Category: Landlording

I received a letter from the Director of the Westland Housing Commission, Joanne Inglis, stating – get this – that the window that my tenant broke wasn’t necessarly the tenant’s fault, so therefore they have no obligation to insist that the tenant pay for the repair before they let her move on to another Section 8 subsidized rental unit. I escalated directly to the mayor today to insist that he reverse his director’s decision, and…

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Lots of activity this morning in my business – got one rental house back and rented an apartment and showed a second one. It’s never dull when you own rental property! The fun is coming up shortly – we’re heading out later to cut down our Christmas trees.

I have tried my hardest to work with tenants that are in tough situations. Most still refuse to do what’s right, most of those can’t see that doing what’s right is also in their own best interests. It’s a sad thing to talk about during this Thanksgiving week.

Seth Godin is the king of the vanillas. He likes groups that agree about everything and sit around giving group hugs singing kumbyya. I don’t. I love conflict. I induce conflict. Conflict is good. Conflict is productive. Conflict is interesting. And the only way anyone learns anything in a discussion is when people disagree on something. And you can take a flying leap if you don’t agree with me.

Had a great meeting this morning with a great friend and colleague about raising private equity to buy commercial investment real estate; I’m meeting with my banker this afternoon because they want to host a wine and cheese book signing with me and their high net worth clients; and I’m meeting with another small group of investors this afternoon to talk about raising private equity. So life is great! And then there is Lulu.com. Ugh.