Hmmmm…. does anyone really want to be a landlord? Or do they just want the rewards, positive cashflow, that comes with being a landlord?
I suspect the latter.
Landlording is a tough business. Yet, when smartly executed, owning income producing properties and being a landlord has some great rewards… and yes… almost all of them have something to do with that positive cashflow thing.
via biggerpockets
More than likely, that era is gone for good.
“There is no iron law that real estate must appreciate,” said Stan Humphries, chief economist for the real estate site Zillow. “All those theories advanced during the boom about why housing is special — that more people are choosing to spend more on housing, that more people are moving to the coasts, that we were running out of usable land — didn’t hold up.”
Instead, Mr. Humphries and other economists say, housing values will only keep up with inflation. A home will return the money an owner puts in each month, but will not multiply the investment.
via NYTimes.com
[Does this make rental housing more or less interesting? Arguments could be made either way. And of course I am speaking of cash flow properties and not "investment" real estate. When I was buying many years ago it was shocking how many brokers could not understand the difference. - Tim]
Over a 30-year career, he has amassed a portfolio worth millions by investing in apartment buildings that ring the Beltway. He and his wife, Sally, sent their kids to private school. They live comfortably in a $2 million home in Bethesda and vacation at a beach getaway constructed from the remains of a historic lighthouse.
Yet over the past decade, Freeman has transformed a townhouse complex he owns in the Falls Church area into his own tiny utopia. With little fanfare, he built a computer lab and family resource center for the 2,400 residents of Kingsley Commons, many of whom are recent immigrants. He started four soccer teams — paying for coaches, uniforms and cleats out of his own pocket — a summer camp and 4-H club with its own garden. In 2008, he founded a nonprofit group at Kingsley Commons, bankrolling it with $150,000. It now has a staff of three.
via washingtonpost.
Question: My elderly aunt has rented the same apartment for more than 15 years. Recently she received a warning notice from the manager requiring her to remove her accumulated belongings from the unit because they “constitute a safety hazard.” When I called the resident manager about the warning notice, she said my aunt was a hoarder. I know that my aunt has difficulty discarding possessions, even old newspapers. I don’t think she can control this behavior, and I am worried that she may have some kind of mental illness. Is there anything that can be done to protect her housing?
via latimes.com.
With home prices in the metro area down an average of 32% in the past five years, many don’t want to take a huge loss when they decide to move. They want to wait to see whether they can rebuild their equity. So they rent.
“People just really don’t want to be landlords, and they really have no choice,” said Dennis Dickstein, a Realtor at Real Estate One in Farmington Hills, who estimates that 20% of his deals are leases.
via Free Press.
Walking through the vacated apartment this week — her first look inside the rental in more than a year — Cook saw the holes in walls, the ruined carpet, the accumulated bathroom filth and then reflected on the landlord-tenant battle she calls the worst experience of her life.
“It’s amazing she could live like this,” said Cook, who fluctuated between disgust and tears during a tour of the apartment Wednesday morning.
via PressDemocrat.com.
Life as a landlord may be tempting to homeowners unable to sell their homes and others looking to add properties to their investment portfolio.
However, many costs associated with rental properties catch novice landlords by surprise. The following are four hidden expenses experts say new landlords should consider.
via Bankrate.
We’ve had a lot of water in the wrong place this year. But, landlords complain about water in the wrong place, too. That place is coming out of the tap at their rentals. I hear complaints that tenants “take hour-long showers,” as if they are doing this just to hurt the landlord.
