“Room for Rent in Owner-Occupied Single Family Home. No Jews, Blacks or Muslims.” One glance at this fictitious ad may cause you to accuse the landlord of overt discrimination. It may also cause you to throw up. But is this ad discriminatory or simply a homeowner exercising his or her property rights? According to Merriam-Webster’s…
DetailsThe most important function in property management is leasing. With no rentals, no residents; no rental income; no revenue; expenses can’t be paid, property failure results in foreclosure. Leasing is the life blood of our industry. Unfortunately, leasing positions at a property are viewed as the entry level and experience the highest volume of turnover.…
DetailsQuestion 1: My tenant has given written notice to vacate a month to month rental. Her son was given permission to be added as an additional household member as a live-in aide. He was never added to the rental agreement and my tenant is having difficulty getting him to leave. My question is, if she…
DetailsThe formula for progress is simple … we’ve known the three steps for 240 years. Last month, I wrote about the idiotic beggar-thy-neighbor “mercantilist” trade policies being advocated by the front-runners for the 2016 presidential nomination. In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith (1723-1790), founder of the science of economics and champion of free enterprise,…
DetailsWhile it is human nature to presume that tenants inherently share the same perceptions and competencies as buildings owners or property managers, all too often there can be a substantial variance between what is presumed and how a tenant will actually act or react both under normal circumstances as well as unusual or emergency situations.
Hello everybody. We live in a litigious society. Californians are “suit happy” and Southern Californians are particularly “suit happy.” Certainly there is no shortage of litigation filed by tenants against their former or existing landlords. My column this month will discuss the 26 main “Affirmative Defenses” available to a landlord to defend against tenants’ causes…
DetailsMany apartment communities strive to create a welcoming office environment in order to put prospective residents at ease. From aromatic scents and freshly baked cookies to a warm fire, these comforts communicate a feeling of “home.” However, when managers have an office connected to their apartment or even inside their apartment home, sometimes the lines…
DetailsBack when my grandparents had their first coin-op laundry equipment in the late 1950’s- there were limited choices in equipment models which made things easy, but in today’s day and age, it’s a different ballgame. They had old 10¢ meters that would start the old Frigidaire washers with a mechanical timer, would often stick in…
DetailsInvesting in multifamily housing and apartments requires extra investigation, sometimes called due diligence by attorneys, for investors who want to be certain they do not make a mistake. This extra investigation and these questions are beyond what a real estate investor may do normally for a typical commercial real estate investment. As a real estate investor,…
DetailsDo you ever feel like you are moving so fast that you start to make “dumb” mistakes at work? Or what about your teams? Do you feel like sometimes you give them the SAME instructions and they continue to miss the SAME steps?