SMARTERLANDLORDING

ADVICE FROM EXPERIENCE

Kevin

Should Landlords Make Side Deals With Their Tenants?

by

As a general rule, I would normally say that it would be a bad idea to make a side deal, or an off the lease exchange, with a tenant. But, these are not normal times. The suppression of the economy due to the Covid-19 virus has forced many business to look at things differently.

Side deals are a common feature in the landlording business. Many landlords will make a deal with a tenant to trade some amount of rent for their labor, or perhaps even an appliance. For example, a landlord may waive part of the rent if the tenant agrees to paint their living room, or replaces their broken refrigerator. As I said, in general I am not in favor of such side deals. While on the surface side deals may seem like great ideas, it is my experience that these side deals tend lead to more problems than they solve. More on that a little later. Over the years I have found it much easier to just stick to the terms in the lease.

But, times are different now. Many tenants are likely to have a difficult time in the coming months making ends meet (some landlords too). Tenants will be faced with hard choices as their reserve funds dwindle. There are and will be calls for rent strikes and rent cancellations. We as landlords need to be aware of these situations and work to minimize the impact on our businesses, our properties and ultimately ourselves.

We have to ask ourselves if we would rather have vacant or occupied units? Do we want significant amounts of turnover and the costs associated with that turnover? How long can my reserves sustain these repeated turnover costs along with lack of rental income? Will we be able to find new tenants to replace those that have had to move due to covid-19 related financial stresses? Right now, in the middle of April, things may seem OK, but we are all still in the early stages of this suppression. What will the next several months bring? While I hope the overall impact is minor, it is perhaps to early to say with any certainty or that we are out of the woods.

Due to these circumstances I think it might be wise to consider side deals with tenants, especially if these deals can create a win/win for tenant and landlord. Would I recommend just making any kind of deal? No. Nothing illegal or unethical. But I might consider a payment plan for an otherwise great tenant who lost their job at a local hotel or restaurant. I might even consider using security deposits to cover rent for a while.

What would I not consider right now? Trading labor for rent. It just gets too complicated as I mentioned before. Sure the apartment needs to be repainted, but does your tenant even know how to paint? Painting is not rocket science but it does take some skill and practice.  Will your tenants do an adequate job? Further, how do you define “adequate job?” I would bet that your and your tenant’s definition differ. And when these differences arise, they can just make matters worse.

Only you can decide what is best for your business, but in these unique times we landlords have to think about doing things differently than we did before. A side deal with a tenant may just be the way to go to keep a good tenant in place until they can get back on their feet again. Get as creative as you wish, but whatever you do, get it in writing, even just an e-mail if nothing else. How far do you let these side deals go? Hard to say right now. We may all just have to see how far this crisis and suppression goes.

Made any side deals with tenants due to the great suppression? If so what are they? Please share with a comment.

Kevin Perk is the founder and publisher of Smarterlandlording.com. He is the author of Advice From Experience To New Real Estate Investors.  Subscribe to Smarterlandlording here. Contact Kevin here.

Subscribe to Smarterlandlording and receive a Free Report: 21 Tenant Screening Red Flags

Covid-19 And The Changing Business Model

by

The covid-19 pandemic is forcing almost every business into new modes of operation. Landlording is no different. Being a landlord used to mean frequent and direct contact with tenants, potential tenants and others. Social distancing has put a stop to that.

However, business must still go on, people are still going to move (eventually) and repairs need to be made. We landlords are going to have to find ways to accommodate people and run our business in this new era of covid-19. This social distancing stuff may linger around for a while. One change I can see is in how we show and lease our rental units.

How?

First, the showing of occupied units to prospective tenants has come to a halt. Even though our lease allows us to show our properties before the current tenant has moved out, it is just not something that is practical or safe right now. There is simply no way that we can allow strangers to have access to a person’s home. The risks are too high. Yes, I still want to get the unit re-rented as quickly as possible, but showing occupied units, which has worked so well in the past, is now out.

So what to do? How do we adapt and change?

One option is to simply wait until the current tenant moves and the unit becomes vacant. Obviously this eliminates the concern of contaminating the current tenant. But what about you or your property manager? Should someone else be present? Not necessarily. It is more reasonable today to set up a showing time for the prospective tenant and then open the unit up a few minutes early to allow them to look on their own. Then, simply wipe the door knobs down and lock it up when they are done. Any further communication can be done by phone.

Another option is of course to go even more remote with video or pictures. All modern cell phones have video cameras on them and there are some apps out there that take excellent 360 degree photos. These videos and photos can then of course be shared on your website or through a dropbox account. These types of virtual showings are I think about to become really popular and perhaps even the norm.

Beyond the showings, almost all documents and meetings can be handled remotely. Zoom will allow you to have your lease signing meeting face to face and documents like your lease can be signed electronically. We currently use Docusign for electronic signatures, but there are many other programs and apps out there. Keys can be left in a key box and the code sent by text or e-mail to the new tenant so they can get the keys to their new place.

Business models have and will continue to change because of this virus scare and we landlords are going to have to adapt. The best thing we can do is to see these changes as opportunities to improve our businesses and make them more customer friendly and efficient. Even when this virus moves on, people are going to be expecting and practicing a new normal.

What changes have you made to your landlording business to cope with the new social distancing normal? Do you have any business tips that can help others? Please share with a comment below.

Kevin Perk is the founder and publisher of Smarterlandlording.com. He is the author of Advice From Experience To New Real Estate Investors.  Subscribe to Smarterlandlording here. Contact Kevin here.

Subscribe to Smarterlandlording and receive a Free Report: 21 Tenant Screening Red Flags

After Covid-19, What’s Next For Landlords?

by

Despite still being in the middle of the Covid-19 crisis, it is not too early for landlords and real estate investors to start thinking about what comes next. What happens in the real estate investing world when things start to return to normal? I do not have a crystal ball, but I can recall the recent crash in 2008 and logically think about what may be in store over the next few years. Yes, I said years. The fallout from this virus and the unprecedented response to it will, I believe, last for years.

I think that we can all agree that things are not going back to the status quo. The future world of landlording and real estate investing will not be the same as it was in March 2020. Perhaps things were about to change anyway as many thought our economy was overheated and about to pop. No matter what made it pop, pop it has and the effects will likely be many.

First, the money has stopped flowing. The economy has basically been shuttered and much of the county’s business operations have ceased or slowed significantly. This shuttering has resulted not only in a loss of jobs, but a slowdown in spending. Are you buying gas, clothes, going to the gym or planning your next vacation? I’m not and neither are many others. The lack of spending means no income for many businesses and a ripple effect for many more.

While the economy will shift to meet new demands created by the shuttering of the economy (delivery services, warehousing, etc), it will take time. Meanwhile people have been laid off. Others have had their hours or salaries drastically reduced. Businesses have closed and may never reopen. Entrepreneurs have canceled plans to open new businesses and government is becoming more and more interventionist in the economy.

We landlords will feel these effects through our tenants. Some tenants have lost all or most of their income and can now not pay their bills. These folks will be forced to make some tough financial decisions in the next few months. Will they be able to remain on their own or will they need to move back in with mom and dad? Perhaps they will decide to reduce costs by moving in with roommates or seek cheaper rental options. Many tenants may be able to make it through this month, but what about the next or the one after that? Thus, not only will we landlords experience unpaid rents, I think our vacancy rates will increase as well.

Those increased vacancy rates will lead to further issues. Increased vacancy means softening demand. Softening demand means reductions in prices or rents as landlords try to reduce vacancies (Los Angeles has already witnessed it’s first rent decrease in over a decade). Vacancies will not only mean less income, they will also mean more expenses. As tenants move, they create turnover costs and as I have written before, tenant turnover is a cashflow killer. Expect this cashflow killer to rear its head in the next few months as the fallout from this crisis continues.

Secondly, some landlords will not survive. Those that are highly leveraged with minimal positive cashflow or have no reserves will not be able to weather this storm. As their tenants fall behind on their rent or move, their limited reserves will be used up paying PITI and trying to get their units rent ready again. Properties will begin to fall into the no income death spiral and some will be forced into foreclosure.

Foreclosure is a long and debilitating process. Banks do not really want to hold real estate and may be overwhelmed as well. Banks will perform only minimum maintenance and will shut the properties down by evicting tenants and turning off utilities. After a year or two, after much neglect, these properties will be listed for sale, probably at a steep discount. But not before displacing and disrupting many investors, tenants and perhaps even entire neighborhoods.

In sum, over the next several months things could be rough for all of us. Both tenants and landlords are going to face challenges. The rainy day is here and it is why I have written about the need to budget for reserves. If however you can hold on and ride this crisis out, there may well be a few real estate deals available for those of us still standing at the end of this thing.

In the meantime, keep those lines of communication with your tenants open. Try to face the problems that arise head on before the become too big. Remember too that we smaller landlords have an advantage. We are more nimble and have the relationships to get us through this thing.

How is your landlording business faring during this crisis? Please share with a comment.

Kevin Perk is the founder and publisher of Smarterlandlording.com. He is the author of Advice From Experience To New Real Estate Investors.  Subscribe to Smarterlandlording here. Contact Kevin here.

Subscribe to Smarterlandlording and receive a Free Report: 21 Tenant Screening Red Flags

The Advantages Of Being A Small Business Landlord

by

It may not always seem like it, but being a small business landlord does have its advantages. Some of these advantages are especially evident in extraordinary times such as the current coronavirus crisis. Our advantage is that we know our properties, we know our businesses, we know our employees and contractors and we know our tenants.

What is a small business landlord? It is someone who perhaps owns only a couple of dwelling units for investment purposes to someone who owns a few dozen units and makes their living being a landlord. It is not a large corporate entity that owns or manages hundreds, perhaps thousands of units. And while companies of all shapes and sizes are facing difficulties right now, I think being small does give us some advantages.  

The Advantage of Knowledge

The biggest advantage that we small business landlords have is knowledge. We are close to the ground and often very involved in day to day operations. We have an intimate knowledge of our properties and understand what has to be fixed immediately and what can wait. We know our employees and contractors. We are only a first name basis with them and may in fact even consider them friends. They know and trust us and they know our properties and tenants. Finally, many of us also know our tenants. We showed them the property, screened and approved them and got the moved in.

The situation may not be the same with larger companies. To a large company, the properties, the employees and contractors, the tenants, may all just numbers on a spreadsheet. Any contact with them is likely to be corporate and cold, if not downright ignorant considering the current situation.

Flexibility

There is another advantage that comes with our smaller size. The larger companies are dominated by corporate policies and procedures. Quickly veering away from them can be difficult if not impossible. Managers may not have the authority or be fearful of going outside of the playbook to respond to rapidly changing conditions.

Now, I’m all for policies and procedures. These types of things help any business run much more efficiently. But, being small business landlords offers us a lot of flexibility, and this flexibility is perhaps our main advantage. We can make decisions on the spot. We can turn on a dime so to speak. Larger companies simply may not be able to do that.

Thus, we can work with tenants as we need to. We can talk things through because we already have a decent landlord/tenant relationship. We can ask for and grant patience. We can directly communicate, and thus put a human face to a situation that can feel very frightful and uncaring.

So while we may not have the huge financial resources of some of the larger management companies, we have relationships and flexibility. Relationships often mean something. Flexibility can be powerful. We can use these relationships and flexibility to help everyone get through this crisis and come out better for it on the other side.

How is your small landlord business dealing with these extraordinary times? Please share what you are doing with other landlords by leaving a comment below.

Kevin Perk is the founder and publisher of Smarterlandlording.com. He is the author of Advice From Experience To New Real Estate Investors.  Subscribe to Smarterlandlording here. Contact Kevin here.

Subscribe to Smarterlandlording and receive a Free Report: 21 Tenant Screening Red Flags

10 Hard-Bargaining Tactics to Watch Out for in a Negotiation

by

The best hard-bargaining tactics can catch you off guard

From – Harvard Law School by PON Staff

Some negotiators seem to believe that hard-bargaining tactics are the key to success. They resort to threats, extreme demands, and even unethical behavior to try to get the upper hand in a negotiation.

In fact, negotiators who fall back on hard-bargaining strategies in negotiation are typically betraying a lack of understanding about the gains that can be achieved in most business negotiations. When negotiators resort to hard-bargaining tactics, they convey that they view negotiation as a win-lose enterprise. A small percentage of business negotiations that concern only one issue, such as price, can indeed be viewed as win-lose negotiations, or distributive negotiations.

Much more commonly, however, business negotiations involve multiple issues. As a result, these so-called integrative negotiations give parties the potential to create win-win outcomes, or mutually beneficial agreements. Business negotiators can negotiate by brainstorming creative solutions, identifying differences in preferences that can be ripe for tradeoffs, and building trust.

Unfortunately, when parties resort to hard-bargaining tactics in negotiations with integrative potential, they risk missing out on these benefits. Because negotiators tend to respond in the way they are treated, one party’s negotiation hardball tactics can create a vicious cycle of threats, demands, and other hardball strategies. This pattern can create a hard-bargaining negotiation that easily deteriorates into impasse, distrust, or a deal that’s subpar for everyone involved.

10 Common Hard-Bargaining Tactics & Negotiation Skills

To prevent your negotiation from disintegrating into hard-bargaining tactics, you first need to make a commitment not to engage in these tactics yourself. Remember that there are typically better ways of meeting your goals, such as building trust, asking lots of questions, and exploring differences.

Next, you need to prepare for your counterpart’s hard-bargaining tactics. To do so, you first will have to be able to identify them. In their book Beyond Winning: Negotiating to Create Value in Deals and Disputes, Robert Mnookin, Scott Peppet, and Andrew Tulumello offer advice to avoid being caught off-guard by hard bargainers. The better prepared we are for hard-bargaining strategies in negotiation, the better able we will be to defuse them.

Here is a list of the 10 hardball tactics in negotiation to watch out for from the authors of Beyond Winning:

  1. Extreme demands followed up by small, slow concessions. Perhaps the most common of all hard-bargaining tactics, this one protects dealmakers from making concessions too quickly. However, it can keep parties from making a deal and unnecessarily drag out business negotiations. To head off this tactic, have a clear sense of your own goals, best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA), and bottom line – and don’t be rattled by an aggressive opponent.
  2. Commitment tactics. Your opponent may say that his hands are tied or that he has only limited discretion to negotiate with you. Do what you can to find out if these commitment tactics are genuine. You may find that you need to negotiate with someone who has greater authority to do business with you.
  3. Take-it-or-leave-it negotiation strategy. Offers should rarely be nonnegotiable. To defuse this hard-bargaining tactic, try ignoring it and focus on the content of the offer instead, then make a counter-offer that meets both parties’ needs.
  4. Inviting unreciprocated offers. When you make an offer, you may find that your counterpart asks you to make a concession before making a counteroffer herself. Don’t bid against yourself by reducing your demands; instead, indicate that you are waiting for a counteroffer.

Read the rest of the tactics here.

Communicate With Your Tenants About Covid-19 Now!

by

The Covid-19 crisis is hitting the US pretty hard as of this writing. As of now, no one really knows when or how the other side of this thing will be reached. Despite this uncertainty, the time for us landlords to communicate with our tenants is now. Now, before the end of the month. Now, before the rent is due. Now,before issues arise.

The long term economic effects of this virus are going to be wide ranging. Some effects are already being felt now. People are losing hours and income while others have been laid off. It will take some time for the economy to adjust and rebound (Don’t worry, it will). Until it does however, some of our tenants will likely face some difficult choices. When they do, the last thing you as the landlord want is for them to hide or stick their heads in the sand. Instead you want them to communicate with you. This is why you must open those channels of communication now rather than waiting on your tenants to do so. Because when your tenants finally do contact you, they may have already dug themselves into too deep of a hole.

Your communication efforts do not have to be anything too detailed or long winded. A simple e-mail of a couple paragraphs will do. We recently sent a quick e-mail out to all of our tenants. In it, we outlined just a few main points.

  • We acknowledged the difficulty of the current situation.
  • We asked our tenants to communicate with us ASAP if they run into any Covid-19 related issues.
  • We stated that by communicating with us, we would try to work with them in the near future.
  • We noted that non-essential repairs would likely be delayed but asked them to continue to report major repair issues through our property management software tenant portal.
  • Finally, we asked them to remember that we are a small business with bills and expenses and are not immune from the effects of this crisis but will do our best to get through it.

You might be asking what does “work with them” mean? Honestly, at this point we are not sure. We figure that will have to be examined on a case by case basis as issues arise. We did however note in our e-mail that any working agreement will be in writing and will become a part of the lease. There will be no verbal side deals.

Overall the response from our tenants has been positive. Most appreciate the effort. Hopefully, by opening up the lines of communication during this crisis we can head off others later on down the road.

Landlords, do not wait any longer. Communicate with your tenants today!

Kevin Perk is the founder and publisher of Smarterlandlording.com. He is the author of Advice From Experience To New Real Estate Investors.  Subscribe to Smarterlandlording here. Contact Kevin here.

Subscribe to Smarterlandlording and receive a Free Report: 21 Tenant Screening Red Flags

Landlords And Covid-19: Daily Headlines (Updated 3/27)

by

Covid-19 is taking everyone into uncharted territory. While there will definitely be an “other side” to this, it is difficult to know where we are headed. So I thought I would collect some headlines to try and help landlords understand the thinking around the country.

I will update this post as new stories arise.

How to Address Coronavirus-Related Landlord-Tenant Issues

City Emergency Orders Suspend Parking Restrictions, Big Blue Bus Fares, Late Penalties on City Bills, COVID-19 Related Commercial and Residential Evictions, and Ellis Act Evictions

Coronavirus Looms Over Crucial Spring Season for Housing Market

HUD to Suspend Evictions & Foreclosures for 60 Days 

What to do if you can’t make your rent or mortgage payments because of the coronavirus pandemic

Colorado governor asks landlords to forgo evictions, penalties for late rent; forms business-response panel

3/21/2020

Tenant groups say eviction moratorium falls short as calls grow to halt rent payments

Small Apartment Owners Ask City to ‘Share Financial Burden’ When Tenants Can’t Pay Rent

COVID-19 Panic Highlights the Importance of Tenant Communication

3/22/2020

Oregon governor says no residential evictions for 90 days

Problems That Arise When Tenants Are Home 24/7 Due to COVID-19 Concerns

COVID-19: Rent, mortgage fears mount

A First Look at Legal Issues in Leases, Thanks to Coronavirus

3/24/2020

Push for rent moratorium

Any creative ideas out there on landlords working with a tenant during this trying time?

U.S. Orders Up To A Yearlong Break On Mortgage Payments

3/25/2020

Can my landlord ask if I am sick with coronavirus?

Help! Can I Evict a Terrible Tenant During the Pandemic?

Why Some Investors Are Seeing Opportunity Today

3/27/2020

What if I Can’t Pay My Rent Now?

West Virginia Attorney General says no tenant will be evicted during Coronavirus Pandemic

Rent deferred. Full amount due. What landlords are telling tenants during the COVID-19 crisis.

Essential vs Non-Essential Businesses During Shelter in Place Orders

Advantages To Owning Rental Property

by

In an effort to provide readers with truly helpful content, I have asked fellow real estate investor, friend and mentor Richard Scarbrough to help. A frequent guest on the Smarterlandlording Podcast, Richard is a wealth of real estate knowledge. His experience in the business totals over 40 years, and it is perhaps best if I let him describe some of what he has done.

When I started investing in real estate, there was hardly any information available. I had great desire and blind optimism to do a lot of different things such as buying homes, moving them, infill lot development, apartments (8, 24, 40 and 216 unit complexes) buying and selling mortgages. I thought if I could own 100 homes I would be rich, so I bought homes from Northaven to Southaven (communities here in the Memphis, TN area), any type property, anyway I could finance it. I also bought, rehabbed and flipped to retail buyers over 400 homes. Along the way I tried numerous management companies that always seemed to manage my properties in a way that I had no cash flow. Some of the above ventures lost money (which I call “seminars” ). But what was more important and cost the most was the lost TIME, as it took me almost a decade to get to back to even after the “216 unit apartment seminar.”  Now at age 71 looking back at 40 years of investing I realize that about a third and maybe half of my investing time was spent recovering from mistakes, therefore anyway we can educate others to avoid these errors is time well spent.

From time to time, I will be publishing some of what I am going to call “Richard on Real Estate.” I hope you will find these posts helpful and entertaining. Let me know what you think or if there is a topic you would like to learn more about by leaving a comment below.

Without further delay then, here is Richard on Real Estate.

The Advantages of Owning Rental Property

There are four major advantages of owning rental property:

  1. Cash Flow – This is usually defined as the difference between the monthly income and the PITI (principle, interest, taxes and insurance) monthly payment. This one gets all the conversation, but is not the most beneficial until the property is paid for.  You should also allow for repairs, maintenance and vacancy loss.  You will get maximum cash flow if you are the manager.
  2. Equity Build Up – Equity build up is gained from the loan being paid down each month, depending on the term and interest rate of the loan.  Equity buildup can be several hundred dollars a month. With a fixed rate amortized loan, equity buildup increases every month.
  3. Price Appreciation – As our government prints money to solve problems we will have inflation.  Real Estate is one of the few investments that benefits from inflation, as inflation increases the property values and pushes rents up.  
  4. Tax Savings – You can depreciate your property as if it was a piece of equipment wearing out and deduct actual dollars off your income tax.  This saves you real dollars while you own the property.  This tax advantage is the main reason I started investing in rental property.  It was very distressing to work so hard and pay more than one third of my income in taxes every year.  Not paying taxes legally is real money.  

Each of the above benefits should be figured as a return on your investment, and each one may be worth more to you in different seasons of your life.  The great thing about real estate investing is that you get all four all the time.

It has always amazed me that if you say the words “Rental Property” to anyone, you get a flood of negative comments.  The only things people think and talk about are all the problems with tenants, such as not paying, tearing up the property, etc.

When confronted with this I always ask people if they have ever had a problem with their car. Yes is always the answer.  I ask further if they think they might have a problem with their car in the future.  Yes again.  Going deeper I ask if these problems mean that you do not want to own a car.  No, is the answer. People want a car because the car takes you from where you are to where you want to be, even though you might have problems.  Rental property can do the same thing – take you from where you are to where you want to be. This is what people do not think about.

Rental property gives four major financial benefits outlined above along with many other non-financial ones.  It can give you monthly cash flow as the tenants pay off the mortgage, inflation will pull the rents and property value up higher, and tax benefits that can lower your income taxes to almost zero.

Just as traveling is easier with a car, advancing your financial position is easier if you have rental property. There are a lot of good people who are in different seasons of life who will pay on time and take care of property. Owning residential rental property really does offer many advantages.

Subscribe to Smarterlandlording and receive a Free Report: 21 Tenant Screening Red Flags

Landlording And The Coronavirus

by

The Coronavirus is here and the reaction is unprecedented.  Large gatherings are being canceled (What am I going to do without March Madness?), supplies are being hoarded and people are social distancing. Whether all of this reaction is justified or not remains to be seen but what we can say is that the impacts will be wide ranging.  We landlords will not be immune so to speak from these impacts. Have you considered what some of these impacts to your business might be? Have you considered how you might handle them?

Te impacts right now are few. The effects of the virus and the public health reaction to it are just beginning here in the US. People are just now beginning to travel less, eat out less frequently and generally close themselves off and stay home. It may seem like a vacation to many right now but in a couple of weeks things are likely going to feel very different.

In the coming weeks, we will all be trying to avoid unnecessary contact with others in order to keep the spread of the virus to a minimum. Consider what this means for your landlording business. It means that some of your tenants will likely loose sources of income.  Think of those that work in restaurants or in other service jobs such as driving for Uber. They may very well take a significant hit to their pocketbooks and the resources they have will be stretched thin. Many may be able to make it through this month but what about the next?

It is likely you will get calls from tenants regarding late rent payments because of this lost income. I have written before about how some tenants are being squeezed. The potential loss of income in the coming weeks means that tenants may have to make some difficult choices between food, gas and rent.  What should your reaction be?

If they have been otherwise good tenants I suggest working with them. This epidemic and the reaction to it is like nothing we have seen in our lifetime. But, it will pass.  Thus, if you can, it might be best to work out a payment plan with your struggling tenants. Discuss with them what they can and cannot do right now and develop a written plan to get them over the hump. Most will appreciate it and will follow through. And besides, where are you going to find new tenants now anyway?  No one is likely going to be out and about looking for a new place to live.

Repairs and maintenance are also likely to suffer a bit as well. Everyone will likely want to keep their distance or may be sick. Major rehab jobs where there is little contact with others might be able to keep going but tenants may be worried about people coming into their homes. So perhaps it is best to put off anything non-essential for a while.  

What can we landlords do right now to help get through this? If you are not doing so already, go virtual with your tenants and contractors. Connect with everyone as remotely as you can. Thankfully our modern day phones and property management systems make that pretty easy. There really is no need for contact, other than showings, anymore.  Use this time as an experiment to see how you can better streamline your business using virtual technology and take yourself out of some of the day to day hustle and bustle.  

Most of all, be patient, as this too shall pass. Be patient with your tenants.  Be patient with your employees and contractors. Everyone is being impacted by this crisis. Give people time to recover and get back on their feet again. There is really no reason, for example, to pull out the eviction hammer right now. You may very well not be able to file anyway as I see that some courts are closing down. Plus, other jurisdictions are talking about enacting a moratorium on evictions. Do not fuel those flames. Patience is the name of the game right now.

Ask for patience as well. Everyone and every business is going to feel the effects of this virus. Hopefully things will blow over pretty quickly. Until they do, repairs and other business needs may not get done as quickly.  Ask everyone for patience until the virus passes.  Let folks know that you are working and doing your best but things are a bit uncertain. Most will understand, but you have to communicate and let them know.

What are you doing with your landlording business to get through the Coronavirus?  How has it affected your business, if at all? Let us know with a comment.

Kevin Perk is the founder and publisher of Smarterlandlording.com. He is the author of Advice From Experience To New Real Estate Investors.  Subscribe to Smarterlandlording here. Contact Kevin here.

Subscribe to Smarterlandlording and receive a Free Report: 21 Tenant Screening Red Flags

The SmarterLandlording Podcast – Creating A Brand And A Marketing Plan To Find, Buy and Wholesale Discounted Properties

by

Download the podcast here.  Or, check out the SmarterLandlording Channel on iTunes

Order Your Copy of Advice From Experience To New Real Estate Investors Today!

Available in E-Book or Paperback

Links You Should Check Out

Building A Story Brand by Donald Miller – Matt’s recommendation for you to learn how to build your brand and focus your marketing.

Canva.com – Create professional looking logos and e-mail and social media templates for free!

Upwork.com – Hire a virtual assistant to help you grow your business.

National Reia – Find a real estate investors group in your area to network with other real estate investors.

Memphis Investors Group – Visit the the heartbeat of Memphis real estate to network with hundreds of other real estate investors.

Want To Contact Us?

Find Matt and I at the Memphis Investors Group almost every month.  We meet on the second Thursday.  The details are here.  

Want to get on Matt’s Buyer’s list?  Have a property you want to sell?  Just want to learn more?  Contact Matt at 901.245.6005 or by e-mail at ma**@aa*******.com “> Ma**@aa*******.com

You can find me at my blog, Smarterlandlording.com

And you can like my Facebook page or connect at Twitter @Smarterlandlord.

Like the Intro Music?  Check out my good friends in the band Kitchens and Bathrooms (Kind of fits right!).  They write and play some awesome, original music from right here in Memphis, TN.