
12-12-2007, 02:55 AM
Hard to Find Good Help
I have been involved in real estate investment now for a little over a year. In the brief time I have spent in this business, I have learned a lot. One is it can be a lot of hard work.
Getting good tenants is one of the major problems I have experienced in this business. I have had one tenant leave without paying his rent. This does not leave you with a good feeling, but I had another tenant within two weeks.
One of the other things I have encountered is I have had problems finding good people to do work around my properties. Most of my properties are lease-purchases, so I don't have to worry about maintaining those properties, but I do have two that are rental properties. One is a single family home and the other is the triplex.
I have someone that I can pretty much rely on to do work on the home. He is sort of my jack of all trades. I found him through another real estate investor who also uses him to do maintenance work. It took me a while to find him. I had gone through a number of people who cost me a lot of money.
I used to have a guy who did yard work for real cheap. I paid him only $25 to cut the yards and $50 if I needed him to cleanup around the property. I have not bee able to get in touch with him for a while now. Today, I tried calling him and I just get a recording. So, I had to call a few companies to find out how much they charge to cut grass. Most cost $35.00 to $40.00 to cut the grass. I am not happy about this, but I want my yards to look in good condition. I just hope one of them turns out to be more reliable than the last guy I had.