webLOGfor.US

• Search behind grocery store for free boxes.
• Buy 51 sheets of bubble wrap (one just for popping).
• Label boxes with thick, black markers.  Inhale when things start to get too difficult.
• Return all power tools borrowed from neighbors.
• Retrieve all books borrowed by neighbor.
• Send change-of-address cards to friends and family.  But not to creditors.
• For energy, eat lots of spinach the night before.
• Call friend with pickup truck and bribe with pizza and beer.
• when packing up the dog/cat/snake/ferret/turtle/gerbil/other pet, remember to cut air holes.
• Always lift with your legs.
• Leave note for next resident apologizing for heavily scraped door jambs.

I'm preparing a property to rent out. It's just about complete. Two rooms are receiving new carpeting, then it's just a good cleaning for the rest of the house and a carpet cleaning for the rooms that are not getting new carpet. All of that should be happening in the next week so it's time to market the property and prepare to screen for new tenants. How do you know the right tenant? That's a good question. In the past 8 years I have made mistakes and also good calls on who to rent to. Luckily the mistakes weren't too bad and I was able to get good people into my units. There are a few rules I follow when choosing who to rent my properties out to.

First rule: No Friends or Family Why should your not rent to friends or family? One main reason is that they will expect special treatment. Sure, you can take a chance that the person that you rent out to will be super nice and take care of the property as their own. That is an exception to the very common experience that will happen. The common experience is that they will want special treatment. From late rent, enforcement of rules, to care for the property itself they will expect special treatment because they (pick the appropriate reason)

• changed your diapers
• saw you so drunk that you were puking your guts up
• was the best man/maid of honor at your wedding
• roomed with you in college
• you get the idea.

Second Rule: Preset crieteria You need to have a set of criteria done ahead of time to pick the right tenant. I have a rating system I use where I give points for everything. A set number of points for their credit score, if they are a smoker, if they have pets, debt to take-home-pay ratio, etc. This preset criteria will help if you ever get sued for housing discrimination. Just make sure you do not include anything that is a protected class in your criteria. For example, you can't give point for having/not having kids. this is the same as giving points because of their race or religion. That will kill you if you ever get sued (as well as being just plain wrong).

Third Rule: Background Check Check out their references completely. For me this includes:

• Calling their previous two landlords.
  • I use two landlords because their current landlord may just want to get rid of them and give a good reference to get them out of his/her hair.
• Checking the tax department records to make sure that the person they listed as landlord of the property is the actual owner of the property and not just a friend.
• Credit Check
• Eviction Check
• Verification of income
• Criminal background check

Fourth Rule: Don't give in My last rule is to make sure that I don't give in if they don't match all the criteria. Sometimes it's hard if you have carrying a property for a long time to not lower your standards. Don't do it. All it will take is one professional tenant to ruin everything for you. You will have more headaches with a bad tenant and they can end up costing you much more than it would have to just hold on for one more month.

web log for us – those that screen the heck out of our tenants so we minimize the problems later on

So in addition to what is in the About me I figured I should start off with an introduction as to why I went into the wide world of blogs. First and foremost I have a lot of changes going on in my life. I've recently switched positions within my company, leaving a long running project of 6 plus years. I've moved into a new house about 45 minutes away from where I lived. New job, new friends, new neighbors, new house. Quite a bit of change all in one months time.

The Job

The contract that handled the project I was on was ending. In the rebid another company won. From the rumor mill they didn't win on technical expertise, the won on price. Simply put, they undercut all the other bidders on the contract. I was made a pretty lucrative offer with the new company to continue on running the project. After reviewing the scope of work, I didn't see a long term future for me in their organization. I had a standing offer from the company I was working for to move into a new position so I opted to stay. It was hard leaving. the team that I helped assemble there was an amazing group of individuals. We were all like family. It was pretty amazing that everyone there liked to hang out with each other both in work and out. That type of camaraderie doesn't happen too often with a group that works closely together.

The House

It was time for a move. The neighborhood in Philly that I lived in was taking a turn for the worse. Through a friend we found a place that was for sale across the street from them and we jumped on it. It's a nice house on a quiet block. It needs a little TLC as it was let go for the last year and a half but everything is quite sound. Just about everything in the house was replaced about 5 years ago so it was just a ton of cleaning, painting and organizing. Oh, did I mention the leaves? I don't think one leaf was raked up in the year and a half the previous owners lived here. I've been doing nothing but shredding leaves to start a compost pile since we moved in.

So what can you expect from this blog?

Well, I'll talk about the things that interest me, of course. I dabble in Real Estate having 2 residential properties that I rent out in Philadelphia. With being a landlord and having my own new house I've learned to do a lot of Do It Yourself repairs. I also am into technology as I am basically an IT Project/Program manager. I'm trained in the network/hardware portion of technology but have taught myself some basic programming and web design (gotta love the Internet for easy education). I love to learn new things and spend a lot of time researching various items on the Internet. So, if it's mentioned in the above paragraph I will be talking about it here. Of course we can't leave out the general ramblings that I have (like this one). So, sit back, enjoy the conversation and when needed knock me off my soapbox.

this is a Web Log For Us.  Who is US?  Why US people who like to make money.  Oh, and most posts will be much shorter than this tirade.

Blogdup Blog Directory – Blog Directory

Blogdirs Blog Directory – Blog Directory