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
Tenants, maintenance, turnover and the cost of doing it badly.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.