Being your landlord

November 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

If you are considering becoming a first time home buyer in the near or far future, you are getting ready of a great adventure. But let me suggest something else you need to think about doing.

You should become a landlord.

If you are renting now, you probably have a rough idea of what a landlord does. Hopefully you have information based on what you have seen your landlord do for you. Perhaps your ideas are based on what you wish your landlord would do. Either way you can imagine what a landlord does.

For example,

1. A landlord will repair anything that goes wrong in the house.

2. A landlord will act to maintain the house.

3. A landlord will ask tenants if they have noticed anything that needs attention

So when it comes time for you to buy that home, it might be helpful to remember that it is time for you to grow up and be your own landlord. This is not as difficult as you may think because there are many many resources available to help you.

Bob Vila, for example, provides a yearly checklist for homeowners. While many of these issues will probably be taken care of during the home inspection before the transaction, it would be important to continue to monitor the home the next year. Bob Vila is someone I trust to tell me how to do that, but there are many other pages of information on the web–like this one from the “This Old House” show. Search around and see what you find. Don’t forget that Home Depot has a great deal of guidance for projects.

Being your own landlord is not really that difficult. But if you haven’t ever thought about it before, you might end up sleepwalking through your home ownership and have to deal with problems that could have been prevented more cheaply. Once you had to learn about it through buying books or borrowing them from the library. There may be excellent resources out there in traditional media, but today the internet makes it easier than ever to learn how to take care of your home.

Because, once you own your home,

1. You will have to repair anything that goes wrong in the house.

2. You will have to act to maintain the house.

3. You will have to be alert to anything that might need attention.

And it will be so worth it!

 

 

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Working with real people instead of virtual scammers

November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

One of the most important aspects of winning the right to serve a client is establishing trust. Sometimes, proving one’s trustworthiness is more difficult than it should be. Other times, however, the problem is that people are far too trusting. As a result, they don’t even look for a reputable company that will work with them personally. They simply grab the first “person” they meed on the web and are often ripped off. They suffer as a result, and people who work hard to really benefit their clients never get to help them because these potential clients are diverted by scams.

I didn’t realize how bad this problem was until I saw the recent story in the Wall Street Journal:

Federal Watchdog Targets Mortgage Scams Advertised On Google

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)–A federal watchdog Wednesday said it shut down 85 alleged online mortgage modification scams promoted via ads on Google Inc.’s (GOOG) web site.

“The first place many homeowners turn for help in lowering their mortgage is the Internet through online search engines, and that’s precisely where they are being taken advantage of and targeted,” said Christy Romero, Deputy Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Romero said the action stems from investigations into mortgage modification schemes where companies had allegedly charged struggling homeowners a fee in exchange for false promises of lowering the homeowner’s mortgage through the government’s Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP.

The most common schemes included asking homeowners for an upfront fee and telling them to stop paying their mortgage and to cease all contact with their lender, Romero’s office said.

Google has suspended advertising relationships with more than 500 Internet advertisers and agents associated with the 85 alleged online mortgage fraud schemes, the inspector general said.

Read the rest here.

I understand that sometimes problems are made to look more serious or widespread than they actually are. Bad news sells. But, if there were over 500 internet advertisers involved in these schemes, then they must have been profiting. So there were people out there clicking on the ads and getting ripped off.

Like most businesses, we have to use a website to reach potential customers. The nature of the web being what it is, we will naturally reach a wider number of people than the ones who can use our services here locally. Hopefully, most people already know what I’m about to say, but just in case…

With that much money at stake, if you are buying or refinancing a home, you want to find and work with a real human being who will meet you face to face and shake your hand.

Does that make sense?

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