When Tenants Don’t Pay (Part 2—The Reality, The Reason, and the Response)

February 20, 2008

Tenants pay their rent late for only two reasons. The first, and I would suggest the primary, reason is this: because landlords have invited them to do so. Go ahead and take a minute to think about this. Rob, you can take two. Right now, I suspect that everyone is trying to recall when they [...]

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How to Completely Remodel a Kitchen for Under $4,000 (Part 1)

February 14, 2008

When Mike and I first began investing in real estate, the thought of undertaking a major rehab was overwhelming to me. We had spent a weekend looking at potential investments, many of which needed substantial repairs. In fact, one of the properties reminded me of the basement in Silence of the Lambs. We didn’t buy [...]

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When Tenants Pay Late (Part 1 – The Initial Discussion)

February 12, 2008

With rental properties, tenant screening is a must. But even with screening, if you own rental properties, you’ll eventually get this tenant call: “Mr. Landlord. I was calling to let you know that I’m going to be late on my rent this month. What happened was [insert personal financial calamity here].” Over the years, I’ve [...]

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Three Carnivals; No Waiting

February 9, 2008

This week, PaidTwice hosted the Carnival of Personal Finance and challenged her arch-nemesis and this week’s host of the Festival of Frugality, Being Frugal, to a face-off of Super Bowl proportions. We chose to cast our lot with PaidTwice, with our article, Homeowners–Avoid Foreclosure By Thinking Like Investors, and regardless of the outcome, we have [...]

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Piggyback Credit Histories to Increase Your Credit Score

February 5, 2008

A good credit score can save a real estate investor thousands of dollars in interest payments over the course of a mortgage loan. And a poor credit score can block financing at the outset. So how does one with a low credit score get it up, so to speak. Well, there are what I’d call [...]

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Highlighting a Couple of Real Estate Cohorts and TWA Commenters

February 2, 2008

It’s been on my to-do list for awhile now. So I wanted to take a moment to recognize a couple of fellow real estate investors/TWA commenters who also share information from their own investment experiences to the interweb viewing public. Terry @ Fixer Uppers and Rental Houses is an individual real estate investor that takes [...]

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Homeowners—Avoid Foreclosure by Thinking Like Investors

February 1, 2008

Foreclosure news has become an all too common headline. This week’s news cycle about foreclosure activity increasing 75% in 2007 was just the latest in a continuous stream of bad news for some homeowners. While we write principally for the real estate investor here on TWA, we are joining a group of our personal finance [...]

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Haven’t Filed 1099-Misc Forms Yet? Here’s a Solution

January 31, 2008

Earlier this week, Rob wrote an article about 1099-Misc filing requirements for real estate investors. After the bellyaching about my lack of timeliness, he noted that an electronic filing option is available but wrote that we use the paper filing method. There’s a reason. Unlike most tax forms, which can be obtained in fillable format [...]

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The Renting of No Basement—What We Accomplished and What We Didn’t

January 30, 2008

There is no question about it. I have been delinquent in reporting results on No Basement, our latest property turnover. Sometime back, Rob wrote about our tenants moving out of this property and offered a promise, or threat as the case may be, to undertake the public humiliation of singing a little ditty for the [...]

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U.S. Foreclosure Activity Increased 75% in 2007

January 29, 2008

Realty Trac has released data showing that 2,203,295 foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — were reported on 1,285,873 properties nationwide during 2007, up 75 percent from 2006. The report also shows that more than one percent of all U.S. households were in some stage of foreclosure during the year, [...]

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