Just A Landlord

The who’s who of Milwaukee rental housing were in attendance at Joe Peter’s funeral.  So many that one person commented that if a bomb hit the church nobody in Milwaukee would have to pay rent again.  A lot of folks I had not seen in years.  It’s sad that the only time we see these people anymore are funerals for friends.

One such person was Mike, a former board member of the Apartment Association.  He asked if I remembered having lunch with him a number of years ago.  I admitted I didn’t and kiddingly asked if I had skipped out on my portion of the bill. He assured me I hadn’t and that he just wanted to thank me for the sage advice I had given him that helped him succeed when others failed.  I had him remind me of what I shared with him that he felt was so valuable.  Once he told me, I felt it still rings so true that I would share it again.

At that lunch back in probably 2005 or 2006, the height of the silliness we were seeing in real estate pricing, Mike wanted to know how to acquire more units.  I cautioned him that his focus was wrong.

It’s not about how many units you own.  It’s about being sustainably profitable.

Unit fever is a disease that has wiped many owners in both good and bad economies. So don’t aim to have 50,100, 200, a thousand units.  Rather do the math and aim to only own profitable units and create scalable infrastructure before getting big.

Wells Fargo v. Sandra A. Ford is a NJ case that started as a pro se defense to a foreclosure. It ends with Wells Fargo getting spanked by the NJ court of Appeals in what will be a published decision..  At appeal the defendant was represented by Legal Services of NJ, which is similar to Legal Action of WI.

My great interest in foreclose defense cases is twofold.

First I see some of these cases holding the potential of unraveling the entire real estate market by creating hundreds of thousands of “free” homes across the nation. I fear this will cause a second and more dramatic drop in housing prices as once the mortgages are wiped people can sell for practically nothing and make a profit.

I wish to throw this question out for discussion:

What is the most important thing you know?

We all come from different backgrounds and have had different experiences.  Individually we know what we know, but no more.

Collectively we could be pretty smart and achieve more.  That is part of the power of a discussion list like the list I moderate ApartmentAssoc or the ones I participate on such as MadisonApartmentOwners, LandlordAssociationOrg or the hundreds of other groups on Yahoo Groups or Google Groups.  You ask a question and get an answer.

But what about the question that you do not even know you should ask?  So go ahead add what you think is the most important thing you have learned about landlording to the comment section.

[Note I am importing replies from the above Yahoo Groups into this comment section for all to read]

A couple property owners approached me stating they have received notice from the Milwaukee Department of Neighborhood Services (DNS) that they must obtain new occupancy certificates on properties they purchased a couple of years ago.  In both cases the properties had been in foreclosure.

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