Merry Christmas Everyone! Its the end of the year already. Do you have your goals set, yet? In addition, to your holiday wish list? Keep in mind while doing your Christmas shopping that you can buy the things you need for your real estate investing business (ie: new tools, shop vac, paints, etc) to give to your contractors, your business partners, and yourself and still be able to write it off on your business expenses to help you save money on your taxes.
Another juicy tidbit we do with our tenants/rentals, is that we purchase gift cards, or $10-$25 gifts for all of our on time rent paying tenants. Its that little extra time spent that makes for very surprised tenants (and who thought landlords cared?) and spoiled long term tenants (who will never move—which is a good thing). Otherwise, some landlords we know only charge half month’s rent to all their tenants on the month of December as a way of showing appreciation to their best tenants (on time paying and non-destructive tenants). Doing this goes a long way in terms of keeping your tenants happy. The word spreads to other possible future tenants and soon you have a word of mouth waiting list of folks wanting to move into your properties! Thus, you can charge more for these extra services over the course of the year under the guise of lawn care, 24/7 maintenance care (and be sure you honor that statement), and trash services included in rent.
For you see the extra $200 over the area rent rolls per unit usually cover any and all expenses that we charge with our own unit. You, the landlord, get more income, but still can write off the extra expenses for gift giving and rent deductions from your taxes. Hmmm——-better to give than to receive (with some benefits, of course!)