Strategies
What we would tell someone starting today
The things that turned out to matter, from three people who have made most of the available mistakes.
Rosa Delgado
21 articles by Delgado
Tax & Structure
Bookkeeping systems that survive an audit and a decade
The administrative work nobody enjoys, done properly once, saves money at tax time and prevents the reconstruction nobody has time for.
Rental Operations
The annual review every landlord should do
A few hours once a year on things that quietly drift, and the drift is expensive in every direction.
Strategies
The first deal: a realistic sequence
Not a formula for wealth, just the order of operations that most successful first purchases have followed.
Rental Operations
Building the vendor relationships that carry a portfolio
The contractors who answer the phone are the difference between a manageable business and a stressful one, and they are chosen by how you treat them.
Rental Operations
Utilities, sub-metering and billing back
Owner-paid utilities are an uncapped expense with no incentive on the consumption side, and the fix is one of the better returns available.
Rental Operations
Managing property from a distance
Out-of-state investing works, and it fails in specific ways that all trace back to not having anyone on the ground you trust.
Rental Operations
Move-in and move-out: the process that prevents disputes
Deposit disputes are almost entirely a documentation problem, and the documentation has to exist before the dispute does.
Rental Operations
When a tenant stops paying
The situation every landlord eventually faces, where the instinct to be understanding and the need to act on a timeline both have a case.
Rental Operations
Rent increases without losing the tenant
Below-market rents are the most common unforced error in small portfolios, and the correction is a communication problem more than a pricing one.
Underwriting
The inspection, and what it will not find
A general inspection is a visual survey by a generalist, and the expensive problems are usually the ones behind something.
Strategies
House hacking, honestly assessed
Living in the property you rent out is the most accessible entry point in real estate, and it involves trade-offs nobody mentions in the enthusiastic version.
Rental Operations
Handling maintenance requests without losing money or tenants
A process that works costs less than no process, and speed of response matters more to tenants than almost anything else.
Rental Operations
The lease is your operating manual
Most disputes trace back to something the lease did not say, or said in a way that a court would not enforce.
Strategies
Short-term rentals: the returns, and the regulatory risk
Higher gross revenue, considerably higher costs and effort, and a rule set that can change with one council vote.
Tax & Structure
Records: what to keep and for how long
Unglamorous, entirely within your control, and the difference between a straightforward sale and an expensive reconstruction twenty years later.
Rental Operations
Self-managing versus hiring a property manager
The decision is usually framed as a cost question, and it is really a question about what you are willing to be interrupted by.
Rental Operations
Turnover: the expense nobody budgets properly
Every tenant who leaves costs more than most owners realise, which makes retention the cheapest form of yield improvement available.
Underwriting
The expense line items people always get wrong
Six categories account for most of the gap between projected and actual operating expenses, and all six are knowable in advance.
Rental Operations
What maintenance actually costs
The rules of thumb are rough, the real number depends on the building, and underestimating it is the most common reason a deal underperforms.
Rental Operations
Tenant screening that holds up
The single highest-leverage decision in rental operations, made under time pressure by people who want the unit filled.