Real Estate Investor Blog
Current articles to help landlords, realtors, and property managers screen, select, and retain reliable renters.
Find High Quality Renters in Slow Traffic Periods
Winter and the holiday season, for many regions of the country, are slow rental traffic periods. In the apartment world, property managers will tell you that anyone who moves around this time is of year is almost by definition highly suspect. So how can you best...
Two Pre-Screening Soundbites That Will Save You From Burnout
When your rental property turns, the process of getting your property ready for rent again while pre-screening rental candidates can be exhausting. Today we are sharing two pre-screening soundbites to use with your candidate pool that our clients have...
4 Strategies to Simplify Property Management as a Landlord
You are aiming to continuously simplify property management as a landlord, so you can grow your portfolio of properties selectively. Heading into 2018, let's take a fresh look at 4 strategies to simplify property management as a landlord -- so you can...
4 Reasons You’ll Want to Report Rent Payments to Bureaus
A year ago, I guest lectured at two prominent universities. I polled the students about credit. Few understood the profound and pervasive impact credit has in their lives. How many understood their rent payments are not reported to the bureaus? None. ...
How the Equifax Data Breach Impacts Your Tenant Screening
It's safe to assume that you are impacted from the Equifax data breach. With over 143 million consumer records stolen in the breach, odds are that you are affected in various ways -- as a consumer and as a landlord. Importantly, as a landlord, we need to...
How Your Tenant Screening is Impacted by Recent Credit Bureau Changes
Impact to Your Tenant Screening The National Consumer Assistance Plan (NCAP) has now been in effect for about a month. Many of you have heard me speak about the NCAP changes -- they are ongoing and mostly for the positive. At the core, the NCAP is about the three...
Credit Data Access: Managing Expectations in a Changing Landscape
The credit data landscape has changed quite a bit over the years - most of it is positive change for both landlords and consumers. Gaining access to credit data on someone is serious stuff. Let's go into the main ways you can access credit data and what drove those...
A Step by Step Guide on How to Screen for the Best Tenants
Introduction We worked with Chad Carson on this article, particularly in choosing the topic of how to screen for the best tenants. Chad is an excellent resource on running a real estate business - so much so that he and his family can travel the world from their real...
5 Reasons You Should Require Renters Insurance
Kicking off a new year generally means a few things for all of us, like counting our blessings, reflecting on our past year, and taking stock, so to speak, in a number of ways. Reflection and the pending tax preparation season also bring to bear financial matters....
Smart Landlord Strategies regarding Pets
If you’re a pet-owner, you know that pets are loved family members. On the flip side, if you’re a landlord, you know that pets can cause challenges. In this article, we’ll address the pros and cons of allowing pets, and smart landlord strategies regarding pets....
Why Rental Verifications are Crucial and Sneaky Tips
You have probably noticed the somewhat stunning statistics that show over half of Americans reportedly lie or embellish on their job applications. According to Mary Lorenz, spokeswoman for CareerBuilder, “One of the reasons candidates may feel okay embellishing their...
Why You May Love Millennial Renters and 3 Benefits They Value Most
Millennials might get a bad rap every now and again, but there are more than 76 million of them in the U.S. alone, and they are the largest generation born in the 20th century. That’s a LOT of people with huge spending power! Millennials grew up in an...
Smart Landlord Strategies to Relay You’ve Selected a Different Candidate
It's such a loaded question, isn't it -- what are smart landlord strategies to tell candidates that the property, well, it's going to be rented to someone else? Landlords can find communicating this to candidates stressful. They may worry about the candidate's...
Who is Responsible for Lawn Care and Maintenance When You’re the Landlord?
Lawn care and the great debate: As the landlord, how should you handle who is responsible for mowing the lawn, pulling the weeds and raking the leaves? It’s officially fall, and this time of year brings football, hot apple cider, pumpkin carving, and other seasonal...
Avoid these 5 Common Landlord Mistakes
Being a landlord is a tough gig -- a respectable and worthwhile gig that requires hard work and determination. Yes, managing your own investment property has its advantages, and they are great advantages. Luckily, by being well informed you can avoid making the same...