Archive for September, 2010

Canadian Real Estate Blog Carnival Part 2

The first edition of the Canadian Real Estate Blog Carnival was posted today over at Landlord Rescue. There are some excellent articles from some very good bloggers, some of them I’d heard of and some I hadn’t, and I’m proud to be listed among them.

I am also very pleased that I have been asked to host the second edition of the carnival. If you have an article that you would like to contribute to the carnival, you can email it to canadianrealestatecarnaval@gmail.com. I will be posting the successful selections on October 15.

Also, if you’re interested in hosting future carnivals on your own blog, then fire off an email to the address above and we’ll see what we can do.

These carnivals are a great way to expose your blog to blog readers and other bloggers who are interested in the same topics you are, and to gain some links from the same.

I can’t wait to see what other articles will be coming in the future. See you then.

Canadian Real Estate Blog Carnival

I never knew what a blog carnival was until Rachelle over at Landlord Rescue told me she was starting one up and I should submit an article. So I submitted a few  We’ll see if I have what it takes to get accepted.

If you’re a blog writer, or an aspiring one, and you have a real estate related article, then go check out the Canadian Real Estate Blog Carnival. It’s a great way to get your site noticed in the Canadian Real Estate blogosphere (it’s a small sphere, I know, blogo or otherwise).

The deadline is probably tomorrow, so sorry for the short notice, but the good news is that I will be hosting the second edition on October 15, 2010. If I don’t get an article chosen this time around, maybe I’ll have a shot at that one.

Evictions & Getting Paid

I recently evicted some tenants, effective the last day of the month, and they decided not to meet me for the move out inspection. They also decided to leave behind some of their belongings, and lots of garbage. There’s an assortment of stuff, that most people would call garbage, but just as many people wouldn’t.

What should you do in this situation? Well, for starters, you should start getting the unit ready for the next tenant. In Nova Scotia, this means sorting the obvious garbage from the stuff the tenant might come looking for in the next 60 days. Here, you’re supposed to store personal effects, at the tenants’ expense, and then get permission to throw it away from the Director of Residential Tenancies after 60 days. In my experience, the stuff that’s left behind ends up being garbage and the tenants are not going to pay for the storage fees anyway, but hey we have to follow the rules. Read more…

House Rules

A landlord has the right to include house rules in their lease or as an appendix to the standard form of lease. The house rules are usually in addition to the statutory conditions that the Residential Tenancy Act requires to be included as a minimum in all leases. Whatever house rules you choose to include in your lease should be written with three goals in mind: (1) they should apply to everyone equally, (2) they should make life better for your tenants, and (3) they should make life better for yourself.

Ultimately, house rules should eliminate any grey area between what the tenancy act requires and what some people will try to get away with. They should also reinforce the most important rules that effect both tenants and the landlord, since many tenants don’t bother reading the Residential Tenancy Act. Those that do read the Act rarely remember the parts that tell them what their responsibilities are.

If you don’t have a set of house rules, then you should start compiling one now, since a tenant may not be bound by any house rules you decide to implement after they’ve signed a lease. What you want to put in writing will be dictated by your own properties and tenants, but there are a few topics that I believe apply in most cases. Read more…

Vacations

Since I recently returned from a week’s long vacation, I guess it’s as good a time as any to talk about what I do to make sure things keep running smoothly when I’m not going to be around my properties for a while.

Before I read Tim Ferris’ book The 4-Hour Workweek, I had a hard time bringing myself away from my properties. I was always afraid that whatever disaster that was going to happen was waiting for me to travel hundreds of kilometers away.

After reading the book, I asked myself “what’s the worst thing that could happen if I go away?” All of my properties burning to the ground at the same time and killing every tenant and pet inside would be the absolute worst case scenario, but also the least likely. Of all the other possible bad things that could happen, almost all of them can be taken care of with a little preparation and by having someone in the area you can call on in an emergency. Read more…