(This post is part of our “Landlord Basics” series, which seeks to help the new landlord / investor understand some of the basics of tenant relations and property management.  You can view the rest of the series here.)

Marketing your properties can be one of the bigger challenges you face as a landlord / investor.  There are a lot of sites on the internet that offer the ability to post your apartment, either free or for a fee.  However, the one site that I see continued success in using is Craig’s List.  Their website is free to post apartment listings on (in most areas) and I see a pretty good response in the Buffalo area using their service.  They are located at http://www.craigslist.org.  Once you are on the site you can navigate to your state and then city using the navigation bar on the right side of the screen.

I’ve released a video showing how to add an actual apartment listing to their site.  I have also released a list of “marketing buzzwords” that you can use to spice up your ad.  But for now I want to discuss the meat of your ad.

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In today’s day and age, the chances of reaching the person you want to speak to the first time you call are very slim. It seems that everyone has a receptionist, a secretary, or voicemail that you will have to talk to before you ever get to speak to the person you really want! Being able to leave a professional, informative message, as well as knowing how to set up your voicemail greeting to ensure you get the information you want from a party that calls the first time, will increase your productivity and make your phone calls that much easier.

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As an investor’s real estate holdings grow, more and more tenants will call with maintenance requests.  These requests can range from emergencies to frivolous, but will require attention at some point.  How should maintenance calls be processed?  What about taking calls in so they can be logged and prioritized?  Don’t get bogged down, it isn’t as bad as it seems.  With a good system in place, managing maintenance tasks can be easy!

There are a lot of programs out there currently that will allow investors to log, track expenses, and run fairly sophisticated reports on maintenance tasks, but in the early stages, it may be possible to get by with a simple spreadsheet.  Most spreadsheet software has the ability to add multiple sheets to one file (normally they look like tabs).  Prioritize using 4 different sheets, Emergency, General, Cosmetic, and Tenant Caused.  Each spreadsheet should have columns for address of property, tenant name, phone number, work requested, and work completed.  This allows the quick scheduling of work at a glance, the ability to track when it is completed, and have access to tenant information as necessary.  Now, when calls come in, they can logged and prioritized as necessary.

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Bird dogging and wholesaling are two activities in real estate that while similar, have one very fundamental difference.

Bird dogging can be seen as a way to get into real estate, without having to put a lot of money down to do so.  Bird doggers will investigate a market to find the best deals available, using resources such as foreclosure lists, auction lists, distressed property lists, and the MLS where available.  Using a variety of formulas, they will determine what properties would make a good investment based on their current value, cost of repairs, and estimated value after the repairs are completed.  They then forward these deals to real estate investors, and are paid.  Their pay may be based on the referral to the deal, or at the closing of a deal.  Normally they are paid more for “closed” deals than for referrals, but the pay day is usually a few hundred dollars on a closed deal.

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