Most of us who are small real estate investors buying and renting single family homes are accustomed to making every dollar count. It's that habit that causes us to make a silly decisions when we advertise a house for rent.
Just take a look at the Home For Rent classified section of your newspaper. You will see rows of two or three line ads that all seem to blend together in an uninspired glob. Yes, I know newspaper ads are expensive, but have you ever stopped to think how much a bland three line ad is really costing you? Let's do some logical thinking about this penny pinching.
In our example will use a rental house where you have a monthly mortgage payment of $850. That includes principal, interest, taxes and insurance. You are offering the home for rent at $900 per month. If you divide your monthly mortgage payment by 30 you will realize that it is costing you $28.33 cents to own the home. That's $198.33 per week. So every week that the house is vacant you are losing $198.33. Cutting two weeks from that vacancy will save your $396.66.
If you are penny pinching with a little three line ad that fails to find a renter for weeks you are watching $198.33 fly out of your grasp every week. That's when you should realize that it just makes good business sense to buy a nice big classified ad, which will give you the best chance of catching the eye of a renter the first time it runs.
Filling vacancies fast is the mark of a good investor. As soon as your current tenant gives you the required 30 day notice that he or she will vacate the property you must swing into action. Your goal should be to have a new tenant ready to move in the day the old one moves out. Do this...
1. Ask your current tenant if they know of any one who is looking for a rental. Ask them to spread the word among their friends and co-workers. If you have a good relationship with the tenant they should be willing to help you find a renter. Offer them a one or two hundred dollar reward if they find a new tenant for you before they move out.
2. Immediately put a For Rent sign on the property with flyers describing the property and the cost to rent. We have a page on our Web site for each property we own with inside and outside photos. Included on the page on room dimensions, and the location of nearby features like schools, hospitals, shopping, public transportation, etc. We include the Web site address on the For Rent sign and on the flyers.
3. We send a postcard announcing there will a rental available to the neighbors. They may have friends whom they would like to have live nearby. We offer a cash reward of one or two hundred dollars if we rent to someone they referrer to us before the current tenant leaves.
4. We pass out flyers to nearby businesses like barber shops, nail salons, dry cleaners, etc. We make the same cash reward offer to them as we do to the neighbors.
Penny pinchers don't do things like that and they pay dearly for their mistake.
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Capital gains and inherited house in New Orleans
By: billyboy | 29-06-2008
My sibling and I inherited mom's $135,000 New Orleans house (2004 purchase) when she died in 2005. Succession documents valued Katrina-damaged house at $30,000 in 2006. Just sold in 2007 for $62,500. What are the capital gains?
Home sale and capital gain allowance
By: heyjoe | 29-06-2008
Filing a joint return and we sold our home in 2007. Do we have to file that information since we are under the capital gains allowance? thank you
Writing a house as a rental for my son
By: Tivoli | 29-06-2008
I purchased a house for my son & family to live in. On paper, the house had to be purchased as a rental, as I already had 2 other homes. My intention is for him to live in it until he can afford to take over the payments himself. Do I have to consider the mortgage payments as rent to myself, and do I have to claim that as income on my tax returns?
Joint mortgage, tenants
By: BigRedEd | 29-06-2008
I just bought a house with my fiancee. The mortgage is in both our names. Should we file as tenants in common or individually?Should we have gotten married before Dec. 2007?
Legal procedure for liquidating another person's personal property.
By: klr | 28-06-2008
i was in joint ownership of real estate. the other party filed bankrutpcy chapter 7, state of pennsylvania. all personal belongings were left here, and the other party moved to another location. there were no binding / written agreements concerning the storage. it's been 9 months. no attempt has been made to claim the personal property (600 sq. ft. of items). how can we legally and quickly liquidate the personal items. the real estate is now up for sale. ?
What were the VARIOUS problems with the Purdue ...
By: flowcytometry | 28-06-2008
What were the VARIOUS problems with the Purdue Cytoemtry Mail list and Isac Congress Marketing?Various Problems on reguarding ADVERTISING and List Abuse Various problems regarding advertising and list abuse Various problems regarding advertising and list abuse From: J. Paul Robinson j...@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.eduDate: Mon Mar 31 2008 - 01:18:05 EDT From J. Paul Robinson - Moderator Robert is right - there is too much politics and not enough science... What is happening here, is that there are too many cooks. Let me make it very clear that we work hard to keep this list clean. It does not always work. When we identify a failure, we usually respond to the person concerned and don't waste all your time. We frequently note in our posts, that advertising is not allowed. This list was developed from 2 or 3 individuals who actually had email in 1990, to 3000 over the past 19 years. It did not happen by chance, nor was it overnight.It was developed with a lot of cost ($$$),a lot of time, and what was a pretty darned good idea when it started. We don't tolerate people who try to damage the list.Now that it's highly successful, there are a number of individuals that are trying to either circumvent the list, use it for their own purposes, or simply sideline it. There are even some proposing that they should be able to manipulate the list and its contents in any forum for any purpose.I am really shocked at this rather callous approach to a scientific discussion board. I am not making public those individuals or their companies, but if I am pushed,I will identify them publicly. If I do so, and they create havoc,it could shut the list down - or end up in a nasty legal battle.I don't suppose that would be popular?So, it seems to me, that we need to get back to basics and focus on the reason this list has been so successful (and why you all want to use it for advertising - or even why those who what to hijack it...) - it does a good if not great job overall. thanks for your support - all 3000 of you ...well most of you! Clearly we will provide a mechanism for companies to provide a means for communication....it's on our list... Maybe I am getting too old for all this abuse....! regards Paul Robinson Purdue University Robert J. Palmer Jr. wrote: "Ultimately it is Paul's decision since he and his crew do all the work to keep this list what it is, butyou need to realize that it is what it is because it is monitored.........." Yep - so let the moderator do his work. I believe the moderator indicated that, when deemed appropriate, certain "posters" have been unsubscribed; the only evidence for this was the lack of subsequent posts. A grand announcement of rule violation followed by a public frog-march off the list seems unnecessary. This thread is getting a bit tedious - maybe those who wish to continue debate could use the subject line "vendor posts" so the science can be culled from the politics. Adrian: The only reason it is, as you say, "occasional announcements" is because Paul has discouraged this in the past. Once you open the door by condoning this practice why should any of the other vendors exercise any constraint? Then you are no longer dealing with an "occasional" announcement. I am sure all of the companies have announcements they would like to make to this group about new locations, websites, services or products, but that is what marketing budgets are for. As I said previously, I have no problem with vendors contributing to any scientific discussions on the list as I have learned from many (especially Rick Haugland), but announcements of the sort fromBay Biosciences are marketing. If everyone thinks this type of post is appropriate then let's be fairand let all the vendors have at it and then you'll see how "occasional" it is. Ultimately it is Paul's decision since he and his crew do all the work to keep this list what it is,butyou need to realize that it is what it is because it is monitored and commercialism has been discouraged in the past. "JL" J. Paul Robinson SVM Professor of Cytomics Professor of Immunopharmacology & Biomedical Engineering Director, Purdue University Cytometry Laboratories President, International Society for Analytical Cytology Purdue University Cytometry Laboratories Bindley Bioscience Center 1203 West State Street Discovery Park, Purdue University West Lafayette, IN 47907-2057 Ph (765) 494 0757; Fax (765) 494 0517 email: j...@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.eduwww.cyto.purdue.eduJoin ISAC - www.isac-net.orgChange lives today - www.cytometryforlife.orgReceived on Mon Mar 31 15:38:00 2008 This message: [ Message body ] Next message: Tim Kute: "RE: Flow assay for immune function" Previous message: Simon Monard: "Re: Suggestion" In reply to: Robert J. Palmer Jr.:"Re: Bay bioscience opens US office and introduces its JSAN cell sorting and analysis system there" This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Wed Jan 31 2007 - 03:12:00 EST
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