So therefore, you now get a blog post with a less than stellar title.

I started my blah Monday morning with a tweet about my desire to start the day over.

You can tell, it was a rough start to the week, considering I left out the word “go.”  But I turned it around and made it a good day.  No, great day.

1. Literal Videos on YouTube
2. OMGWTFBBQ!
3. At least I am not the only bad parent out there.
4. Lindsay Lohan is looking for a date.
5. Stupid signage

I’m also a blogger (duh) and now my extraordinary and often profound blog posts can be read on the Amazon Kindle. I know I am reaching on the exaggerated description of this beautiful blog, but I am feeling a little egotistical at the moment. No worries, I will most likely trip and fall within the next few minutes and you can laugh at the karma that smacked me in the face for my arrogance.

Love it or hate it, please go to my Amazon page and review the blog so that I have some credibility over there.  I don’t like looking like a loser with zero reviews on Amazon.

You can subscribe to this blog for $1.99/month and read these clever ramblings on your own Amazon Kindle. I’m sure it won’t make me much money, but it may be enough to buy me lunch. And there ain’t nothing better than a free lunch.

Flipping houses is all the rage these days. Yes, you can make a lot of money doing that but are you flipping houses for your regular income? If so, you better be prepared to pay the income taxes on it. The rules all changed back on July 9, 2006 and those of you who are into flipping houses need to ask yourself the simple question of “did you intend to flip that house?” If you did, then pay up to Uncle Sam. Here is a good article of the rules, although with the recent bailouts, they don’t seem to have worked so well. (I’m just saying…)

Now the gamut we run at Dizmang Properties is a little different. In a nutshell, our investors purchase some disgusting, stinky and oftentimes creepy houses in Springfield, MO. They invest some money into it to fix it up, a la fix-and-flip style…EXCEPT, they don’t flip it and sell it. They then hold it.

They hold it and put a Tenant in it for a few years. The Tenant is buying them that building by paying the rent and it’s working out well for the Investor. If they go to sell it, then they do a 1031 Tax Deferred Exchange on the property (again, ask Paul for details) to avoid paying capital gains taxes. And yes, there are all sorts of rules to go along with that as well.

I am not a tax specialist or attorney (obviously). Nor am I financial planner. My job is to be the REALTOR/Property Manager. I help find the houses that need a little tlc, plan out budgets for remodeling, manage the property and pay the bills on it. I just wanted to give you something to think about as the end of the year approaches.

What ended up being a great class then turned into several e-mails from attendees later that day requesting more info and such. Which is great as I love reading people’s comments on the topic. However, I got one e-mail from a fellow REALTOR that asked me if I really “hated rentals” the way I said I had on one of my online profiles. Wow! How unprofessional of me to make a flippant comment on “hating” rentals.

I guess I should probably change the comment since it really isn’t true.

It’s actually the bad tenants that drive me crazy! There was a time (before Amanda came on the scene) where I was so inundated with property management phone calls, that every little issue was just a tenant that was whining about something. I was managing about 115 units almost completely by myself while Paul was out selling houses. Come to find out, I was letting the issues and work get the best of me and wasn’t managing my job too well. (Hindsight is always 20/20!) So, what started as an office joke about how much I just love rentals and how there is such a thin line between love and hate has now turned into “Jessica Hates Rentals” campaign and therefore it has carried over into my online blogging world. And I never meant for it to.

I’m sure that 600+ units=$30K income is a great thing (although we are not quite there…600 tenants yes, but only 200 actual rental units). And I’m sure that the income in a slow market is most definitely worth it. However, my biggest suggestion is that you have staff in place to assist you as you grow your property management business and a strong procedure/plan in place for how to handle issues as they arise. Kind of like the boy scout motto: “Always Be Prepared”.

I sure hope that my flippant comment about “hating” rentals doesn’t discourage you from getting into property management. It’s not all bad and it’s actually done me quite well.

1. Tenants. But that’s a whole different blog.
2. Phones ringing non-stop.
3. Being interrupted.
4. Spitting.
5. Excessive heat over 91 degrees and lots of humidity.
6. Getting splashed in the face at the lake or pool.
7. Internet pop-ups.
8. When people ask “what’s your sugar at?” incessantly.
9. When someone ends their question with a preposition. “What’s Your Sugar At?”
10. Being lied to.
11. Baby talk and fake crying.
12. The sound of fingernails being clipped.
13. Juvenile Diabetes.
14. When a drive-thru gives me regular Coke instead of Diet Coke.
15. Drivers who think that they need to swerve to the right while making a left turn…you know the ones that need 2 lanes to turn.
16. People who talk too much about nothing. Or people who talk in circles.
17. Fleas.
18. Ppl type in IM chat all the time. IDK why it bothers me, but ur prolly ROFL at the fact that I’m trying to make a point IMHO, while LMAO. Watev.
19. Windows XP, Vista, and anything PC related. * MacSnob *
20. My messy office.
21. Balloons.
22. When my cell phone locks up.
23. When the bartender doesn’t make my drink strong enough.
24. Boring Twitter updates from other people.
25. Did I mention the month of August? I hate August.

We signed a lease with three college students 2 weeks ago. As a typical clause in our lease, we state that we would not give keys and possession until all parties have signed the lease agreement and all monies have been paid. This is the first month’s rent and security deposit. So at lease signing, we explain this term of the lease agreement to the 3 new Tenants.

The “kids”, yes I use this term because again…their immaturity showed, comes into the office today to pick up keys. I tell them “sorry, no keys for you” since they were not planning on paying the rent. One of them proceeds to tell me that they were told by one of our staff people that he didn’t have to pay rent since he already paid the security deposit. Huh!? I tell him no way-no how and then he starts running his mouth about how we didn’t explain things right to him and that he has already moved in to the property. What?! I ask him how this happened, and he said “well… uh… the door was unlocked and I could only move in on Friday, so I went ahead and moved my stuff in.” I was floored.

I can not believe the audacity of people that just do what they want to do when they want to do it. Am I the only one who feels that this is another ridiculous, selfish, stupid thing that people do to get what they want? Do they just feel entitled to whatever is around, whether they have paid for it or not?

I got Paul involved in this one and boy oh boy did he read this Tenant the riot act. He immediately sent our maintenance guy over to lock up and secure the house since these morons were now trespassing.

After realizing that we are not the run-of-the-mill slumlord, the Tenants eventually come up with the rent money to get the keys because they were worried about their “stuff” that was already moved into the house. Later when I ask Steve what kind of “stuff” was already moved into the house. He says “oh not much, just a marijuana clock, some incense and a condom sitting on a coffee table.”

Hmmmm….do you think that we are gonna have problems with these Tenants?