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How I Got a New Sidewalk in Worcester, MA
City government is an interesting machine. And by interesting, I mean, hard to figure out. Here’s the photo- and video-tale of how I got a new sidewalk in Worcester, MA. It took three and a half years. If you have something similar in need of doing, you might learn from my experience. It began in […]
The Most Overlooked Part of a Rental Agreement or Lease
Every experienced landlord has a good rental agreement or lease with all of their favorite protective clauses. But most landlords forget the most important protection of all: the other stuff you give to your new tenant or resident along with the lease. Just look at the above picture of a local pharmacy. They’re selling nails. […]
How Many Landlords are Good at Customer Service?
Here’s an interesting, true story with a moral. I went into a tenant’s apartment to examine their garbage disposal, which had stopped working. It was just a piece of broken glass wedged into the grinder, so I removed that, reset the trip switch, and said, “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do!” […]
Is Real Estate a Gruesome Business?
Warren Buffett defines a “gruesome business” as one that requires a lot of capital and produces a low rate of return. Is real estate gruesome? Let’s see: Does it “require significant capital to engender … growth” (WB, 2007; PB p. 14)? Yes. The median home price in America is about $220,000. The average rent is […]
Landlord Forms: A Checklist for your Lease or Rental Agreement
If you have rental property in Massachusetts, here’s a quick way you can check the health and currency of your rental forms. You should have: A primary agreement (be it a “lease” or a “tenancy-at-will”), that specifies Which space is being rented To whom How much Who pays for utilities (you can’t charge for water […]
Landlords Pay No Taxes?
I’ve been writing a bit about technology startups lately. Let me flip back to the other end of the business spectrum — landlording — to share an interesting conversation I overheard recently: Landlord One: How many landlords pay taxes on their rental income? It’s like no one. Everyone runs at a loss. Landlord Two: Oh, […]
A Month in the Life of a Landlord
In Massachusetts, residential rentals are highly regulated. To do it by the book, you need to have a non-discriminatory tenant finding procedure, an apartment that meets requirements for the sanitary code, no lead-based hazards, and a rental agreement that could stop bullets. You also need to have a nice place, an attractive ad, a responsive […]
Financial Figuring for Landlords: Real Estate Moats
A moat was a medieval form of security. Just pull up the drawbridge and watch as your enemies fail to get across the water, or if they do, to scale the wall of your castle. Although physical moats have no place in modern real estate (can you imagine the lawsuits?), an “economic moat” is Warren […]
Financial Figuring for Landlords: What’s the Most Important Thing In Rental Real Estate?
People usually say there are three important things: “Location, location, location!” But in rental real estate, it’s mostly just price. The Economics of Real Estate In any decision to purchase — any decision to invest — you always look at “what you get and when you get it” vs. “what you pay.” But there are a […]
Financial Figuring for Landlords: Working Capital
What will you do if that old roof floods your top floor apartment, or if a cast iron drain pipe cracks just as you’re paying for bedbug extermination? What if the jobs cost $10,000? Do you call up your regular contractor and cut a check without batting an eyelash, or is this is a crisis […]
