It is recommending that in your leases you include language suggesting that your tenants get renters insurance. Here is a short video on why.
If you think as landlord won’t have any problems with tenants. I had two properties in Mesa Arizona where tenants didn’t have insurance and they requested the landlord cover their cost. Lucky for us we had language in the lease recommending they get it.
The Mesa Tribune is reporting that vacancies in the East Valley are dropping. I want to ask do you believe it? Read It Here.
As a property manager, I have seen an uptick in the rental housing market but I have not seen the uptick in apartment style housing.
We are renting houses as fast as they come on the market. Our last house rented in a matter of 4 days and for more than we originally asked for. We are still getting calls on our marketing. We are not even offering incentives to move in.
One problem that is coming has to do with all the incentives that have been offered. When you have free rent you tend to get those who don’t have any money and if you rent to them you then end up doing evictions which can be costly. So as a landlord if you offer free rent, be careful.
Here is an article by the Mesa Tribune regarding an attempt to expand the homestead exemption here in Arizona. Read More Here
Given the fact that many of the banks have taken TARP funds from the federal government, maybe it is not such a bad idea to increase the exemption from $150,000 to $300,000.
Just my personal feelings on this matter.
I was traveling home last evening with a friend from Las Vegas, Nevada. We had both been attending a convention not related to real estate but to a medical technology company called NuCerity.
I make it a habit to attending conferences that don’t necessarily pertain to real estate for the purposes seeing how other organizations communicate with clients and customers.
As we traveled home at 11pm, our conversation turned to the current state of real estate in Arizona. We are both in the property management, and bother are brokers of our companies.
We both agree that there is going to be another wave of foreclosures in the residential market and then there will also be a round in the commercial foreclosures.
An interesting point that was brought up are these broker opinions of values that banks are having done. These real estate broker doing these opinions of value are not real estate appraiser, they have no training in establishing a value for a property, they are only entitled to give an opinion of value.
The problem with these opinions of value are that the brokers are using distressed property to determine a value for another distress property. This cause downward pressure on the housing market drive down property values even further.
These brokers have never been in the comparable, distressed property and they don”t know the condition of the property, their assumption is always that it was in better condition than the one they are looking at.
The other problem with these opinions of value is that the brokers are only focusing on what is wrong with the property, they are also determining what it will cost to make repairs. Again the problem that arises is that these brokers aren’t licensed contractors and have no idea of the true cost to make repairs.
These broker opinions of value are bad for the the real estate business and they are driving down the price of your home.
In a shocking number, bed bugs once seems to be gone but now they are coming back in great numbers. For many tenants and landlords these can be nightmare to get ride of. Once you have them you have them. Bed bugs are seems to just a rezillant at roaches are and they have been around for a long time.
There is no effective way to get ride of them. There is not certain pesticide and the do it yourself person is going to have a battle on his hands.
In my research I came across a couple of videos one of which I’m linking to.
One of the often overlooked areas and mistakes that people make when renting their house out that they have lived in, is changing their insurance policy to a landlord policy. The home you lived in now because a business and requires a different insurance policy that covers different things.
Here is a good post in The New York Times.
