Real Estate Investing Produces Gyroscopic Cash Flow

Most people start investing in real estate to earn "passive income". The idea is simple: buy a home, rent it out, collect checks in your mailbox each month. Boom! Passive income! That's one of the reasons I invested in real estate in the first place. However, this isn't completely true for the DIYer. Here's how my first month went as a landlord.... We bought a property that needed some serious TLC. Since we were just getting started, we couldn't afford to hire someone else to make the repa...
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What Are Some of the Best Tools for Receiving Rent?

It's the first of the month and rent is due. How do you get it? There are many options and it's hard to go wrong. So try a couple different ones that make the most sense to you and see how it goes because you can always change it later. I broke this into 3 different groups. Face-to-Face is the hardest, but helps set the stage for the other two. Semi-automated is where a lot of landlords start out. It does require some effort, but if you don't have many rentals, it's definitely OK. The thi...
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Tenants Don’t Talk To You Because They Fear Retribution

Seth Godin posted an interesting thought piece on professionalism called "Retribution" that talks about the difference between reacting and responding. Retribution is when you react by punishing someone for a wrong or criminal act. An example of a wrongful act might be a tenant not paying their rent or breaking something at your property. Your punishment might be to NOT fix a cracked window or help them get rid of an ant problem. After all, they didn't pay their rent. They deserve it! "T...
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What is a Professional DIY Landlord?

Duplex
Welcome to Professional DIY Landlord. I'm your host, James Furlo, and this website is dedicated to helping landlords become the best possible landlords they can be. We're going to explore all sorts of topics related to landlords to help you succeed. But first, let's talk about the origins of the website's name and the purpose behind this website.   The Professional Level When I think about what it means to be a professional, I think about football. Did you know that over 1,000,000 ...
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