Book of the Week: The Landlording Survival Guide

The Landlord’s Survival Guide
By Jeffery Taylor

“Mr. Landlord takes a step by step approach to teach the action sequences involved to solve the common landlording problems." Anthony Sifakis

The first section starts with introducing the three preparatory steps. The first is developing the right mindset. The different parts of this were; The Proactive business mindset which suggests that by developing a system or a series of actions steps and a checklist to follow you can prevent many of the common headaches that landlords get. Jeff states that by following his proactive action steps you can meet your goals and manage your rentals in less time with far fewer hassles. The second section of the building the right mindset chapter was developing a goal directed mindset. Jeff states that by having a survival mentality instead of a success mentality you would be shortchanging yourself because you will not know if you are maximizing your returns. He doesn’t only find residents that stay in his houses for five years or find residents who refer others to him, he entices them to do so from the first day he meets them. He also has a people centered mindset. Jeffery Taylor has a new school approach to being a landlord. The old school of landlording says that “tenets either follow the rules or get out” His new school attitude entices residents to work with the landlord for a win-win situation. While it is important to set and follow rules. Jeffery shows that it’s better to convince your residents that it is in their best interest to go along with the rules. By using good people management techniques you can “turn average residents into good residents and good residents into great residents. Many of the important points of this section go along with the main points of dale’s book how to win friends and influence people. It was in the next section about the Team Member mindset that Jeff explains why it is better to refer to tenets as residents. He shows that it is better to make residents feel like your business partner who plays a vital role in your success. Even the word tenet implies a temporary relationship.

The second section shows how you need to surround yourself with the right people in order to make your life easier. Jeff writes about how saving 100 bucks fixing plumbing by yourself is a waste of time because that time could have been better spent finding more residents or acquiring a new property. This section repeats a lot of the ideas I have been exposed to over the past few years talking to Alex about real estate. He explained that it was not worth his time to paint a house when he can pay someone else to do it. This section goes into more detail about it and shows the benefits of surrounding yourself with a “success team” including bankers, lenders, accountants, attorneys, contractors and the huge benefit of brining in people who you can trust like your younger brother. He then repeats how one of the largest parts of your success team is your residents whom most landlords view as opposition rather than a teammate.
The third section titled “Study what you must know to survive” explains the benefits of continuing education. One interesting thing I learned in this section is that many actions can possibly be seen as illegal in regards to fair housing. Screening calls through voicemail and choosing whom to call back based on voicemails can be illegal discrimination. Another interesting fact is that an adverse action notice is required even if information in the consumer report wasn’t the main reason for the denial of a resident’s rental application. The Ten most common and costly management mistakes are listed in this section that reveals obvious yet often over looked parts of the business. Two of these that I believe that I should make sure not to do would be poor recordkeeping, which because organization has been a weakness of mine I should be careful not to over look and also, not fully screening applicants because all of the potential residents I have spoken to have sketched out. Luckily we have a system in place to ensure this.
The book then goes on to the seven action steps. The first is the one that I view as the most important now. Fill a Vacancy with the ideal resident. I plan on rereading this one because it has a lot of useful information in it. One of the most important points I took out of this section is that when competition is high you must make your home seem like an above average home. It is important to give it special appeal. I have done this in the craigslist advertising. Unfortunately my ads have appealed to scam artists claiming to be English majors living abroad who cannot put together a coherent sentence in English. The next section is screen out problem renters. Thankfully Phb has a system to do this. Jeff goes on to explain how to facilitate getting paid and the advantages of starting evictions as soon as rent is past due. Another important section is keeping residents long after the first anniversary. This keeps down repair expenses and lost rent. Jeff proposes doing this by starting to sell them on the house and the benefits of staying before they even move in.