The Successful Landlord Blog

So I recently ran upon this article about some local landlord/tenant shenanigans. In short, the article is a story about a software engineer who worked at NASA and used his work computer to fill out online loan applications in the name of an ex-tenant who owed him all of $200 in back rent thereby trying to temporarily ruin his credit.

I mean, come on! You use you WORK computer at NASA to do a dirty deed on the INTERNET??!! At what point did you not think you’d be found out? I think this guy is the first software engineer who does not understand how the internet works.

In the course of taking on a lease with a tenant there is a lot of personal information gathered from the tenant and I think it goes without saying that the landlord has a responsibility to protect that information.

Read the rest of this entry »

Now here’s a good one: So, as I mentioned in a recent post, we have had one unit vacant for some months now due to repairs that were needed because the previous tenants didn’t understand how to use the phone when they saw a problem with a shower stall needing repair.

Now, the unit is ready for rent and we priced it under market to move it quickly. I had three different sets of potential tenants interested. I was sure to tell all of them that we are accepting applications until we get a deposit.

One set of potential tenants wanted to move in 5 weeks from now and kept putting off getting the deposit to me. In the meantime, I had an application come in that was W-A-Y better then theirs. They have a more stable profile, no evictions, two earners and both make more than is required to qualify, none of which the other people have. So, I chose them. Read the rest of this entry »

I recently ran across this video by Paul Dizmang of Dizmang Associates, a Realtor^® and landlord in the Springfield, MO area. It reminded me of a couple of run-ins I’ve had with tenants over hot tubs and swimming pools. More than once I’ve had tenants erect above-ground swimming pools on properties they’re renting from me. I don’t specifically forbid it in the lease but what is specifically forbidden is parking cars on the grass.

Now, you would think that if parking cars on the grass is forbidden because it kills the grass, wouldn’t it be logical that erecting a structure filled with water and covering 2-3 times the area of a car would also be forbidden? Read the rest of this entry »

When I was about to start buying property some years ago I met a guy through a friend-of-a-friend who is an ex-landlord and is currently an attorney based in West Palm Beach, Florida. This guy used to own about 25 single-family units in Oklahoma City, OK back in the mid 1970s.

Apparently the reason he started buying all these properties was that back in 1973 our “good friends” at OPEC decided to basically stop supplying oil to the United States and other countries who supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War

Apparently, the ensuing oil crisis caused the United States and other western countries to seek other oil supplies as a way to blunt the effects of another potential shock to oil prices.  This included drilling domestically which made Oklahoma City a good place to be at the time.

A huge influx of people descended on Oklahoma City looking for well paying yet unskilled jobs in the oil industry. From what this guy said, there was such a shortage of housing that people were living in tents just to be close-by to these jobs.

As a result, the landlord business was the business to be in at that time. After 1980, oil prices declined for 6 years due to a glut of oil on the world market. Over-production and weakening demand were the main reasons for this situation. Read the rest of this entry »