The big show is coming to town and I'm expecting it to be a lot like a circus for a couple of days! Tomorrow is the first day of rent collecting - my favorite part of the month. Tomorrow is also the start of a record number of move-ins for me (or at least that's what I'm expecting. To be quite honest, I'm not sure how many we're up to - six or seven.

I almost finished the duplex today. I installed the electrical circuit for the dryer. I installed drain lines for the washer and the bathroom sink. Even the circuits for the new electric baseboard heat are almost done. If I can finish the baseboard heat tomorrow, the duplex will be ready for occupancy. I'll be glad when we're done and everyone is moved in! It's going to be a wild week!

It looks like May is going to be our biggest month ever. With the 12 units we've taken over this month, we had several vacancies to fill. Prior to this month, the most move-ins I've ever had was 5 in one month. It looks like we'll have 6 or 7 for May (and maybe more). I simply can not believe how hot the rental market seems to be right now. We had another applicant look at another 1 bedroom apartment today and they say that are taking it. WOW! To tell the truth, I'm a little overwhelmed by all the activity this past month. It's been quite a while since I've worked this hard, but that is a good problem to have and I'm not complaining!

Today, I started out by changing the locks and installing all new miniblinds in one of the 3 bedroom houses that we are buying. It looks like about 2 days of work will make this house rent ready. I have 2 rooms of carpet to change and the kitchen needs painting. I'm anxious to have time to get this done! Hopefully, I'll have it done by the end of the week.

After completing this work, I went to the duplex I've been working on and ran the wiring for the new electric water heater. I also spent a few minutes deciding how to run the wiring for the washer and dryer, and the new electric baseboard heat. I'm running out of time on this unit and tomorrow all of this wiring will need to be finished! I've done a lot of these projects, so I don't think we'll have a problem finishing tomorrow - right on time!

After 6 hours of hard work , I headed home. I felt bad for missing Church this morning, but the work had to be done. Thankfully, it is a rare occassion that I have to work on Sunday. I arrived home in plenty of time to go to Church this evening for our small group meeting (which is my favorite thing at Church). To make things even better, the weather was absolutely perfect and I called one of the other members of our small group to arrange a motorcycle ride to Church. My wife and I rode our motorcycle to town to meet the other member and we rode together to Church! It doesn't get better than that! Yet another member of our small group is also considering getting a motorcycle. I keep saying that I'm going to start a motorcycle gang at church. Now we need a cool name. Any thoughts?

These past couple of days have been extremely busy. Yesterday, I did paperwork all morning: paying bills and balancing checkbooks. After lunch, I installed a new electric water heater in our new duplex. However, between working on the water heater, things were simply CHAOS. The phone rang constantly! I showed a couple of apartments and my new three bedroom house to several potential tenants. I simply can't believe how many people are seriously looking for rentals. This may be a record month for move-ins. At this point, I believe that we have 5 people moving-in this month.

Today, I mowed the grass at several of our apartment buildings and at our two new houses. Before I could mow at the houses, I had to clean a bunch of debris out of the yard. Once I finished the mowing, I measured for new mini-blinds and created a short list of the things that are needed to rent the property.

Although I don't like to work on Sundays, I'll be going to church tomorrow evening instead of tomorrow morning. With only 2 days left til the tenant moves into the duplex I've been rehabbing, I don't have a minute to spare. I need to run all the wiring for the new electric baseboard heat; wiring for the electric stove; wiring for the dryer and washer. In addition, I need to run water and drain lines for the washer and drain lines for the bathroom sink. Finally, I need to seal the roof over the kitchen. That should be enough to keep me busy for 2 days.

I got the cosmetics all done on my rehab today. It's looking pretty good if I do say so myself. Tomorrow, I will be working on the mechanical work that needs to be done. I will install a new electric water heater; a new drain line for the bathroom sink; and the electric for new baseboard heat.

It might seem strange to do the cosmetic work first, but the reason I did that was because people don't notice a missing water heater, especially in a basement they don't have access to. They also don't notice that there is no heat in the house. However, what they do notice is new carpet, fresh paint, and new trim. Doing those cosmetics allowed me to rent the unit for May and THAT IS IMPORTANT!

The rental market has really heated up. That's a good thing because last year was the worst rental year in 15 years, according to long time landlords in our area. There has been tremendous demand for rentals this past couple of weeks and we should have a lot of move-ins at the beginning of May. I sent in paperwork to Section 8 for another unit today.

First thing in the morning, I've got to print a rent-roll and a combined cash flow analysis to drop off at the bank that is doing the loan on the 2 rental houses I'm buying. I showed one of those houses today to a prospective tenant and am hoping to have at least one of them rented for May (before I even own it). It's a great time to be in the rental business!

Today was another good day in the rental business. I rented the unit of the duplex that I have been rehabbing, starting May 1st. Of course, now I've got to get it finished. So far, I've trashed out the unit; painted the entire interior; replaced a broken window pane; repaired the wood floor in the kitchen; removed old carpeting; carpeted the living room, kitchen, bathroom, and one bedroom; repaired the kitchen ceiling; replaced the toilet seat; painted the stairs; cleaned up the yard; repaired holes in the walls; installed new miniblinds on all windows; rebuilt two interior walls that had been removed by the previous tenant; painted the exterior door and an exterior window; and replaced the kitchen faucet. Still to do: install a new electric water heater; install new electric baseboard heat throughout the unit; install bathroom cabinet, sink, and faucet, install new electric plug for a dryer, and drain line for washer.

With this duplex rented, I'm out of 3-bedroom rentals again (which is a good problem to have). Therefore, I contacted the seller of the two houses that I'm buying and arranged with her to allow me to show them. I already have an appointment to show one of the houses tomorrow. It will be a great plus if I can get both of these houses rented before I even buy them!

I also spoke with the banker this morning. Unfortunately, the lending standards have tightened since I did my last loan. At this point, the bank will only loan 80% of the purchase price. If I want to pay cash and then refinance, I will have to wait 6 months to refi. Ugh! Therefore, I have decided to bite the bullet and go with the 80% financing, although I don't like it.

Finally, I've got an update on my recent blog describing a friend who had an eviction that got out of control. To make a long story short, the tenant got a legal aid lawyer to represent him and made my friend's eviction a nightmare. The legal aid lawyer countersued for damages and requested a JURY TRIAL! I didn't even know that a tenant had a right to a jury trial for an eviction. Anyway, the tenant had to post a bond for the jury trial to proceed and that didn't happen. My friend got a lawyer of her own, who put pressure on the legal aid lawyer. Today, the case was settled with the tenant agreeing in a court hearing to be out by the May 15th and the tenant to pay damages. A clear victory for the landlord after a lot of unnecessary stress.

My plan for today was to go to Church this morning and put some new carpet in my duplex this afternoon. I did go to Church (and ran the projection for the church services), but that was as far as I got with today's plan. The pastor was a little long winded and by the time I got home, I had decided that I was feeling lazy. I just didn't have much energy and decided to take the day off.

At 3pm, the phone rang. It was an investor from my local REIA. This particular investor has been a very successful rental property owner for over 20 years and until recently owned about 50 rentals. About a year ago, she decided to sell her portfolio of rental properties and move to Florida to retire. Obviously, as a sharp investor, she put the properties on the market at retail. During the past year, she sold many of her properties. She has asked me in the past if I wanted to buy any of the properties. I have always said yes, but at MY PRICE (which was about half of what she was selling for). She completely understood that, but of course wanted to get the most for her properties.

The headline in our local paper yesterday concerned a major drug bust in our city. Unfortunately, the drug bust occurred at two of the houses this investor owned. In the same 24 hour period as the drug busts, someone crashed their car into another of her properties, tearing the corner from the house. This investor has already made a bunch of money on the houses she sold and because of the bad tenants is now wanting to get rid of the rest of her properties - NOW! She called today to ask if I was interested in any of her properties. As usual, I said yes, but at MY PRICE. To my amazement, she said that she would sell both of the three bedroom houses that were involved in the drug raid for a total of $50,000 ($25,000 each), which is exactly MY PRICE.

I told the investor that I would take them both as long as they hadn't been destroyed in the raid. I asked when she could meet to show me the houses and sign the contracts. We agreed on 4pm. I grabbed a purchase contract and got out the motorcycle. It was a beautiful day, so I wanted to combine looking at the properties with getting in a nice motorcycle ride. We met at the houses at 4pm and I looked at both. One of the houses is in good condition and will be ready to rent out as soon as it is trashed out (but the seller). The other house is also in good condition, but will need interior paint and one of the rooms has a large burn hole in the carpet from the concussion grenade used by the police. I would estimate that I can have it ready to rent in 3 days.

As it turns out, the seller also arrived at the property on a motorcycle and we proceeded to ride to a local restaurant to sign the contract. Fifteen minutes later, the contract was signed and I was riding home.

So, how did the day turn out? I am buying two single family houses for $25,000 each. The properties have a retail value of $50,000 each. Therefore, at closing I will pick up $50,000 in equity. In addition, I will rent each house for $550 per month for total rent of $1,100. Operating expenses will be about $550 for the pair leaving $550 as the NOI. The mortgage payment on $50,000 will be about $316, meaning my positive cash flow from these two properties will be $234 per month or $117 per unit per month. In addition to the cash flow, I will be doing the management and maintenance, which means I will EARN back about an additional $200 per month.

So, my Sunday afternoon produced $50,000 in instant equity and a total of $434 per month ($5,208 per year) in cash. In addition, I will get whatever appreciation occurs (if any) over the long term; depreciation for tax purposes; and paydown of the mortgage principal balance (with the tenant's rent. NOT BAD FOR ONE AFTERNOON!

The icing on the cake is that this investor still has other properties left that I may be able to buy at the same 50% discount!

I spent another 4 hours working on the duplex today. All the trim pieces are now installed in the living room and the new Berber carpet is installed (55 cents per sq. ft. at Lowes). This was only my second time seaming carpet and I was relatively pleased with the way it came out. This Berber carpet has a very nice diamond pattern in it, but that makes seaming more difficult than a carpet with no pattern.

Tomorrow morning I will be running projection at church. Normally, I don't work on Sunday, but my wife is going out of town with our daughter and therefore I might as well do something instead of sitting around all afternoon. Therefore, I'm planning to install carpet in one of the upstairs bedrooms tomorrow. This bedroom now has really nasty tan commercial carpet in the center portion of the room and some 1960's vintage purple shag carpet around the perimeter of the room - UGLY! Obviously, this is something that one of the tenant's did!

I'm still on pace to have this ready to rent for May 1st, and I'll start showing it this week (after tomorrow's carpet job).

Wow! This was a short week. When you start working on Friday, the week goes fast! After our camping trip this week, I headed back to work today on one of our duplexes. I patched a bunch of small holes in a wall; removed the horrible carpet in the living room; and rebuilt two short walls that had been completely removed by the previous tenant (when the property belonged to the previous owner).

After working my 4 hours, I spent a few minutes mowing the grass at one of our apartment buildings. Then, I called it a day.

After dinner, I received a call from one of the tenant applicants who wanted me to come pick up his security deposit. That was the perfect excuse to get out the motorcycle and ride into town. It was a beautiful evening for a ride and there is nothing better than a ride where someone gives you money!!!

Tomorrow, I'm planning to install carpet in the living room and do a little of the trim work. Another 3 or 4 hours and then I'll call it a weekend!

We are home from the first camping trip of the season. We had a great 4 days with wonderful weather, motorcycle riding, bicycle riding, and cookouts! Excellent! I'm looking forward to many more trips. My wife mentioned Hilton Head today. That might make for a good trip in May.

Anyway, after I returned home, I received a call from one of my friends who is a landlord. She is evicting a tenant, which all successful landlords do with regularity. In fact, evictions are simply a routine part of the business.

Unfortunately, my friend's eviction is anything but routine. The tenant got one of those free, scumbag, legal aid lawyers who is helping the tenant fight the eviction. Believe it or not, the tenant is claiming that the property was not inhabitable due to a mouse infestation. Ironically the tenant is completely responsible for the mouse problem due to his filthy housekeeping skills. He is so dirty that he has been cited twice by the Nuisance Officer for causing a nuisance. Normally, none of this would matter. If the tenant doesn't pay the rent, they are evicted - PERIOD!

In this case, the legal aid lawyer is claiming that because the place was uninhabitable, no rent was due. To make matters worse, the legal aid lawyer has demanded a jury trial for the eviction. This is where I learned something. I didn't even know that it was possible to have a jury trial for an eviction! UGH! At any rate, if the tenant can post a bond for a few months rent, he will get a jury trial. The landlord will be stuck with the tenant for several months and will lose money the entire time. Of course, if the landlord prevails, she will receive the lost rent for which the bond was posted, but will probably never recover any more than that. What a bunch of CRAP! Our society has gotten so screwed up that no-one seems to know what is right anymore. It is certainly NOT right that a deadbeat tenant gets a free lawyer. It is also not right that a honest landlord is made to suffer by the legal system.

I'm ready for another vacation!

We finally got our first camping trip of the year started! Thanks to the flexibility that my rental property business allows us to enjoy, my wife and I were able to wait out the bad weather. When the weather finally improved yesterday, we jumped in the motorhome and headed out on our first camping trip of the year! It was a beautiful day with sunny skies, but WOW - it was windy. The motorhome really bounces around in the wind and my wife was quite concerned when we drove one stretch of two-lane road with a deep ditch on the right side and absolutely no berm. I'll bet they have a LOT of accidents on that stretch of road. Thankfully, we made it without incident.

Before leaving yesterday afternoon, I did get some work done.

First, I changed a faucet that had gone bad. That took about 10 minutes; cost me $18 (at Lowes); and made me enough money to pay for this week's RV park fees. That is why I do the maintenance myself. If I had called a plumber to change that faucet, he would have certainly charged me a $75 to $100 service charge plus the cost of the faucet, which would have certainly been more $18. By doing it myself, I earned that $75 to $100 service charge. Is is worth 10 minutes of my time to make $75 to $100? YES!

Next, I patched a small hole in a concrete floor. Again, this took less than 10 minutes and the 40 pound bag of Quickrete was less than $3 at Lowes. How much would it have cost to have a handyman fix this problem? Again, too much! I pocketed that labor fee also!

Next, there was a small roof leak in one of our apartment buildings. This problem took a little longer - about 45 minutes all told. I had half a can of roofing tar left from sealing a roof last year, so there was no material cost for this repair. How much would it have cost to have a roofer fix this leak? I'm sure that it would have cost at least $100, if you could find anyone to do it. Another $100 made.

Finally, I met the Section 8 inspector at one of our 1 bedroom apartments. The apartment passed and the tenant will be moving in May 1st!

I was done at 12:30 and earned at least $250 by doing this maintenance myself. Not bad for 3 hours work. I headed home and we were on the road!

Many people ask me what would happen if there was a maintenance problem at one of our rentals while I'm on vacation or out of town on a camping trip? Simple, unless it's an emergency, I will schedule an appointment with the tenant to fix the problem when I return. If it is an emergency, like a big water leak or broken furnace, then I'll simply call the appropriate repair company. Although I usually do all maintenance myself and don't like to pay their high fees, I will call a plumber or heating/air conditioning company to correct a major problem if needed, so that I can enjoy my vacation! That's the beauty of the business! I'm earning the rent even while I'm camping.

On today's schedule: bicycle riding with my wife; a motorcycle ride; a cookout; FUN!

Have a great day!

The painting is now done in one unit of the duplex that I am rehabbing. In addition, I have completed the installation of the carpet in both the kitchen and bathroom. You're probably thinking that it's crazy to put carpet in the kitchen and bathroom. However, through experience, I have found that there is no good solution to covering the bathroom and kitchen floors. Vinyl floors are destroyed rapidly by the tenants as they drag heavy objects around the apartment. This is especially true in the kitchen. Tile floors are rapidly damaged as the tenants drop heavy objects on them. Wood and Laminate floors are easily and predictably damaged by water. Carpet is lucky to last two years in a typical rental.

Therefore, we have decided to install carpet (with no pad) in our kitchens and bathrooms. The reason is that carpet is the fastest and cheapest to replace once damaged. For example, after Church today, I installed new carpet in both the kitchen and bathroom of the duplex I'm working on. It only took about 3 hours to do both rooms (by myself) including installing the tack strips.

I am also pleased to announce that our prospective tenant did show up yesterday and put down a non-refundable deposit on one of our one bedroom apartments. Tomorrow, we have the Section 8 inspection on another of our one bedroom apartments. That's great news as we are just about out of vacant rentals. All of our houses are rented. All available 1 and 3 bedroom rentals are rented. With the acquisition of our new buildings and the rehabbing of those units, we will soon have a 3 bedroom apartment, a 4 bedroom apartment, and two 1 bedroom apartments available.

We're getting very close to our camping trip. We are planning to leave either tomorrow afternoon or Tuesday morning and staying through Thursday or Friday. Another camping trip is already scheduled for the first weekend in May.

Progress was the word of the day. If you read yesterday's blog, you know that we had a second inspection of one of our new Section 8 rental units. I am happy to report that the unit passed again! I was a little concerned about it because the tenant has already moved in and if the unit would have failed, that could have been trouble. Fortunately, that didn't happen.

I also made more progress on the rehab I'm doing. Everything except one bedroom is now painted. I will hopefully finish that tomorrow and do some additional work on the unit. I also installed a new faucet in the kitchen of this unit today. I'm still planning on having this unit ready to rent for May 1st. So far, so good.

One of the couples that looked at one of our 1 bedroom apartments a couple of days ago called today to say that they would take it. We are supposed to meet tomorrow to fill out the paperwork! Good!

Since I started at 10am today, I quit about 1:30 pm and headed home. I'm still working on stocking the RV and I replaced a broken TV antenna handle today. Have a good weekend!

My day started with a call from one of our tenants. She has lived in one of our apartment buildings for about four months. She called to complain about the downstairs tenant who has been throwing left-over food into the back yard. She claims that the discarded food is causing her dog to get sick.

I called the downstairs tenant and politely asked him to refrain from throwing food into the yard (you would think that this would be common sense). He said that he only throws food into the yard when they have a roast or similar food. I'm not sure how that makes sense, but a lot of tenants do things that aren't logical to me. At any rate, he agreed not to do this anymore.

About five minutes after I talked to the downstairs tenant, he called me back to complain about the upstairs tenant. It seems that she had yelled at him a week earlier because of the food in the yard. He wanted me to talk to her about her attitude. DEALING WITH TENANTS IS A LOT LIKE HAVING A BUNCH OF THREE YEAR OLD CHILDREN!

I arrived in town at about noon. My first project was to change the kitchen faucet in the apartment of our newest Section 8 tenant. When she moved in a week ago, the water was shut off. After finally having the water turned on, she discovered that her faucet was partially clogged. I thought the problem was probably the strainer, but discovered that the faucet didn't even have a strainer. While I was changing the faucet, the tenant asked me if I received a letter about the inspection tomorrow. I had not received any letter and the duplex was just inspected on the 2nd and passed. I read her letter and it seems that HUD is doing an audit type inspection to check on the work of their inspector. Ugh! So, tomorrow morning we will have a SECOND inspection on this property. I am NOT happy about that!

Shortly after installing the new sink, I received a call from the police. It was the nuisance officer calling to talk about one of our new properties. This is the same property where I met the same nuisance officer and the tenant earlier this week. The tenant is a pack-rat and his front porch is a mess. When we met earlier this week, the officer said that the tenant had done a good job cleaning up the porch and that everything was ok. However, today the officer received a call from the Mayor's office who had received a letter and pictures from a neighbor of the tenant. The neighbor and the tenant do no get along and thus the complaint. I discussed the issue with the officer and he was going to work out the problem with the tenant. Have I mentioned that dealing with tenants is a lot like taking care of children???

Next, I went to the post office to pick up the mail. In today's mail was a letter from the city declaring another of our properties a nuisance. Uggghhhhh! It seems that one of our long-term tenants, living in one of our SFHs, has a pile of tree limbs in her back yard near the alley. I called this tenant who said she had already talked to the nuisance officer directly and has taken care of the problem. Finally, a tenant that can take care of her own problems!!!

That was enough nonsense for one day and I decided to call it a day.

When I arrived home, I checked the weather channel one more time for our camping trip which was supposed to start tomorrow. I have been checking the weather all week long and every single time I checked, they were predicting temperatures in the 60's this weekend and sunny skies! As of this morning, the weatherman suddenly changed his mind and is now calling for a high both Saturday and Sunday of 40! That is cold enough to take all the fun out of camping. Therefore, we've have changed our camping trip from tomorrow to Monday or Tuesday. Fortunately, owning a rental property business means that I can go camping any day I like. If the weather is better during the week, that's when we'll go!

With only one more work day until the first camping trip of the year, I continued work on one of our new duplexes. Today, I finished the painting on the living room and kitchen. I also installed new miniblinds throughout the house. Finally, I cleaned and vacuumed up the living room carpet, which was covered with a million pieces of broken flourescent tubes. This project is starting to look a LOT better. There is still a lot ot do, but I am confident that I will have it ready to rent by May 1st.

I also showed a one-bedroom apartment to potential tenants and they claim that they will take the unit. They promise to have the security deposit in the next couple of days. We'll see. Tenants are fickle. I'd say the chances are 50-50.

One more day of work tomorrow and then a 4 day weekend!

My mind is REALLY on our camping trip later this weekend. To get ready for our trip, I spent part of the morning paying all of my real estate bills that are due through next week. With several dozen properties, I literally receive several bills every day and they must be paid on time. I usually spend an hour or so each week doing the bills for that week. However, when we're going on a trip, I try to do the bills far enough in the future that I won't have any bills to worry about when I first return home.

After paying the bills, I headed to town to start painting the interior of one side of the new duplex we just bought. As I reached town, I received a call from one of our tenants who said her outside faucet was spraying water everywhere. I went straight to the house with the water leak and found that the faucet had a pin hole in it. I shut off the water at the meter and removed the leaking faucet. The local plumbing supply store is only about a mile from the house and I was able to get a replacement faucet for less than four dollars. Less than 5 minutes later, the faucet was replaced and I was on my way to the duplex. These type of incidents are where it is VERY beneficial to do your own maintenance. It would have cost about $80 to have a plumber fix this minor problem. It took me less than four dollars and 15 minutes to do the job. Eighty dollars saved is eighty dollars earned!

The unit I'm working on in the duplex is a real mess. The walls are wood paneling and are in poor condition. In fact, the paneling was in such poor cosmetic shape that the previous tenant put wood paneling wall paper on the wood paneling. I thought that was quite humorous. This is a $550 per month rental, so I certainly am not going to spend a fortune drywalling the apartment. With low income apartments, it is absolutely critical to remember that I will not be living in the apartment. Most likely, a tenant will be living in it who won't take great care of it anyway. That's the rental game. We fix them up and the tenants tear them up.

I decided to paint the paneling white, as I have done in other rentals in the past. Painting the paneling usually results in a good looking unit which is easy to rent. After stripping off all of the fake panel wallpaper, I spent about 3 hours painting. I got four walls done, two in the living room and two in the kitchen.

After all of this, I finally got down to the important work of the day. I started the engine on the RV. It ran fine! Next, I tried to start the generator and was not as lucky here. The generator didn't want to start and was making a clicking sound. At first, I thought that the starter solenoid might be trying to agitate me. However, after a little thought, I decided that a more logical cause would be a low charge on the coach battery. I ran the engine on the RV at a higher RPM for about 5 minutes and attempted to start the generator again. BINGO! The generator started right up and ran fine! At this point, I don't know whether the coach battery is good or not. I'll probably just take the first trip this weekend with the existing coach battery and see whether the driving will allow the battery to fully charge. If not, I'll simply replace the battery.

In addition to the engine and generator, my wife and I also started stocking the RV. We got most of the food in the refrigerator and the pantry partially filled. We'll finish stocking the RV tomorrow and I'll fill the water. I think we're just about ready to go! Two days and counting!

Religion Alert: If you are an atheist or otherwise offended by the mention of religion, this post is NOT for you. Please skip it and check back tomorrow.

We had a very busy weekend. With one practice and 3 performances of our church's Easter Play, there was not a lot of spare time. The Easter performance was a great success. Our church normally has an attendance of about 1,000 on most Sundays. This weekend, we had nearly 2,000 people in attendance.

I was struck by the similarities between the way many people treat religion and the way many people treat real estate investing.

First, with religion, many people get hot on God around Christmas and Easter, but don't follow through the rest of the year. With real estate investing, people get hot on real estate for a short period of time, but most don't follow through to the point of even buying their first property.

Second, while many people attend church, only a few people are actively involved at their church. It is often said that 10% of the people do 90% of the work and I've found that to be very true. This is very similar to real estate investing. Although many would LIKE to be successful real estate investors, the vast majority are not willing to do the hard work that is necessary to be successful. It is possible to build significant cash flow and wealth with a rental property business, but most people will simply not put forth the effort to get the job done.

Finally, I have noticed that people want something for nothing. Fortunately, in Christianity, salvation is free and requires no hard work or significant study. However, that is not true of running a rental property business or other real estate investing. Even though many want to be rich without work or effort, that simply does not happen (although it sounds good on a TV infomercial or at a free guru seminar). If you aren't willing to commit to a LOT of study and work, you will not succeed in the rental property business.

I believe that we are finally going to get into our summer groove this week. I spent the morning trying to determine which campground we would be visiting this weekend. We will be visiting relatives near Springfield Ohio and have decided to stay at the Urbana campground. Fortunately, the weather is supposed to improve this week and I am REALLY looking forward to a 4-day weekend of visiting with relatives, camping, motorcycle riding, bicycling, cooking out, and FUN!

After lunch, I did a little work on one of our apartments, replacing some damages ceiling tiles. This should have been a 30 minute job, but the 16 inch (staple-type) tiles are out of production and therefore I had to go to Plan B. In this case, Plan B was to make my own tiles out of 1/2 inch drywall. It was certainly more work than simply buying the tiles, but I got it done!

After the ceiling tile repair, I mowed the grass at one of our apartment buildings. It has a relatively small yard and takes less than 30 minutes to mow. By the time the mowing was complete, I had already worked about 3 hours and that was enough for today. I've got to admit that my mind was more on camping than rental properties.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a nice day and I'm looking forward to a bike ride!

Today, I spent my typical 4-hours of work trashing out a vacant unit in one of our new duplexes. The 3-bedroom apartment was absolutely filled with trash and junk. I filled up the bed of my pickup and a 10 foot trailer with all the stuff and took it to the dump. The debris weighed almost exactly 1,000 pounds.

There is a tremendous demand for 3 bedroom rentals in our area right now. This unit needs a lot of work: paint (inside and out), carpet, bathroom sink and cabinet, possibly some new windows, new electric baseboard heaters and associated wiring, etc. I am planning to have it done in about 2 weeks and rented for May.

After the work on the duplex, I picked up the final rent for the month. This was a very unusual month as I had two tenants pay late (1 day and 2 days late). Both paid our $50 late fee. We are very strick with the rent. The rent is due on the 1st; late after 5pm on the fourth; we post 3 day eviction notices on the 5th (yesterday) and file the evictions in court on the 8th. Between 5pm on the 4th and the close of business on the 7th, the tenants can still pay the rent but they MUST also pay the $50 late fee. After the 7th, we no longer accept rent and do evict them.

I will be busy with church activities Saturday and Sunday (Easter). I am running the projection for the Easter Cantata. This will include a final practice Saturday morning, a performance Saturday evening, and two performances on Sunday. See you in church!

I received the first housewarming present for one of our new properties today. It arrived in an official looking white envelope with our city's emblem on it. This housewarming gift was an invitation to either clean up one of our new properties within 10 days or be charged with a misdemeanor.

Little did the city's nuisance officer know that I had already told the tenant to clean up his mess. There is no doubt that the tenant is a slob and has all kinds of junk in the yard. The previous owner permitted this situation to occur and now it's my job to make the tenant clean it up.

I will have 10 days to make the tenant comply or I will pay the price for my tenant's actions. Of course, this isn't right. Tenants should be responsible for their own actions. However, local governments know that many tenants are irresponsible deadbeats and therefore it is easier and more profitable to go after the owner. Charging fees to the owner or fining the owner brings in extra money to the city. In these days when the public is tiring of excessive taxation, imposing fees and fines on "rich" landlords is a popular way to raise money.

The rental market definitely seems to be picking up. Over the past 2 days, I have picked up three new tenants, one of which moved in today. At this point, I am completely out of single-family houses and 3-4 bedroom apartments. One of the new buildings that we just took over contains one 3-bedroom apartment and one 4-bedroom apartment, both of which need a cosmetic rehab before they can be rented. I estimate that it will take me about 2 weeks each to complete the rehabs. I will probably start these rehabs on Friday.

I met another sad example of our future generation today. This was a young single girl with a baby. She came to look at one of our 2 bedroom apartments. After she looked at the apartment, she said she needed it "right away". Right Away - those two little words set off alarm bells for me. In my experience, when a tenant needs an apartment right away, what they are really saying is that they are being evicted. As soon as she said "right away", I knew that I was wasting my time showing this girl my apartment. I immediately explained our screening criteria to her, which includes the fact that we will not accept a tenant that has had any drug charges within the past 5 years. BINGO! She admitted that she had a conviction for drug possession! With that, our discussion was over and I showed her the door.

The score for the past two days: three new tenants and one rejected druggie. Excellent!

Last week seemed more like a month to me. It was a long week of painting a very large duplex that we have just acquired. The reason for the painting and the fast pace of that painting was that we already have a Section 8 tenant with a young child for the unit. The presence of a child younger than 6 years old dictates that all the paint be in good condition. The exterior paint was in poor condition and required a thorough repainting. The inspection was scheduled for today.

I am pleased to report that the duplex passed the inspection with flying colors! Although it will take a week or two to receive a check from Section 8, the lease and the rent payments will be effective today.

I was not only glad to have this major project past me, but was also happy to get back to my normal schedule. After going to the bank and doing some other things this morning, I spent my usual 4 hours working at the duplex. I did a little last minute paint touch-up and started putting up new miniblinds.

After dinner, my wife and I rode our bicycles. It sure feels good to be back to my normal schedule.