You should definitely rent to someone with a beacon or fico of 425. Think of the good you`re doing. Your friends get to laugh at you, your spouse gets to hold you in utter contempt, everyone who ever `warned` you about real estate will feel vindicated. You`ll get to experience the eviction...

You are in the business of providing a service to those who can both afford it and willlingly pay for it, with the added benefit of being a long-term client who can help increase appreciation. You are not in the business of uplifting the downtrodden. That last line took me six years, three...

You guys are stealing all my thunder from my upcoming seminar at the Durham Region of REIN members, but here are a few ideas for giving your tenants thousands of dollars of gifts not just a Christmas, but every month of the year. First, team up with a few other REIN landlords, there is strength...

Brian, you`re to be congratulated, sincerely and with no small element of admiration. Take a few weeks, bask in the glow of celebrity, enjoy your newly found notoriey, you deserve it. Then ask yourself a Jim Rohn question (I know you`re fond of him, and rightly so). Is this new situation...

I`ll start my rant by saying my wife is severely disabled. She needs a wheelchair to get around and stairs are virtually impossible. If one of our tenants became disabled, there would be no way we`d start down the slippery slope of renovations to accommodate the disability. It starts out...

The comments here are outstanding. Each of them contains solid information. And we`ve all ignored it, to our dismay, at one time or another. Can you make applicants jump through hoops at the beginning to ensure you get the best tenants? Well, you can certainly do a few things that will swing the...

The quick solution? Talk to a lawyer and find out what you must do to comply. Then communicate with your neighbour, in a letter. Don`t be even remotely sarcastic. Always polite, always kind. You`ll probably need them on your side for something in the future. So don`t fire back that their deck...

I need a painter in Ottawa (Glocester), who can do a relatively small ceiling. Any contacts out there? Cheers, Steve Manning

Hi! Here`s a flyer that brought a flood of calls, (some I had to answer before I had finished distributing all the flyers). Remember that you`d pay a realtor or a tenant finder 80 to 100% of a month`s rent to do the job, so make the reward worth while. The only thing I would have added to make...

Hi Joe! As you read the replies to this post, you`re witnessing one of the great strengths of the membership: the sheer volume of useable information from people who have done it, are doing it and will share their discoveries. There is an abundance of information at the monthly meetings...

As has already been mentioned in this thread, logical thought isn`t always what you`re dealing with. Over the past few years... okay, decades, most people have found that heating by natural gas has been less costly compared to what their friends or neighbours pay with electricity. But their...

There are as many different ways to structure an RTO agreement as there are folks who are doing it. Each one is probably slightly different from all the rest, so keep that in mind. Two documents: a lease, much like the lease you`re using now, and an option to purchase. The tenant gives you...

I`ve got to say that since we started using this strategy several years ago, it has worked incredibly well. Yep, ask them to call you 1-hour before the showing time to confirm that they will be there. "If you don`t call, I certainly understand. We all lead very busy lives. But if you don`t...

Okay, Don`s the master. But let me give it a whirl... this one assumes you have unlimited ad space... A home your friends will envy, your family will adore, and your neighbours will wish they had… Magnificent condo in a serene boutique building in the heart of the leafy, vibrant Annex...

Hi! Ask questions, ask questions, ask questions! And keep asking until you get a concensus for the answer. Use this website relentlessly. Attend REIN meetings and bring your list of questions with you. Go up to groups of people and simply ask, "Can anyone help me with a question I`ve got... and...