Small business owners report loans are still hard to obtain
Owners report loans are hard to obtain, curtailing employment — Capital is the oxygen that a small business needs to survive and thrive, yet across the country, the air’s pretty thin, as business owners complain of huge hurdles to getting badly needed loans.

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Property Management companies charge on average 7%-10% of the monthly rent collected for receiving and depositing the rent checks. When the unit(s) becomes vacant you have a slew of other costs including; placement, advertising, and cleaning and/or repair fees. These expenses can add up to thousands of dollars. The following ideas could be adopted for owners using property management or not.

Some of the costs saving strategies that I have adopted into my residential real estate business include:

1. I use free online advertising such as craigslist for tenant placement and my results have surpassed results from paid advertising and newspaper classifieds. Some of the benefits include:

Brings in potential tenants from other areas that are often willing to pay higher rents.

It’s free!

I have had quicker results, instead of having the house or apartment sitting empty for over a month I have had tenants lined up and approved before the prior tenants vacate.

2. Property management companies do provide a nice summary of income and expenses which make tax time easier. This however is not specific to just property management companies. I use and recommend tracking your rentals using any of the available property management software on the market. There are even very complete free applications which do the job just as good such as this property management software.

3. Find a good repairman with a diverse set of skills. I use a man who was referred to me by a trusted friend and things are working out fantastic.

I have had bad experiences with letting a property management company manage the repairs and have found that they have not always had my bottom line in mind.

Their repairman may not be trustworthy

Their repairman may be over qualified to do general repairs and specialized professionals cost a lot more than a “jack of all trades” would.

Provided you have the capacity, doing some of the repair work yourself would of course also reduce costs

Utilizing property management does have its advantages as far as saving time particularly for investors who have hundreds of properties and limited time to maintain them. But for the full-time or small-time real estate investor I believe it is an unnecessary expense.

Hip websites need hard facts to thrive
Mixed in with technology innovations at South By South West (SXSW) were reminders that real-world performance facts are vital to thriving on an increasingly crowded Internet.

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Airline baggage-fee refunds hard to get
Flying over spring break? Chances are you’ll pay at least an extra $15 to $25 each way to check just one bag. For a family of four, the…

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