You need to know the landlord/tenant laws when deciding how to become a landlord. Federal housing law prohibits discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, and family status – such as whether children will live in the home. But it doesn’t stop there. Each state and even down to the neighborhood level have landlord/tenant laws and regulations.
One way of learning your local laws is having a real estate attorney draw up a contract covering federal and local laws. Once you have the contract and new tenants, it’s a good idea to have every adult that will be living in the house sign the contract. It’s also a good idea to go over the contract line by line with each adult so there is no confusion about what it means. How to become a landlord is a little more complicated than buying a house and slapping a fresh coat of paint on it.
Getting Dirty Can be Part of How to Become a Landlord
You may want to treat being a landlord as a part time job. If you have the right skills, you can buy a fixer house and make the repairs yourself. You can purchase the house for less and save the cost of contractors. However, you’re still going to have the expense for materials and you won’t be collecting rent until after the repairs are complete. How to become a landlord can involve some serious work – at least in the beginning.
But remember, the do-it-yourself approach requires capital, sweat, and long hours. Some repair work will require permits and inspections that also cost money and have to be completed before you can rent the house. But in the end, this is how to become a landlord to make the most on your investment.
Turn Key Investing is Another Way of How to Become a Landlord
This is another way to become an investor and there are good opportunities out there that do offer a decent return on investment. There are professional businesses that buy cheap homes, fix them up, put tenants in place, and sell the homes to investors. Often, a property management company is also put in place to keep the property rented and arrange for repairs when needed.
One advantage to being a turn key landlord is that you don’t need to live in the same community that your rental house is in. You can live in Denver and invest in Detroit. This enables you to invest in communities where purchase costs are low and rents are high. How to become a landlord is all about minimizing costs and maximizing income.
How to become a landlord has several options but there are real estate investment options other than learning how to become a landlord.
Lease Options are Another Investing Alternative
When you are the landlord, you are fully responsible for all of the repairs and maintenance. The turn key method is a good alternative to helping you manage this but ultimately you are still responsible. On the other hand, the lease option puts a pseudo buyer in place. These people pay you an option fee to purchase the home at a later date. Something important to note when comparing how to become a landlord versus the lease option method is that the pseudo buyer becomes responsible for most repairs and maintenance.
Real estate investing does not need to be about owning as much property as possible. It should be about controlling as much property as possible for the least amount of money and risk. That makes the Sandwich Lease Option the most attractive investing method I know of. You can take control of the property for a couple of hundred dollars. You then put an option buyer in place that takes on most of the homeownership responsibilities until they make the purchase and take on full ownership responsibility. The Sandwich Lease Option let’s you make a big profit for a small investment. This is the method that I highly encourage my students to use.
By Wendy Patton
For more than 30 years, I’ve used the Sandwich Lease Option System to earn myself and my students millions of dollars. From my experience, I know there is plenty of room and opportunity in the real estate investment market for everyone wanting to participate to find profitable deals. It’s because of that fact and my personal success that I share the Sandwich Lease Option System with others.
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