Landlord Shmandlord

For the Tenants: How to Deal with Noisy Neighbors

Landlord Shmandlord — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 03:52:11 +0000

You’re living in a nice apartment, but you have really noisy neighbors. You have been trying to deal with it, but you’re at the point where you feel you cannot put up with it any longer. What do you do? I recently spoke about this with Rob Sachs at NPR, and I thought it would help [...]

Five-Year View of Real Estate

Landlord Shmandlord — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 04:19:49 +0000

Like James Saft, I believe that we will face heavy inflation in the coming years, which will help those of us who own financed real estate. For the first time in a very long time U.S. housing might actually be a reasonable buy on a five-year view. As a long-time housing bear and someone who believes there [...]

NPR Interview

Landlord Shmandlord — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 00:29:19 +0000

Last week, your Shmandlord was interviewed by NPR’s Rob Sachs for the NPR podcast, What Would Rob Do? The topic of the interview was what to do about noisy neighbors: when to talk to them in person, when to call in the landlord, and when to call in the police. Check out the interview here. [...]

Moral Hazards

Landlord Shmandlord — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 01:10:23 +0000

There is a great guest post about Moral Hazards on Infectious Greed written by Tom Vanderwell. It starts off with two comics: In the post Tom describes the dangers of government bailouts and government protections for investors. If investors do not bear the full risk of their investments, then they will make moves that they wouldn’t [...]

Apartment Hunting Tools

Landlord Shmandlord — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:07:46 +0000

I saw this link earlier today for apartment hunting tools intended for tenants. http://mashable.com/2008/07/23/apartment-hunting-tools/Â As a landlord, it would be very helpful to take advantage of these.Â If anybody has any experience with any of the links, from a Landlord’s perspective, please share your thoughts in the comments (also, include your location).

Two units opening up November 1st

Landlord Shmandlord — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 12:15:38 +0000

Two of my tenants are moving out at the end of this month, so last week I started advertising in the our local circulation, which I talked about here. So as the calls started coming in and I was doing my initial screen, I realized that I had spoke with this one woman multiple [...]

Do you do business with family?

Landlord Shmandlord — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 22:03:09 +0000

I have a question out there for Shmandlord readers: Are there certain types of business that you won’t do with family members because of the potential conflicts of interest? For example, if your relative was a mortgage broker, real estate agent, or a lawyer, would you use them? If you do, are you [...]

Collections Lawyer on the Hunt

Landlord Shmandlord — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 21:51:56 +0000

I’ve passed off the judgment to a Collections lawyer who is going to try to collect money from the settlement that my former tenants receive every year. We set up contingency compensation where they’ll receive one-third of what is collected. At this point, I just want to get this thing over with since [...]

More strange houses

Landlord Shmandlord — Tue, 22 May 2007 12:14:07 +0000

Check out this link to see some more great pictures of strange houses.

Problem Solving 101: Drown Out Tenant Protests with Marching Band

Landlord Shmandlord — Fri, 04 May 2007 12:48:33 +0000

I hadn’t thought of this technique, but maybe I could use it if ever presented with a similar situation. A New York landlord hired a marching band to drown out the sound of his tenants protesting asbestos contamination. Many tenants at the midtown building, owned by Kent Swig of Swig Equities, have been driven out to make [...]