1) What Are Your Overall Priorities?1) What Are Your Overall Priorities?
2) What Do You Need To Stop Doing?
3) What Keeps You Up At Night?
4) How do you Get Clients?
5) What's your biggest frustration?
6) What's stopping you achieving more cash flow? More revenue? More clients?
Keeping it simple. I want to have the best net cash flow with the least amount of complications. I must be able to quickly put my hand on the records and specific information that I need, or a maintenance person needs. Time is money and hunting for stuff hurts my bottom line and makes me crazy.
Also, since I do my own legal work, records kept in the normal course of business are an exception to the hearsay rule -- I learned that in law school. By routinely keeping good records, I can better defend myself in court. I have huge 3 ring binderrs that take to court. I print the maintenance record for each rental on a yearly basis and add it to my binders. They go for 20 years in some cases. I know that a bad tenant is going to claim that I don't do maintenance. Slapping those 3 ring binds on the table and being able to quote them, puts their defense on that issue to reest.
2) What Do You Need To Stop Doing?
I'm not adding any more mobile homes to my property right now. Yes, I have more spaces. I'm putting the $ into my trust deed business. We're still doing improvements to the mobile homes, but the decisions are thoughtfully measured. And I wanna get my money back.
4) How do you Get Clients?
For the mobile home park, I don't do anything but write them on a white board, if they last that long. I generally have a waiting list. When I took it over 22 years ago, I couldn't rent a unit on a hot bet. It had a terrible reputation. This week I rented two units, that the current tenants will be vacating in the next week or two. Those two rentals didn't even make it to my rental board in my Laundromat and office. The prospects called me. I have the only affordable housing in my community.
For my trust deed business I use snail mail -- just like I did 45 years ago. And I carefully research and screen my prospects out of the gate.
5) What's your biggest frustration?
I didn't want this gig from the get-go. I had a high-power career in RE in Los Angeles for 30 years. I gave it all up when my mom became very elderly and ill. All she wanted was to come home. So I bought out my dad's interest (they were divorced) and I brought her here to this home and property. She died the first winter and I'm still here. I have made it a success. I'm over qualified a lot of days for this gig. It's RE 101 over and over again. But, the property is cash cow in a rural community! Go figure.
6) What's stopping you achieving more cash flow? More revenue? More clients?
I'm supposed to be retired. There comes a day in everyone's life where more isn't necessarily better. The mobile home park is limited by the number of spaces. The trust deed business is limited by the amount of money that I have on hand to invest.
Yes, I could take out a loan. BUT, why? Yes, I know how to use leverage in RE and I have used it over the years. Yes, I can raise private money from investors. BUT, I would be accountable to them. I'd have to send statements, take phone calls, and sell them on deals. In short time, I know they would become similar to getting tenants for the mobile homes. And I would be under pressure to find more deals to invest more money. Right now I have a bank escrow department collecting my trust deeds and doing the statements. Right now, I can pace myself and I say no a lot. What stopping me is personal comfort.