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The jobs report for March was initially hailed as good news because the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 192,000 new non-farm jobs were added last month. That was better than expected by many forecasters and was well above the

A homestead is the family residence, which in most states is exempt to a certain extent from forced sale for collection of debt. In California, there are at least three kinds of homestead exemption: (1) Declared homestead (2) Automatic homestead exemption and (3) Property tax homestead exemption Declared Homestead The first way in which California…

Although the proper tenant screening and selection techniques greatly improve your success in picking good tenants, they aren’t a guarantee, which mean that at some point in your rental property management tenure, you’re sure to

Question 1: I rented a two bedroom Berkeley unit to three students and collected $3,000.00 for first month’s rent.  The rent receipt, which we both signed, states the basics of the lease: monthly rent, occupants, term of lease and start date.  It also

Let’s say you are a real estate owner/investor and have hired a property management company to manage your apartment buildings. You sign a management contract and the company opens a regular business checking account with their bank. They begin managing your property and collecting rents and paying your bills. However, did you know

Question One: I paid a real estate broker to fill my vacancy. The tenant gave a deposit of $1,090.00 but the broker never got a signed lease. I paid the real estate broker his commission and then the tenant changed his mind and asked for his deposit back. When I told the real estate broker,…

Just in the last week, the cities of Laguna Niguel, Mission Viejo, San Juan Capistrano and Irvine have passed resolutions declaring their support for Proposition 13. Proposition 13 has recently come under attack by a group of far-left activists based in

Hello everybody. In case you have not heard, on July 1, 2014, the minimum wage in California increased from $8.00 to $9.00 per hour. Other important changes were also implemented, such as raising the cap on the amount of rent a landlord can charge a resident manager for his/her unit, and increasing the ceiling on…

It is not often a lawyer gets to argue a legal question that has never been considered before, but Institute for Justice’s Litigation Director, Dana Berliner, did just that in front of the Minnesota Supreme Court [last year].  After more than six years of