas on one of my townhouse roofs. I had located some cracks upon my inspection of it about 2 weeks ago.
The first photo shows the area in question, where I had previously applied a small amount of plastic roofing cement, but today I was going to put on some more and cover a broader area.
The second photo shows the application of the plastic roofing cement. We apply one layer of cement, then put a white membrane on top of that, followed by a second layer of cement. The membrane allows for more cement to be applied.
Below is the “after” photo. You can see that in addition to the corner, we hit a few other cracks with our roofing cement on the sides of theroof. Later, we’ll come back with white roofing paint to cover the black cement.
A good rental house
My wife and I purchased this 2 bed 2 bath townhouse in 1993 and lived in it for 10 years before moving on to a bigger house (to accomodate our growing family), and turning this property into a rental house in 2003.
Its been one of our best rental houses because it is in a “transition” zone (aka “opportunity zones”) where there is heavy demand for housing, and it is easy to care for because it is compact (1100 sq ft with small front and back yards). The townhouse perfect for single people or small families.
Tenant screenings is the way to go if you want quality tenants and most landlords come across potential tenants who are either not what they claim to be or have serious behavioral problems. This article takes a look at the funniest screening stories landlords have had and their aftermaths. So sit down, relax or better still grab a cold bottle of beer to nurse while you go through the experiences below.
The Estranged Wife
A couple with no kids moved into a 4 bedroom duplex in the suburbs, the house and environment provided the perfect scenery for the couple but there was only one problem and it was that of meeting up with their mortgage payments. So they decided to put a room up for rent. The necessary adverts were created and finally a prospective client came knocking, he was the perfect tenant for he claimed to be single, had no pets, did not smoke, drink, do drugs and had a well-paying job. This obviously was too good to be true so the couple decided to hire an agent to conduct a little screening on him. After two days, the agent returned to tell the couple that they had been invited to have dinner with the previous landlord of their prospective tenant. On getting there, they were told that the tenant usually preys on sympathetic landlords and if you fall into his trap by renting a room to him, he would move in, behave for some days but a week later a woman who would claim to be his estranged wife would come visiting for some time and then finally move in with a cat. They would then proceed to co-habit like pigs, steal your property and when rent is due, disappear like thieves in the middle of the night.
Ghost Tenants
A couple responded to a landlord’s accommodation advert, they came to see the Landlord and professed that they loved the apartment and would be willing to rent it for the long term. The landlord was convinced that they were the perfect tenants so when the wife came calling the next day without her husband (due to the supposed fact that he works late) to ask for the keys to the apartment so she could look through it, the landlord duly obliged. A day passed, the lady did not return, two passed and she was still missing. The landlord quickly called his agent who conducted a quick search only to find out that the woman and her husband had already moved into the apartment. The police was called and the couple quickly evicted.
Dead beat Prospective Tenant
An agent once recommended a tenant who had the best recommendations ever; he had a good job, perfect credit and good relationships with his previous landlords. A meeting day was fixed and the prospective client shows up with a dead beat car and the attitude of someone who was one step ahead of the law. The landlord who needed to rent his facility out as soon as possible, overlooked this tell-tale signs and had agreed to lease the apartment to the tenant. The recommended signatures had already been traded and an upfront deposit had been made but as luck would have it, a police officer who was driving randomly through the neighborhood spotted the prospective tenant, felt his face was familiar and got down to trade some questions. Suddenly, the tenant bolted and a foot race began. The tenant was finally apprehended and the landlord discovered that the name, details and personal information given by his perfect tenant had nothing in common with the tenant.
The Thief
A couple came with an agent to view a landlords property, after going through it, they decided it was perfect and would be signing the necessary papers the following day but there was just one issue, they needed the house repainted. The landlord obliged, carried the necessary equipment to the house and started painting. He painted into the night and decided to spend the night there instead of returning home late. In the middle of the night, he began to hear strange noises at the side of the house, quickly he got up to investigate and on getting there, he found his prospective tenant trying to detach an A/C unit.
These stories show that conducting an in-depth screening which should include: former landlord credit checks, recommendations and past criminal activities are highly recommended.
Let’s assume that the original mortgage (loan) for a property is $150,000, which is also the original value of the house. As time goes by, the value of the house may increase to $300,000, due to appreciation. At the same time, the amount owed on the mortgage is reduced to $20,000, due to the mortgage being gradually paid down. At this point, the amount of equity (or value) that you have in the house would be $280,000.
In these 5 Steps you will master my secrets of how to drive tenants to your rental property. Learn which signs work best, where to advertise, and how to word ads and flyers so as to reduce unnecessary calls for information.
I also recommend four of my favorite repair books for your real estate library to guide you through the process of repairing appliances, sinks, electrical outlets, and almost any other repair issue that you may encounter.
To improve your economic security you should plant in your mind the idea you should never sell a house. Converting your home to a rental house can provide long-term rental income and economic security to you and your family.
How Abraham Lincoln Used Stories to Touch Hearts, Minds & Funny Bones
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FIX EM UP RENT EM OUT
Purchase FIX EM UP RENT EM OUT (paperback)Award-Winning Finalist in the Real Estate category of the National Best Books Awards, sponsored by USA Book NewsGreat information for anyone starting out in the fixer-upper business. The author has served his apprenticeship in the trenches.
-- Fixer Jay P. DeCima, Investor and AuthorTerry Sprouse has created a profitable rental business in his spare time. What sets him apart is he took action.-- Bob Zachmeier, Investor, Educator, Author With the wit of Will Rogers, this book provides simple guidelines for restoring homes, and sanity to our crazy lives. --M.D. Matlock, Ph.D., P.E., C.S.E.