How To Spot Tenant Rent Scams

The Warning Signs Of Tenant Rent Scams

If you’re active in any type of home rental leasing you’ve probably run across more than your share of tenant rent scams.

In the 5 Step House Rental eBook we spend some time discussing various ways to qualify tenants, including the “First Date Technique”, and share other tips, tools and techniques on avoiding tenant rent scams.

=> Learn More About How To Qualify Tenants

I wanted to share with you this tenant rent scam of my own that I ran into the other day, one that had “red flag” written all over it, with the hope that you’ll be able to read the writing on the wall and avoid a big problem.

How To Spot Tenant Rent Scams

Here are three ‘red flags’ that you can look for when keeping an eye out for tenant rent scams:

Tenant wants to move in right away
The tenant hasn’t seen your home for rent yet, but knows yours is the one they want to rent
They have money in hand, all paper work filled out, and seem almost too good to be true

Let’s take a look at each tenant rent scam red flag in a little more detail.

Wants To Move In Quickly

This is red flag #1 with tenant rent scams.

The tenant will always have a reason that they need to move in quickly, something to do with a hardship they’re facing or some unexpected emergency, something that will appeal to your sense of fair play and emotion.

While the tenant’s story may be true, more likely than not you’re setting yourself up as a victim in a tenant rent scam.

Stick with you prospective tenant qualification program and don’t feel like you have to cut corners or rush just because the tenant needs to move in right away.

Your House For Rent Is The One They Want

This is tenant rent scam #2 and is again designed to appeal to your emotions.

Out of all the houses for rent, they picked yours.

Which by-the-way they haven’t actually seen yet, but they just know your home for rent is the one they want.

The ploy is a favorite among tenant rent scammers and is designed to get the landlord to think that renting to this tenant is a fait accompli, that doing your normal background and credit checks on the tenant is just a detail.

Among tenant rent scams this one is surprisingly effective since people always like to be flattered, and landlords are no exception.

I’ve Got The Money And I’ve Got The Application Filled Out

This is the first thing that the tenant rent scammer told me when she called about the house I had for rent.

Right away I saw the red flags and knew I needed to be on guard with this prospective tenant.

#3 of our tenant rent scams involves the tenant trying to demonstrate to you that they’re the perfect renter. After all, if they have their money in hand and paper work completed, what could go wrong?

Think about the last time you rented something. Did you come with money in hand and paperwork filled out without actually seeing the thing that you wanted to rent?

I didn’t think so.

Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for her, I’d just rented the house.

Tenant Rent Scams And Fair Housing Laws

You may have noticed that one theme that runs throughout this article is to stick to your tenant qualification process, a procedure we cover in detail in the 5 Step House Rental eBook.

=> Learn More About Fair Housing And How To Rent A House

Make sure you have a system in place to qualify tenants, treat all tenants equally and fairly, and don’t unintentionally violate any fair housing laws.

I hope you've found this article on tenant rent scams useful for when it comes time to rent your house.

Jeffrey Roark
How To Rent My House

Seven Ways To Build Your Real Estate Wealth Fast For Financial Freedom

Building your real estate wealth fast is one of the quickest ways to financial freedom that I can think of.

But let me ask you something: How many people do You personally know that have built their real estate wealth up to a level where they don’t have to worry about finances?

Let me ask you something else:

Are you tired of worrying about money?

Are you tired of not having what you need to provide for your family?

Gaining wealth through real estate fast is not luck.

The trick is to have a game plan, apply it to everything that you do, and move forward to building your real estate wealth, ridding your self of the 9 to 5 harness, and not worry about money again.

I’m going to share with you seven tips that have personally worked for me. I think they will work for you, too.

Remember, these real estate wealth tips are based on personal, real-life experiences, not some classroom, textbook, wishful thinking.

=> Learn How To Make Money In Real Estate Investing

One more thing, before we get started, it’s important to understand that wealth is not the same thing as money. 

Money Is Not Wealth

Here are my seven tips to gaining real estate wealth fast and getting the financial freedom you deserve for you and your family.

Faith

You’ve got to believe in yourself, in your family, and in the people you surround yourself with. If you Believe you’re more likely to take calculated financial risk which is a key ingredient in building your wealth in real estate.

Positive Attitude

Always have faith in yourself. Have the positive mental attitude that you’ll achieve what you set out to do. Have specific goals. Face problems head-on and solve them.

There will always be people that tell you that you cannot achieve real in real estate fast. Simply do not associate with these people. Surround yourself with successful, positive, like-minded people.

Remember, if it was easy, anyone could do it. Believe that you are not just anyone.

Go out there, do what few people have the guts to do, and build your real estate wealth fast.

Stay Healthy

This is all about diet, exercise, and getting enough rest. Plain and simple.

Remember that what you eat is fuel for your body. If you look at something you’re planning on eating and can’t immediately tell what it’s made of, eat something else.

Walk more. Don’t search for the parking spot closest to the entrance. Take the stairs. Walk the dog twice a day.

Try getting seven hours of sleep each day. Get up at the same time every day of the week, and go to bed at the same time every night. You’ll be amazed at how much better you feel after only a few days.

Do What You Say You’re Going To Do

Good people associate with other good people, people that they know and that they trust. You will not be able to build sustainable real estate wealth fast if you don’t have integrity.

Give More Than You Take

You’ll gain a lot more with a win-win situation. It’s a lot easier to get what you want with sugar instead of spice.

Cliches? Yes. True? Yes again.

Always Learn

There’s a big difference between having 20 years of experience and having 1 year of experience 20 times.

Seek out educational opportunities and realize that you can learn something from anybody or anything.

Even failure. Here’s the thing. If you don’t fail, you’ll never learn how to succeed.

Have consistent daily habits, have a game plan, and stick to it.

Know how to manage your time. Remember, if you don’t manage your own time somebody else will manage your time for you.

Live Within Your Means

Do not go into debt for the sake of consumption. Downsize your living space. Cook more and eat out less. Donate clothes that you haven’t worn for the past two years. Consult with your doctor on ways to get rid of one bad lifestyle habit you might have.

Most of all, limit your self to one hour of television per day.

If you make all seven of these steps part of your self, part of your daily routine, part of who you are, you’ll be well on your way to building your real estate wealth fast.

Jeffrey Roark
Real Estate Wealth Fast
Make Money In Real Estate Investing

How To Handle The Real Estate Time Sucks In Your Business

Do You Have Clients Who Are Real Estate Time Sucks?

I'll admit that until recently I'd never heard the term 'real estate time suck' before.

The other day I was on the phone chatting with my attorney when she mentioned that a case she was working on was an incredible time suck, which in this case meant increased legal fees for the client.

When you bill by the hour having time suck situations is probably a good thing.

In real estate, more often than not, we're paid for actual results. If a property is sold or leased, we're paid. If nothing happens, we're not.

Often times property management fees are based on a percentage of gross monthly revenue, so again, the more cash flow the real estate investor receives the more you're paid. Lower cash flow means lower property management income.

=> Learn More About Investment Property Management 

You probably have real estate time sucks that you work with right now, maybe without even realizing it.

Real estate time sucks are those people that you end up working for free for.

Clients, vendors, tenants, brokers, agents, suppliers – all can be time sucks when they take up a lot of your time without generating a commensurate level of income.

Your real estate practice is a professional service.

Can you imagine meeting with your accountant for an hour, thanking them for their time and advice, and expecting Not to pay them?

Your revenues will actually increase when you starting weeding out the real estate time sucks in your business even though you'll end up reducing the number of people you work with.

Every year I take a look at the people I work with in my business and identify the time suck ones that I end up working for free for.

And I get rid of them.

At first it’s a scary thing to do because you’re actually going to lose some money at first.

The trick is to take all of the extra time you have and focus it on the revenue producing clients you’ve got and to get new worth-while people to work with.

Here are three areas of your business that you may have real estate time sucks in, without even realizing it:

Property Owners

If you’re a broker or in property management you’ve likely got some high maintenance clients.

A while back I had a similar case myself.

We had one property owner that generated about 25% of our management revenue. The problem was that dealing with the guy sucked up 4X the amount of time compared to our other clients.

I finally cut him loose, and guess what?

Over the next two months we were able to use the extra time that was no longer being sucked up by this property owner to double the revenue that we’d lost from him.

Property Manager

If you’re a property owner you may be in a situation where your property management company is sucking up a lot of your time by forcing you to be involved in making petty decisions, such as reviewing plumbing bids for a stopped up sink.

Maybe the management company is doing this as part of their CYA routine or maybe they’re not clear on what your expectations are.

As the client you’ve got to decide which is which, but if you have a property manager like this, then you’re working for free without realizing it.

Tenants

Tenants can often me the biggest real estate time sucks of them all.

You may have a tenant that, like clock work, always has a maintenance request right around the time the rent is due.

Or maybe they always have to be chased down for the rent.

=> Learn More About How To Change Tenant Behavior

If you’re a property owner and you’ve got a management company that deals with this, you may be thinking that it’s not your problem.

But believe me, the extra expense that the property manager incurs in dealing with this time suck tenant will come back to you, the property owner, in one way or another.

If you’re not sure that you have a real estate time suck tenant, ask yourself this question, “Do they pay their rent?”.

If the answer is, “Yes, but . . . .” then the tenant is a time suck.

In real estate most of what we do is fee based, so the natural reaction is to take a quantity over quality approach, to have as many clients as possible, with the idea that more clients means more potential revenue.

There are a lot of problems with this approach, one of which is you end up attracting more than your share of time suck clients.

Jeffrey Roark
Basic Property Management Training
How To Make Real Estate Wealth Fast

Real Estate Rent Data From Your Cell Phone

How To Get And Use Real Estate Rent Data From Your Cell Phone

In the 5 Step House Rental eBook we discuss the importance of your getting boots-on-the-ground real estate rent data and information on your competitors.

Getting accurate real estate rent data is important so that you know you’re pricing your house for rent correctly and so that when your prospective tenants inevitably say,

Well, the house down the street is going for $X less than yours

You’ll already have foreseen that objection and will have a list of reasons why your house is the better rental. 

My Real-Life Real Estate Rent Data Example

The other day I was waiting for a prospective tenant to show up at a house I have for rent, and made use of that extra time to pull up the neighborhood real estate rent data on my iPhone.

=> Get Success Tips To Rent Your House

I was shocked at what I discovered.


Mind you, we practice what we preach. Before putting the house on the market for rent we followed step-by-step the market intelligence steps listed in the 5 Step House Rental eBook and determined an accurate asking rental price.

And at the time it was.

The house I had for rent was one of the largest in the neighborhood and had amenities that the competition didn’t have. So when we went on the market our asking rent was on the high side, and justifiably so.

What shocked me about the real estate rent data I pulled up was that asking rents had actually decreased by about 20% over a very short period of time. 

How To Use Rent Data

Fortunately we didn’t have to lower our rental price because the family that I showed the house that day decided that it was exactly what they were looking for and that the price was right.

I lucked out on that one, and that’s OK.

Getting real estate rent data off of the internet by using your cell phone or computer is a good first step, but it’s best if you don’t stop there.

Here’s why.

There are a lot of available homes for rent that won’t show up in your search. The common ones are FSBOs, rental homes listed by real estate agents who decide not to go on the MLS.

Often times property management companies will not put their houses for rent on the MLS, even if they belong to a realtor association.

So if you just depend on the internet for your real estate rent data it’s going to be skewed and you run the risk of pricing yourself out of the market. 

What To Do With Your Real Estate Rent Data

Here’s what I did while waiting for my prospective tenants to show up:

1. Downloaded the real estate rent data to my iPhone
2. Used a ‘closest to me’ radius search
3. Drove around the neighborhood and actually looked at the competition

Step #3 is the one that a lot of people skip, so you’ll be way ahead of your competition if you go the short extra mile.

This is the boots-on-the-ground research I mentioned earlier.

=> Learn More About How To Rent A House

See, reading the rental data that you download is one thing, but actually seeing the other homes of rent is something totally different.

Does it back to the street? Is the next door neighbor less than desirable? Is the yard overgrown and full of weeds – or all dirt? Does the house for rent scream short sale or pre-foreclosure?

The more you know about your competition the more prepared you’ll be for questions from prospective tenants, and the quicker you’ll be able to get a leased signed with the perfect tenant for your home for rent. 

How To Get Real Estate Rent Data From Your Cell Phone

The cell phone app that I like to use is the one from the National Association of Realtors’ site. It’s free to download and can be used with pretty much any version of a smart phone.

The Realtor app pulls real-time data off of the local MLS and includes property photos, asking rents, property specs, and contact info for the listing agent if you want to take your research one step further.

It’s best not to rely on this real estate rent data alone because there is often times a lot of rental property that is not on the MLS.

Jeffrey Roark
How To Rent My House

The Steps To Profit In Real Estate

Tips On How To Profit In Real Estate 

I'm going to tell you a quick story about something I learned when first playing tennis, a story that is also one about how to profit in real estate.

In life we tend to think that things are very linear, that they move in a straight line, and when we devise our blueprint of how to profit in real estate we inevitably use that linear, straight line thinking.

The problem with thinking like that is that it’s not really based on reality. 

Learning Tennis And How To Profit In Real Estate

The baseline of the tennis court is the line at either end of the court, the one that runs parallel to the net.

Court coverage is a must-have in tennis, especially when you’re playing singles. You’ve got to be able to move from one side of the court to the other pretty quickly, before the ball gets there.

=> Learn How To Make Money In Real Estate Investing

We’ve been taught that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line (there’s that linear thinking again).

And as the crow flies, that’s true.

But that’s not true in tennis.

I’d been struggling with my baseline court coverage, and was having trouble moving quickly enough from one corner of the baseline to the other.

I was moving fast enough, but for some reason either the ball kept getting past me, or I’d get jammed by the ball, either way missing the shot and losing the point. 

There Is No Such Thing As A Straight Line Profit In Real Estate Or Tennis

Then my coach pointed out the obvious.

What I was trying to do was to move in a straight line from one corner of the baseline to the other. My mistake was to neglect the angle of the ball, as if I were playing in some kind of vacuum.

You see, in tennis, when the ball is hit to the baseline it goes deeper in the middle of the baseline and more shallow at either corner.

So to get to the ball in time I actually had to move in an arc and not a straight line. If you’re not a tennis player, picture a big ‘U’ at the bottom of the court.

Just as I wasn’t stepping my way along the baseline, most people trying to make money in real estate investing do not take a step-by-step approach.

=> Learn The 5 Steps To Make Money In Property Investing

They try moving in a straight line, and to their dismay discover that the line leads to . . . nowhere. 

Step By Step Profit In Real Estate

Sorry if I burst your bubble by saying this, but real estate wealth is not created out of thin air.

You need to religiously follow a strategic, well practiced step-by-step approach to making money in real estate investing. That is how to profit in real estate.

Here are the five steps to take to profit in real estate:

1. Education
2. Planning
3. Creativity*
4. Learn From Your Mistakes
5. Find A Mentor Who Will Give You Trusted Advice

* By creativity I mean thinking outside the box and strategically considering the myriad ways to profit from your real estate investment.

If you’ve been studying our real estate wealth fast articles you know that we cover the above five steps in detail on this website, so I’m not going to waste your precious time by doing it again here.

Jeffrey Roark
Learn To Make Money In Real Estate
How To Build Your Real Estate Wealth

Expense Stops For Tenants And Landlords

If you’re a landlord and you’ve got your tenants under a NNN lease you’re probably not too worried about expense stops.

When done correctly a NNN lease allows for all of the expenses related to a property to be passed through to a tenant, so in effect there’s a 100% expense stop for the landlord and no expense stop for the tenant.

If you’re active in commercial leasing you know that no two NNN leases are the same, and no two expense stops are the same. In practice, each lease is different and designed to meet the objectives of the landlord and the tenant.

=> Learn More About Tenants And Leases 

Expense Stops Defined

Expense stops typically show up in gross or modified gross leases, though some times in NNN leases as well.

An expense stop clause means literally what it says: After a defined amount of expenses, no more expenses will be incurred by that party, be it landlord or tenant.

This might sound confusing but here’s how it works in real life: 

Landlord Expense Stops

Let’s say that you’re a tenant leasing space under a full service or gross lease. In theory this means that the rent you’re paying includes everything (though often times net of electric and telecomm).

But in your lease there might be an expense stop provision in favor of the landlord, aka a landlord expense stop, that says if the landlord’s operating expenses exceed $X per year, then that additional increase will be passed through pro-rata to the tenants.

For example, the landlord’s operating expenses may have increased by $25,000 this year compared to last year. If your lease has a landlord expense stop of $15,000 – in other words the landlord is only going to cover the first $15,000 per year of increased expenses – then that balance of that $10,000 is passed on to you, the tenant.

So even if your lease has a flat 3% annual increase, if there’s a landlord expense stop provision, as the tenant you could be on the hook for that extra $10,000 plus your 3% annual rent increase. 

Tenant Expense Stops

Expense stops work both ways.

If you’re a landlord who has a lease with a tenant expense stop in place you could end up eating any sudden increase in operating expenses instead of being able to pass them through to your tenants.

Let’s use our example above.

Instead of there being a landlord expense stop of $15,000 let’s say there’s a tenant expense stop of $5,000.

=> Read More About Investment Property Management Training

As the landlord your operating expenses year-to-year still increased by $25,000, but with the tenant expense stop of $5,000 in place, as the landlord you’re going to end up having to ‘absorb’ $20,000 in expenses that you can’t pass through to your tenant. 

Collecting On Expense Stops And NNN Lease Charges

While having tenant expense stops, landlord expense stops, and NNN fees in NNN leases sounds good, the key question as a landlord is whether or not you can actually collect any increase in NNN charges or increased expenses from your tenants.

Jeffrey Roark
Basic Property Management Training

Create Real Estate Wealth Fast - Tips, Tools & Techniques

How To Create Real Estate Wealth Fast

What do successful investors know that you don’t know about creating real estate wealth fast?

Do they know something about creating real estate fast that you don't? Are they smarter than you? Do they have contacts that you don't? Do they have some kind of real estate wealth crystal ball?

The answer to all these questions is NO!

Last year I received a lot of questions from our How To Rent My House readers about exactly how to get started in real estate investing, and on how to build real estate wealth fast, so I wanted to spend some time today talking about just that.

=> Learn The Step-by-Step Formula to Profit In Real Estate

Often times people think that there's a "secret ingredient", that there's some big secret about how to make money in real estate investing and building their real estate wealth fast.

Look, I've spent years in real estate learning the system. I've read books, gone through expensive real estate training programs, attended seminar after seminar on how to build real estate wealth fast, and traveled around the country and even internationally.

Pretty much all of this was a huge waste of time and money.

I'd like to share with you tips based on my own personal, proven, hands-on experience from actually working, investing, and building wealth in the real estate market for almost 25 years.

First and foremost, if those guys (and gals) that you thought were smarter than you can do it, So Can You.

The nice thing is, you don't need to waste your time and money - like I did - reading tons of books, going to real estate classes (more on that later), and pouring money into real estate wealth seminars taught by people who really have no clue about what they're doing. 

Just Do It

Just get out there and do it. Get your feet wet. Test the waters.

Stop thinking about it, stop making excuses, and Start Doing It.

Start building your real estate wealth fast T-O-D-A-Y. 

You Do Not Need Big Bucks

Even in today’s market there are lenders willing to do deals.

One option is a hard-money loan where you can finance your property on a short-term basis. Hard money lenders typically lend around 50% to 60% of a property’s value and the interest rates can be in the double digits.

But remember, this is a short-term, fix and flip financing strategy.

After you close the deal on your property, you’re going to want to rehab it quickly, get it rented, and either hang onto the thing to build your real estate wealth using the on-going, long-term cash flow, or do a fix and flip and sell it to another investor, or maybe even do a lease-purchase to the tenant.

If you decide to hang onto the property you’ll need to make sure that you have financing in place to buy-out the hard money lender so that you’re not stuck with a high long term interest rate.

With this exit approach, make sure you’ve been pre-qualified and pre-approved for your take out financing before you commit to the property.

One of the keys with this approach is to have your exit strategy figured out before you actually own the property.

Believe me, you’ll sleep a lot easier at night knowing that you’ve got another take-out investor lined up when your rehab and leasing is done, or that you’ve got your refinancing already in place!

If your predetermined exit plan is to cash out when your work is done, consider using a tax deferred exchange, aka a 1031 exchange, to defer any potential property gains taxes and have your entire profits on your first deal available to invest in your next deal.

It may not be a bad idea to have your next deal already lined up.

It’s always a good idea to talk to your tax advisor about tax deferred exchanges. Again, do your homework first, and do this before you actually close on your first deal.

=> Learn How To Make Money In Investment Realty

Know your exit strategy and always having a Plan B are critical steps to building your real estate wealth fast. 

Do Not Overpay For Your Real Estate Investment

I know you’re thinking that this is common sense. And it is.

But you’d be surprised at how many real estate investors I’ve watched get caught up in the emotion of the wealth building real estate chase and end up paying more than they’d planned on, or underestimating the amount of rehab needed to get the thing rented fast.

There are three good sources to determine a property value:

1. Your own research
2. Appraiser
3. Real estate broker

In that order. Nothing beats your boots-on-the-ground research and your intuition when it comes to building your real estate wealth fast.

Jeffrey Roark
Make Money In Real Estate
Profit In Real Estate

The Five Steps To Building Your Real Estate Wealth Fast

In my last article on how to build your real estate wealth fast I strongly encourage you to stop thinking about it and start doing it.

Today I’m going to strongly suggest that now is the time to begin quickly building your real estate wealth.

I don’t have crystal ball so I have no idea if the market is bottomed out yet.

What I do know is that only a fool tries to time the exact bottom – or top – of a market.

Trying to do that is a sure-fire recipe for Not building your real estate wealth fast.

What I also know is that in almost every market there is a huge amount of money flowing in buying up short-sales, REOs and foreclosures.

Property is being rehabbed, rented, flipped, and real estate wealth is being built fast, right before your eyes.

Savvy real estate investors – people just like you – are getting wealthy in real estate as we speak.

=> Learn How To Make Money In Investment Realty

There’s a huge amount of opportunity out there right now to start building your real estate wealth:

• Lenders aren’t getting their loans paid
• Home owners are getting foreclosed on
• Renters are relocating because their rentals are getting foreclosed on
• Banks have so much product in the pipeline that they don’t know what to do
• Sellers that need to sell now are amazingly motivated to sell . . . .

To sell to someone just like you who is intent on seizing the day and building their real estate wealth. 

Look Before You Leap

There are a few things that you should keep in mind before getting started:

Bidding Wars

Do not ever get caught up in a bidding war. I’ve personally seen some otherwise smart real estate investors get emotional over a particular deal and pay way more than they should have.

Have your game plan set up, know what your exit strategy is before you buy, understand what your true rehab costs are going to be, and always have a Plan B.

OPM

Using Other People’s Money is what a lot of real estate wealth is built on. Remember, the more of your own money you have tied up in the purchase, the less you’ll have for rehabbing and marketing to find tenants.

Reliable Suppliers and Vendors

Have these guys and gals lined up before you close the deal. Creating a Rehab Team is one of the smartest things you can do to build your real estate wealth fast. Unless you have a lot of time on your hands - and a lot of skilled construction knowledge – it’s best to outsource this part of your wealth building real estate investment project.

Buy From Sellers Who Want To Sell

Even with the way the market is today there are still sellers out there who whine about having to sell for less than what they (over) paid for their property during the boom times.

Is this your problem?

Of course not. If you’re trying to buy real estate from a seller that doesn’t want to sell for what you think the property is worth, then move on.

It’s their loss, and your future gain.

=> Get More Tips On How To Make Money In Property

Stick To Your Plan

Know if you’re buying the property and will keep it for the cash flow, or if you’ll building your real estate wealth fast by selling the thing to another investor. Have your Rehab Team put together and understand what your actual costs are going to be to get the rental property up and running and rented fast.

Follow these five steps and you’ll be fast on the way to building your real estate wealth.

Jeffrey Roark
Build Your Real Estate Wealth Fast
Make Money In Real Estate

Is The Internet A Threat To Your Tenant Mix?

Most property management training courses spend some time discussing tenant mix and how to find that perfect harmony for your multi-tenant property.

With our first investment property management training article of the New Year, I wanted to share some thoughts about how the internet has, is, and will be affecting your tenant mix. 

The Internet Is Your Friend

The internet plays a huge positive role in effective property management, marketing and leasing.

=> Learn More About Real Estate Internet Marketing

The internet is the key ingredient to zero or low-cost marketing efforts, establishing a professional image for yourself and your properties, and can reduce your back-end property management costs through on-line tenant billing, on-line payment portals, and tenant repair requests. 

Tenant Mix And The Internet

There are pros and cons to everything.  When it comes to tenant mix and the internet there may have more cons than pros.

The internet is creating an 'open source' world, where entrepreneurs and small business owners can have incredible leverage, create businesses literally over night with out the need for a bricks-and-mortar location, and by extension wreak havoc with your tenant mix. 

How To Protect Your Tenant Mix

Obviously you're not going to be able to stop the internet.  But you do have quite a bit of control over the mix of tenants in your property.

Here are a few tips that I've used to try and protect the tenant mix in our retail properties from the negative influence of the internet:

Sign short-term leases

Unless you're planning on selling your property, it's hard to argue against this.

By signing a short-term lease you minimize the risk you're taking on a tenant, the tenant is reducing the risk it is taking on its business, you're able to improve your tenant mix by taking on what might otherwise be a more risky tenant, and you're reducing you costs by not having to pay a hefty up-front leasing fee to a broker.

Abate rent in exchange for tenant TIs

The more of its own money a tenant puts in to its space the better it is for you.  The odds of a tenant doing a 'midnight move' are reduced and you've had some improvements done on your vacant unit as well.

Keep your rents competitive

The internet has had a huge impact on brick-and-mortar locations and will continue to do so for quite some time.

But physical locations do have their advantages. 

=> Find Out More About Tenant Mix And Property Managment

If you've signed a short-term lease with the tenant and are in a position to pass through some reductions to the tenant, you'll given the tenant one less reason to consider moving its business completely on-line.

Discretionary Income, Tenant Mix And The Internet

If you're able to apply those three steps to your business model, with luck you're going to attract a higher volume of prospective tenants and may be able to be a bit choosy.

Over the last couple of years I've personally seen some tenants more affected by the internet and by there being less discretionary income than others.

Here are my top 10:

1. Travel agencies
2. Mom-and-Pop convenience stores
3. Video rental
4. Electronics repair
5. Churches
6. Book stores
7. Fitness
8. Cellular
9. Insurance
10. Printing

If you're actively involved in property management and trying to get a good tenant mix no doubt you'll be able to add to this list.

Note that all of these businesses compete with readily-available substitutes found on the internet or are affected by there being less money in the economy, or both.

Jeffrey Roark
Investment Property Management Training
Make Money In Real Estate Investing

How To Use Real Estate Internet Marketing To Rent Your Property

Real estate internet marketing sounds complicated, and there is a lot more to it than meets the eye, but you shouldn't let that stop you from using the internet to rent your house.



The internet has played a huge role in keeping property management costs down:  On-line tenant billing, on-line payment options, and letting tenants make repair requests through your website are a few quick examples that we discussed in last week's house rental article. 

Four Easy Real Estate Internet Marketing Techniques

In the 5 Step House Rental eBook there's a nice section on how to rent your house by using the internet.

=> Learn Free and Inexpensive Marketing Tips

Everything we discuss in the eBook are proven techniques, not some classroom fantasy.

Here are four ways that I've personally used the internet to rent houses:

Simple property website

There are services out there that let you quickly and easily set up a website for your house for rent.

For free.

The nice thing is that you don't have to be an internet guru to do this. 

These free sites come with templates that have pre-configured layouts, so all you really have to do is enter some copy and maybe a picture or two, and you're good to go.

Free on-line advertising

You do not have to spend a lot of money to rent your house.

One of our favorite - and most effective - on-line resources for marketing you home for rent costs very little and in some markets is actually free.

Real estate flyers on-line

There's one company out there that I've used the last couple of years to design flyers for houses to rent absolutely free.

=> Learn How To Design Real Estate Flyers

Just like with the free website service I mentioned, the flyers come with various templates, so all you have to do is fill in some blanks with info on your specific property and you've got a very professional looking on-line flyer.

Property listing websites

In today's rental housing market the MLS is quickly becoming a dinosaur.  Plus, to get your home for rent listed on the MLS you've got to sign up with a real estate agent, which is something you may not want to do.

Fortunately there are on-line alternatives out there that let you list your house for rent, for free.

Plus these sites will 'reach out' to other real estate website services, Yahoo is one example, and you'll end up with real estate internet marketing exposure for your rental home that you never expected. 

Tying It All Together With Real Estate Internet Marketing

So, to start things off right you've now got a free website for your home for rent, you know how to market your house for rent on-line for free (or maybe a few bucks depending on where you rental house is), and you can design a professional flyer on-line for free.

Who said the internet isn't great?

Jeffrey Roark
How To Rent My House
Guide To Renting Out Your Home

Is There A Secret To Creating Wealth In Real Estate Fast?

What Are The Secrets To Building Wealth In Real Estate Fast?

What do successful investors know that you don’t know about creating real estate wealth fast?

Do they know something about creating real estate fast that you don't?  Are they smarter than you?  Do they have contacts that you don't?  Do they have some kind of real estate wealth crystal ball?

The answer to all these questions is NO!

=> Learn How To Create Real Estate Wealth Fast

Look, I've spent years in real estate learning the system.  I've read books, gone through expensive real estate training programs, attended seminar after seminar on how to build real estate wealth fast, and traveled around the country and even internationally.

Pretty much all of this was a huge waste of time and money.

I'd like to share with you tips based on my own personal, proven, hands-on experience from actually working, investing, and building wealth in the real estate market for almost 25 years.

First and foremost, if those guys (and gals) that you thought were smarter than you can do it, So Can You.

The nice thing is, you don't need to waste your time and money - like I did - reading tons of books, going to real estate classes (more on that later), and pouring money into real estate wealth seminars taught by people who really have no clue about what they're doing.

Just Do It

Just get out there and do it.  Get your feet wet.  Test the waters.

=> Make Money In Real Estate Investing In Any Market

Stop thinking about it, stop making excuses, and Start Doing It.

You Do Not Need Big Bucks

Even in today’s market there are lenders willing to do deals.

One option is a hard-money loan where you can finance your property on a short-term basis.  Hard money lenders typically lend around 50% to 60% of a property’s value and the interest rates can be in the double digits.

But remember, this is a short-term, fix and flip financing strategy.

After you close the deal on your property, you’re going to want to rehab it quickly, get it rented, and either hang onto the thing to build your real estate wealth using the on-going, long-term cash flow, or do a fix and flip and sell it to another investor, or maybe even do a lease-purchase to the tenant.

If you decide to hang onto the property you’ll need to make sure that you have financing in place to buy-out the hard money lender so that you’re not stuck with a high long term interest rate.

With this exit approach, make sure you’ve been pre-qualified and pre-approved for your take out financing before you commit to the property.

One of the keys with this approach is to have your exit strategy figured out before you actually own the property.

Believe me, you’ll sleep a lot easier at night knowing that you’ve got another take-out investor lined up when your rehab and leasing is done, or that you’ve got your refinancing already in place!

If your predetermined exit plan is to cash out when your work is done, consider using a tax deferred exchange, aka a 1031 exchange, to defer any potential property gains taxes and have your entire profits on your first deal available to invest in your next deal.

It may not be a bad idea to have your next deal already lined up.

It’s always a good idea to talk to your tax advisor about tax deferred exchanges.  Again, do your homework first, and do this before you actually close on your first deal.

Know your exit strategy and always having a Plan B are critical steps to building your real estate wealth fast.

Do Not Overpay For Your Real Estate Investment

I know you’re thinking that this is common sense.  And it is. 

But you’d be surprised at how many real estate investors I’ve watched get caught up in the emotion of the wealth building real estate chase and end up paying more than they’d planned on, or underestimating the amount of rehab needed to get the thing rented fast.

There are three good sources to determine a property value:

• Your own research
• Appraiser
• Real estate broker

In that order.  Nothing beats your boots-on-the-ground research and your intuition.

It’s always good to gather information from all three sources, then use your best judgment as to what price is a good deal for the property.

Do this and you'll soon be on your way to making money in real estate!

Jeffrey Roark

Build Your Real Estate Wealth

Make Money In Real Estate Investing