User talk:Markwalters101

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Enjoy! -- Uberfuzzy (Talk) 21:11, 4 June 2009

Don't Be A Penny Pinching Landlord
Most of us who are small real estate investors buying and renting single family homes are accustomed to making every dollar count. It's that habit that causes us to make a silly decisions when we advertise a house for rent.

Just take a look at the Home For Rent classified section of your newspaper. You will see rows of two or three line ads that all seem to blend together in an uninspired glob. Yes, I know newspaper ads are expensive, but have you ever stopped to think how much a bland three line ad is really costing you? Let's do some logical thinking about this penny pinching.

In our example will use a rental house where you have a monthly mortgage payment of $850. That includes principal, interest, taxes and insurance. You are offering the home for rent at $900 per month. If you divide your monthly mortgage payment by 30 you will realize that it is costing you $28.33 cents to own the home. That's $198.33 per week. So every week that the house is vacant you are losing $198.33. Cutting two weeks from that vacancy will save your $396.66.

If you are penny pinching with a little three line ad that fails to find a renter for weeks you are watching $198.33 fly out of your grasp every week. That's when you should realize that it just makes good business sense to buy a nice big classified ad, which will give you the best chance of catching the eye of a renter the first time it runs.

Filling vacancies fast is the mark of a good investor. As soon as your current tenant gives you the required 30 day notice that he or she will vacate the property you must swing into action. Your goal should be to have a new tenant ready to move in the day the old one moves out. Do this...

1. Ask your current tenant if they know of any one who is looking for a rental. Ask them to spread the word among their friends and co-workers. If you have a good relationship with the tenant they should be willing to help you find a renter. Offer them a one or two hundred dollar reward if they find a new tenant for you before they move out.

2. Immediately put a For Rent sign on the property with flyers describing the property and the cost to rent. We have a page on our Web site for each property we own with inside and outside photos. Included on the page on room dimensions, and the location of nearby features like schools, hospitals, shopping, public transportation, etc. We include the Web site address on the For Rent sign and on the flyers.

3. We send a postcard announcing there will a rental available to the neighbors. They may have friends whom they would like to have live nearby. We offer a cash reward of one or two hundred dollars if we rent to someone they referrer to us before the current tenant leaves.

4. We pass out flyers to nearby businesses like barber shops, nail salons, dry cleaners, etc. We make the same cash reward offer to them as we do to the neighbors.

Penny pinchers don't do things like that and they pay dearly for their mistake.

Does Your Real Estate Deal Have A Wiggle Room
Experienced real estate investors know that you make your deal when you buy. If you pay too much or have not done your due diligence research, that's tough, because you're stuck with the deal after the close.

A buyer still has some wiggle room during the time the deal is under contract. There are a few time worn "weasel" clauses used by some investors. They will read something like, "Purchase is contingent upon approval of buyer's attorney." Or a more legitimate clause would be, "Purchase is contingent upon a home inspection report submitted by a licensed home inspector and approved by the buyer before the close. Inspection to be paid for by the buyer."

To be safe you want to be the one who pays the home inspector, so the inspector has no doubt about whom he/she is working for.

If the inspection indicates a need for substantial repairs the buyer can reopen negotiations with the seller. If they can't come to an agreement the buyer can simply disapprove of the inspection report and there is no deal.

Of course, there are many other things that could legitimately void a deal. How do you officially cancel a deal? Something like the following statement could be submitted to the escrow officer:

1. The undersigned party hereby instructs Escrow Agent that Escrow Number ___________ hereby is canceled as a result of a Material Breach by the __________(buyer or seller).

2. The Material Breach is defined in lines ___________________ of the purchase agreement as follows: ____________________________________________________________________.

3. The Earnest Money is to be disbursed as follows: ________________________________.

4. The undersigned hereby affirms that I am not in breach under the terms of the purchase agreement.

____________________________ (Buyer's Signature)

The contracting of any deal is important and it must be carefully considered and executed. Experienced real estate agents may be capable of doing it, but it is always wise to at least have contracts reviewed by an attorney who specializes in real estate. They are "wiggle room" experts.