John T. Reed’s real estate investment blog

 Contents  1 Overview 1 Part 1 Leasing  2 Setting rents 9  3 Signs of low rents 27  4 Excuses for not raising rents 33  5 Advertising 53  6 Leasing 65  7 Processing move-outs and move-ins 75 Part 2 Other income  8 Cash management 81  9 Laundry income 83 10 Garages 89 11 Forfeited security deposits 93 12 Other income 97 Part 3 Policies 13 Policies 101 14 The Lease 109 Part 4 Expenses 15 Expenses 119 16 Property taxes 123 17 Electricity 127 18 Lights 133 19 Appliances 139 20 Separate meters 145 21 Gas 151 22 Heating oil...

Changes and improvements to the seventh edition When we sell out of a book, I read it to see if it needs to be changed or can just be reprinted as is. When we sold out of the sixth edition of How to Manage Residential Property For Maximum Cash Flow and Resale Value, I read it and decided we needed a new edition. Improvements in the seventh edition compared to the sixth edition: How to deal with the recent push to raise the minimum wage in real terms HUD prohibition against rejecting a prospective tenant because of a criminal conviction...

Hillary made a commercial depicting Trump as a monster because he said he wanted the 2008 real estate crash because it would be an opportunity to make money.He did not and could not cause the crash or even contribute to it. The people who did were mainly the government and prominent among them was Bill Clinton.There is a reason economic crashes happen. And there is a reason recoveries happen. Investors like Trump are the reason recoveries happen. They swoop in and make bargain purchases and typically have to improve the physical structures and/or the management of the businesses in question,...

When I was at the gym this morning, a TV show about fixing up houses for a profit was on. What a bunch of nonsense! And there are a ton of shows like this. If they ever mentioned a profit figure, I missed it. On other shows like this I have seen them claim a big increase in value at the end of the show—but there is no buyer paying that price. The case histories in my books have the actual sale price. Too nice when they bought it What did the geniuses in the renovating reality shows do wrong?...

Initially, the media and Trump’s opponents were getting the Trump University story wrong. They were falling for his 98% evaluations story and other spin efforts. Now, they have dug deeper and are getting it right. They still have not figured out the main point: I am not certain but I believe that whole industry is a couple of sleazy Utah companies who are like the anonymous corporations who make house brands for supermarkets. Turnkey operations wearing house brand fig leafs For example, in my area near San Francisco, the main supermarket chain is Safeway. They sell Campbell’s soup, but also...