Landlord Newsletter - August 2014 Quick Tips

Dear Fellow Landlord

Do you ever wish you could go back in time, knowing what you know now to fix mistakes you've made? What if you could use the experiences of someone else who already learned the lessons you need to know about? I think you'll enjoy the article by "Real Estate Goddess" Vena Jones-Cox, "5 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me Earlier".

In this newsletter:

• 5 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me Earlier, by Vena Jones-Cox
  
• Quick Tips for Showing Your Rental
  
• FREE Landlord Form!
  
• Landlord Tip! Utility Abuse
  
• Ask the Attorney, Real Estate Attorney, John Reno
  
• Success Quotes
  

Please e-mail us if you have any questions or would like to add or share any material / information. Have a great month!
John Nuzzolese
John@theLPA.com

It is a major regret of my youth that no one ever bothered to tell me that working for a living was a drag, or that depending on a job to make you rich was a fantasy. I guess I was aware on some unconscious level that my dad's real estate investor friends were able to go to Europe for months on end while my friends' parents—even the ones with great jobs— were lucky to put 2 weeks of vacation time together each year, but I always assumed that my dad's friends had so much spare time because they were unemployable, never having been told that, despite their paint-spattered overalls and 15-year old pickups, they were multimillionaires.

In short, when I entered the “real” world after college, my education was sadly lacking in some very important areas. In the ensuing years, I've learned some lessons about the world of real estate—some painful (never give a big earnest money check to a seller until you know he actually owns the property), some pleasant (it is possible to hire other people to do the jobs you hate). Each time real estate investing teaches me something new, I wonder why somebody didn't just sit me down and tell me about it years ago. How much easier my life would have been if only someone had told me these things early on...

Now, while this was my first actual deal, I had made approximately 100 offers up to that point that went nowhere. Like many first-time investors, I hadn't fully absorbed the lesson that real estate was about people, not properties; as a result, I had made all of my offers on houses where I thought the seller should be motivated to sell for some reason. I never once asked whether or why the seller wanted to sell cheap, because, hey, the house was ugly right? Who wouldn't be ready to sell cheap?

It was this lady that taught me the all-important lesson that people don't necessarily want what you think they should want. Her house was in pretty good shape; she could have sold it for full value in 60 days or so. But what she wanted wasn't top price, it was speed. She wasn't motivated by money, but by a desire to put the property behind her. As a result, she was pleased as punch to take about 2/3rds of the value of the property at the closing a week later. And if someone had bothered to tell me right from the beginning that not every owner of a junker house or a house in a questionable neighborhood automatically wanted to sell cheap (even though it was the logical thing to do!) perhaps I could have saved my time in making the previous 99 offers. People are funny, and the only way to really know what they want out of a deal is to ask them. So if you're making offer after offer and getting rejection after rejection, you might want to think about talking to sellers about what they want, instead of assuming you know.

• Remember the keys! In the excitement of having an appointment, it is amazing and how many people meet tenants at the rental only realize they forgot the keys! It can be an embarrassing waste of time.

• Have a supply of rental applications with instruction on how to submit the completed application unless it is submitted on the spot. You may also decide to have business cards, flyers or other handouts for the prospect.

• Remember to bring the prospects information and phone # with you in case you need to contact them in the event of delay or the prospect's lateness.

• It is a good idea to have a notepad for you to take notes and a supply of pens with you for applicants.

• Bring your cell phone. Not only for safety, but also in case of delays or other business reasons, such as checking with your office to reassure the applicant that the unit is still available.

• What other things can you use on an appointment?


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Free Download! Rental Binder Form This is one of the popular Rental Binders used by many Realtors. Similar versions of this form are used by landlords and real estate agents across the US. Many people actually use it as a basic rental agreement! It's not really meant to be a rental agreement or rental application, but is a pre-contract form used as a binder receipt to show an offer has been made with an earnest money deposit. Upon written acceptance of the offer by the owner/agent of the rental, it becomes a binder, whereby it is agreed that the rental will not be rented to anyone else before the agreed lease signing date. When not using the LPA Rental Application, this form is especially helpful to rental agents who collect their real estate commission from the tenant because it provides for a written agreement of the rental commission.



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Landlord Tip

What Do I Do if the tenant abuses the utilities that I pay for?

I never recommend having your tenant's utilities in the landlord's name. BUT, if the tenant is on an LPA lease that allows you to issue a Notice of Change of Terms or a month to month tenancy, you may have the power to do something about it. When your tenant abuses utilities that are included in the rent, you should alert the tenant that the utility bills have reached excessive levels and the tenant will be billed the overage amounts or the utilities will be paid by the tenant in the future. A lot of this should already be addressed in the lease. If it isn't, you left the door open to problems.

I realize that in many cases we are dealing with multiple family homes with split utilities ...

Click for full article...

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Ask the Attorney

The Landlord Protection Agency® presents John Reno, Esq., a highly experienced Landlord - Tenant attorney based on Long Island, NY.

John Reno also does Mortgage Loan Modifications (Nationwide).
(Mention The LPA for a 10% discount!)

Dear Mr. Reno:
I am a fellow attorney, from the state of NJ. I have had a unique issue arise that I was unable to answer through initial research.

A commercial landlord leases commercial space to businesses. The commercial landlord’s property is then in foreclosure. A lis pendens is filed against the property by a Limited Partnership (refer to as Corp.). 4 months After lis pendens is filed by Corp., the commercial landlord enters into a commercial lease with a business for commercial space for 3 years. 4 months after commercial landlord enters into said contract with commercial tenant, the Corp. obtains a writ of execution on the property. 5 months later Corp. obtains the Deed to the Land. Corp. is now requesting a writ of possession and seeks to proceed with the removal of the commercial tenant, who had signed a lease.

Questions:
1. Is the lease b/w commercial tenant and commercial land lord completely void now as to their right to stay on the property?
2. If so, Does Corp. have to provide the commercial tenant with an eviction notice and follow typical commercial eviction process?
3. Is there anything the commercial tenant can do to avoid being thrown out of the space they had leased, which became foreclosed on?
Thank you so much for your time, I truly appreciate it!!

- Daniel May, Esq., NJ

A: 1. Yes, assuming it's a purchase money mortgage being foreclosed on.
2. 30 days.
3. Negotiate new lease with Corp?

If you have a landlord tenant problem you'd like to ask a question about, please feel free to e-mail me your question.
Submit a landlord / tenant question for Mr. Reno
Please try to keep your questions as short and to the point as possible.



Read more from John Reno, Eviction Attorney





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Wealth Secrets and Success Quotes

"Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end." - Leonard Nimoy

"I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened." - Mark Twain

"You have to accept whatever comes and the important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best you have to give." - Eleanor Roosevelt

"The best antidote to fear is knowledge." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"How much did your last tenant problem cost you? Was it less than $89.99?" - John Nuzzolese, The Landlord Protection Agency

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FREE Tenant Credit Reporting
(LPA Membership Bonus Feature)


Have you ever been beaten by a tenant on the rent?
Most of us have and unfortunately, it is one of the costs of doing business as a landlord.
On the bright side, remedies are available. If you have documented your tenancy with the proper paperwork including a rental application, lease agreement, late notices, etc., you may have a chance of collecting.

Credit bureau reporting is an option in which many modern landlords are beginning to participate....

Click here for the full article




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