Are you a landlord? I am! I own a couple properties locally and consider myself one of the lucky ones, as I really have a minimum of problems. I have heard horror stories about a lot of others who are not so lucky!
Although I believe in “luck”, luck is not a strategy. I have my very own landlord / tenant relations guru that is in speed dial on my phone. And trust me, I’m not afraid to use him!
Don Conrad is actually an up and coming expert in investment Real Estate circles. He has shared the stage with many nationally known speakers including “Mr. Landlord”, Jeffrey Taylor. In fact, Don was a frequent guest and resource on my radio show (I no longer do it) and was very popular with my listeners, judging from the emails I received.
Beside having a published book, audio series, and video series, Don has a new product out that I have to share because it is so valuable to me and landlords everywhere.
Called a “Tenant Reference Manual“, it is 60 pages of information that your tenants need to know.
Here is the idea. When you lease a tenant a property, you should take a few minutes to go over important items with them such as location of water shut-off, how to relight a water heater, using the thermostat, etc. This manual takes it to another level by allowing you to print out the information and give it to the tenants in a binder.
They receive information with important phone numbers, how to use a fire extinguisher, safety plans, how to maintain smoke and CO detectors, helpful hints, and much more. Don takes this one step higher by designing quizzes that the tenants take and receive a gift after completion.
While it took me a while to wrap my mind around this (ie. he had to explain to me), what a better way to avoid issues in court with disgruntled former tenants. They may go to court and state they “didn’t know” something until you pull out the manual and the quizzes to show that, in fact, they were aware. This should even reduce the chance you would need to take a tenant to court.
Putting in a plug for Don because I believe this is a great idea, the cost is very small compared to the benefits. If you are NOT using something like this, you are leaving yourself wide open to problems down the road.
Could you make your own system like this? Sure! How much is your time worth? Trust me when I say you are saving yourself time and money by using this system, especially for what you receive.
Don’t believe me? Check out the Tenant Reference Manual here. I believe Don is even giving his ebook away with the manual for a limited time.
Not sure you are interested right now? That’s OK. I suggest you check out his site called Find That Quality Tenant for lots of great information. Make sure you forward his site to all the landlords you know, as Don has got some great info on the site that can benefit all of us that own investment real estate. While you are there, make sure you sign up for his FREE email newsletter.
Hope this helps some of you. I know the info in the book and now the reference manual has helped me considerably. It’s almost as good as having Don on speed dial.
Scott
Your Northwest Indiana Loan Guy!
Poor credit? No problem!