No Take Backs!

Bliz sagely pointed out that when the property management company realizes they accidentally gave me a deposit they feel they weren't supposed to, they might want it back.

Nope. not happening.

Victory Lap

If I am reading the financial statements correctly, and I believe I am, the bookkeeper at the property management company released the security deposit we were fighting about to me. This was the house with the ruined hardwood floors. This is the house where the tenants didn't mop up the water on the floor when it rained--which is exactly what I was told.

This turn of events is somewhat astonishing, given Flunky's last e-mail where he told me he spoke with "legal counsel" and that I had the "manipulated the circumstances to fulfill my reality" and other crap right before he fired me. However, Flunky, the team player he is, didn't cc his company's bookkeeper. I'm guessing his bookkeeper didn't have the crystal ball plugged in either because Flunky made it 100 percent clear I was wrong and never seeing that money.

Mr. Waterford's Concerns

My guest at Waterford Lane is absolutely befuddled. I have told him to make himself at home. We have no lease.  No money is changing hands. I didn't expect this to be much of an issue, but he just can't wrap his head around this. I have received some sort of communication from him just about every day, with him looking for some sort of inconsistency in my message.

The poor man has asked me to put something "in writing" and settled for an e-mail where I told him the same thing I said over the phone and in text messages. He said he wanted assurances because he just didn't want the police knocking on his door. Fair enough. I am a white, out of state owner of a home in a place where race-tensions tend to be the absolute norm. He doesn't know me. Why should he trust me? Frankly, I am surprised he hasn't asked me to prove I am the owner of the property. That's probably tomorrow's conversation.

He says he will be leaving in a month or so. I can appreciate that too. I know of others who have been in his shoes who find that kind of predicament stressful. Will they be homeless in a week? My guess is his wife is flipping out and he calls me once for every 37 conversations the two of them have. Who can blame them? I am not sure I would want to stay and deal with someone else's crappy karma either.

Hopefully

The camera took 10 pounds off
this mound of paperwork.

I was sitting at the kitchen table, listening to an Ipod rotation of Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, Toby Keith, Imagine Dragons and Chris Tomlin. To my side, was the mound of paperwork, which will eventually be Phase 1 of my taxes. Diamond Jim, my (hopefully) retiring CPA, has already called and answered a few questions about what I can call a capital improvement and what I can classify as a repair.

As I am doing this I am feeling somewhat nostalgic about the fact this blog started with a general gripe about tax season, and here I am again. Next year's taxes (hopefully) will not be as complicated. And tax season 2019 should be an absolute breeze--unless we buy a bunch of rental homes again somewhere like Racine Wisconsin or Walterboro South Carolina.

We won't. I promise.

Mr. Ex-Partner's E-Mails

Yesterday Mr. Ex-Partner sent two e-mails to me. The first one started with, "NO. I will absolutely..." and I stopped reading. I could already tell his e-mail was counter-intuitive to my quest to simplify my life and find inner peace. Besides, I hadn't sent him anything, so his note wasn't directed at me. However, for whatever reason, he felt whomever had offended him was someone I know and should be involved with. I didn't finish it. Instead, I immediately filed it, took a deep breath and moved on.

About three minutes later, another e-mail came from him. In the subject line he wrote, "When can I expect to see my K-1?" I was certain that e-mail was for me. It did nothing for my inner peace, so I filed that one too. Then I sent a note to Marty telling him to tell Mr. Ex-Partner to stop contacting me. I just wasn't up whatever was going on yesterday.

It turns out Mr. Partner's first e-mail was to Flunky. For whatever reason, Flunky sent him a message demanding Mr. Ex-Partner's social security number Of course, Flunky et. al., never managed Mr. Ex-Partner's homes, so why would he need this? I have my suspicions, and those suspicions are based on the weird and wildly inaccurate 1099 I received this past week from them that I had to ask to be redone (and it probably won't be). Truly, the only reason I finally bothered to read this e-mail hours later was Marty Sunshine described it as Mr. Ex-Partner giving Flunky the verbal finger. It was nice to see it wasn't me having to react to something they screwed up this time.

Embolden by Mr. Ex-Partner's first message, I opted to read the second one. Unfortunately, this one was addressed to me. Where was his K-1 statement? After all, it is February 1 and, according to him, it should be done by now. Mr. Partner even magnanimously offered to pay for Diamond Jim's tax bill this season for these returns, which is pretty darn funny, because the dissolution agreement requires him to pay it. There's no reason not to let him feel charitable.

I did remind Mr. Ex-Partner we need the mortgage interest statements from him for his properties--homes that were in our joint LLC until June 30, 2016. This did not sit well with Mr. Ex., and for a moment, I kind of knew how Flunky must have felt reading these e-mails. When he calmed down ("that is personal and confidential..."). I quickly and reminded him, if we don't see those mortgage interest statements from him, he doesn't get his K1. I am in no hurry to file, so whenever he feels up to giving us what we need, we will take care of it.

After all that was done, I then once again reminded Marty I am out of the accidental business business.

Quiet

Ollie, who always wants to play "rope".

I am sitting in quiet today. Even Ollie has grown bored of my solitude, and that's pretty tough for a co-dependent emotional abyss of a dog. I spent yesterday staring into space, in some sort of numb trance, trying to figure out what to do next.

For the first time in my marriage, I don't have anything to do. Well, that's not entirely true. I have domestic pursuits as well as mothering to do. But that will be in an hour from now when the school bus arrives and Marty makes it home. There will be homework, dinner and karate. Right now, nobody needs me. I am not used to that.

There is some small satisfaction in knowing I will never have to receive another e-mail from Flunky. No tenant will call me with some stupid excuse as to why buying birthday presents for their grandchild is more important than rent. I hated those calls. Why is a birthday present and rent mutually exclusive? Sometimes I would laugh them off. Sometimes I would tell the tenant to act like a damn grown up and figure it out or move out of my home.

There won't be any 2 a.m. "the toilet overflowed" calls either. In all fairness, I have never once received a 2 a.m. toilet overflowed call. I don't know any landlord who has. I did receive a 4:30 a.m. "The air conditioner is on fire" call once. ("Call 911, When the fire department is done, call me back."). And Flunky once texted me at 5 a.m. with "an emergency" which turned out to be nothing.

The official party line is I am on hiatus from work. That's part of the grand design of the accidental business downfall. We are to reduce my income, useful income that kept us afloat during the last ten years or so when all hell broke loose. That same income that will be used now to rebuild our future once I can change the official party line. Actually I have a slight reprieve, called "showing rentals," which is the real estate agent's equivalent of purgatory.

Now that our storm is coming to an end I am restless looking for something to fill that gap. The clouds are still in the sky. There is no rainbow or sunbeam. There is still a chill in the air. We aren't done. But I am told we will be soon. I don't know when "soon" is. My best guess is summer, but I don't dare to dream it will be that quick.

I am sure there will be more weird stories before this is done. I am old enough to know the saga doesn't end doesn't end just because my role as landlord stopped. I am reminded of one time when Buckaroo asked me how did the zebras not get eaten by the lions once the ark landed and the animals departed. I explained that Noah probably didn't let all of the animals go at once for that very reason. Buckaroo thought about it a moment and then announced that the mud had to dry before the zebras got off, otherwise, they would have been stuck, and hence, lion food. Even Noah had drama once the rain ended.

It would be swell to tell you that there are no regrets. And perhaps someday I will be able to say that. Right now I am just enjoying today's quiet.

I'm Not Done Yet

Yesterday I received what I hope is the absolute last e-mail I will ever get from Flunky the Supreme Asshat. Yes, he has been promoted. Flunky sent me the contact information for the two tenants I had left. I am guessing that means he is no longer managing the house on Waterford any more either.

I called both tenants, telling them I have parted ways with the property management company. In both cases, the tenant gave me an earful of how utterly horrible they are, especially since Flunky became their main contact. Mr. Waterford had lots of words about Flunky, apologizing for his "french" every third sentence. Mrs. Fultondate asked me why couldn't I have Mr. Kirby go back and manage my homes. She kept on about how great he is. Which is somewhat funny, because the very first time I spoke with her she gave me an earful about Kirby's faults--with Kirby standing right next to me. That entire ordeal was one more surreal story in the archives of thousands. 

I don't have leases with these folks. I am not asking them for leases. They are guests. They can stay until they leave. I gave them the score, putting all my cards on the table. I told them we are closing our accidental business in the next few months and I will stay in touch and asked them to do the same. 

For the first time in fourteen years, I am not a landlord. 

Moving On

Those are pine trees in front of the house.
Pine trees have pine needles. 

If you had nothing better to do yesterday, and you happened to be in the county seat of St. Clare County, Alabama, you could have sauntered to the courthouse steps around noon and bid on our now former home in Moody. You probably would have gotten a phenomenal deal on it.

This is part of the process of closing down our accidental business. The process is ugly and it isn't following the happy, clear and concise plan we had scheduled to close down our business when we carefully mapped out our business plan back in 2003. But as my friend Freedom once said (and she may have quoted it from someone else, but I always attributed it to her), "No battle plan outlives the enemy." I am numb to the entire ordeal now, but I write this blog anyway.

The house has three bedrooms and one bathroom. It is maybe 1,100 square feet. Unlike the other three bedroom, one bathroom home we had (now Mr. Ex-Partner has), I always had this place rented and for top dollar. Sometimes with horrible tenants (Mr. Smith and Ms. Kathy) and sometimes with really awesome tenants. If I had kept this one, I would have replaced the bedroom carpets. That's about the worst part of the home, and even the icky carpets didn't keep people from wanting this place, though I don't know why.

My favorite story about this house is once, in one of the rare occasions when it was vacant, I had two applicants on the house. One--who thought for sure she was negotiating from a position of strength--told me the only way she was ready to immediately rent the place was that I was supposed to stop what I was doing, flew directly to Moody and swept off the pine needles that had conglomerated on the roof in the past week. It struck me as an odd request, and obviously the story stuck with me. It wasn't like the Earth's gravitational pull would cease if she moved in. Pine needles were going to fall on the roof again.

I told her I would not remove the pine needles. She could either wait for the next stiff wind to blow them away and take the house or move on. What she didn't know was I had moved on to the next tenant.

And now I am moving on again.

Fired

I was fired today. I should care. I really should. But they beat me to the punch. Flunky's e-mail said they have "terminated" their services, which at this point weren't much. Which begs another question, why if I blocked his e-mail address, am I getting e-mails from Flunky? But my technological issues are for another blog.

To be fair, I only skimmed the e-mail, but given the title was "termination of services" I figured I got the gist. My last e-mail to them before being fired was me pointing out where the law was on my side. I gleaned from what I saw they consulted with someone and decided I knew more than I should about property management, and certainly more than they did. They are treading in dangerous waters and if their actions with me don't bring them down, their actions with someone with more resources and time will.

To be fair, this isn't that much of an upset. I had planned on approaching Luigi about taking the remaining homes out of management next week. Luigi is a coward for not writing me himself, but hey, if Flunky is the mouth-piece for his organization, that speaks volumes.

When I read his e-mail I noticed he gave me a few property management companies to contact, all of which I am certain he hates. He gave me 30 days to transition. I wrote back and said, "Why wait? Send me everything now." I'm ready.


Update: Ok, I don't understand exactly but they are (currently) planning on managing my home at Waterford Lane. I don't have the fight in me right now to figure out why. But, I am feeling kind of sorry for the tenants at Waterford right now.

The High-ish Road

I haven't heard from Flunky the Asshat since I told him the issue of the security deposit is closed. Of course, that isn't fair because I blocked his e-mail address. I'm not sorry. He has Marty's e-mail address and my phone number if he needs to get in touch with us. At this point they are only managing three of our homes, two after next week when I take the Alabaster house out of management.

By the way, I don't necessarily think Flunky spent the tenant's security deposit like it was suggested by one of you three readers. Security deposits go to a trust account that the department of real estate monitors very closely. Think about it. The average property management company manages 200 properties. If they have an average of $1200 per home in potentially refundable deposits, that is a lot of money in a trust account. So, I can't imagine the main players of the company would want to loose all they had over spending that money. In Arizona, California, Florida and Texas (the only places I have looked, but it seems like this would be standard) messing with the broker's trust account would be considered a super-bad felony and a lot of people would go to jail. So, probably not.

What I think happened is Flunky didn't expect me to ask for it and promised it to the tenants. To him fighting for the tenant's deposit is a matter of pride.

I won't know if the deposit is being released to me unless I call those property management folks or I can just wait until my owner's statement comes out at the end of the week. Marty Sunshine asked me if I was just fighting with Flunky to have something to do. I really wasn't. I think the money is owed to me. However, Marty has a point. Why am I going to bat over this silly issue when months from now it won't really matter? After all, we are in the process of shutting down.

I once had an attorney tell me never fight over principal. The fight over this deposit, mainly because it was becoming personal, needs to be let go. Given our circumstances, anything else said about the deposit at this point is not just fighting over principal, but fighting over pride, greed and I am sure I can add a few other deadly sins to the list. I wish the High Road was more emotionally satisfying.

I Told Him So

Though I don't have any ill-will towards Mr. Ex-Partner, I did sport a smug smile when I was playing with Zillow the other day and saw that the home I warned him would be vacant if he didn't listen to me, still is.

The back story of this house is simply, Mrs. Roebuck was living there at a reduced rent. Before we split the partnership, I had explained to Mr. Partner why Mrs. Roebuck was living there--and he was on board. It is a hard-to-rent home. It has one bathroom. It is on a busy-ish street. It is in a neighborhood that is declining. It wasn't a wise investment. We were stuck with it, so instead of trying to find someone who will ruin the place (because we had already gone down that route), let's just put a reliable person in and give a discounted rent and take the tax loss. At least the house will be safe. The loss in rent is much better than paying for vandalism and theft--which we had done before.

About 97 seconds after the partnership split, Mr. Ex-Partner went to town on Mrs. Roebuck. After all, Zillow says the house should rent for some wild number that I have never gotten for that property. But Zillow can't be wrong!

Subsequently, Mrs. Roebuck moved. The house has been vacant ever since. The pictures show it is missing a stove. But then again, the pictures were taken six months ago. By now it is probably missing a bathtub and an air conditioner too. Incidentally, the air conditioner at this house has been stolen in the past. Twice.

I wish Mr. Ex-Partner well. But I am resisting the urge to call him and say, "I told you so!"

Floored

Luigi did get back to me about the flooring issue. He sent me pictures he took prior to the tenant moving in. Guess what? The hardwoods were in great shape.

He then threw Flunky under the bus and said he expects me to work directly with Flunky to come up with a "reasonable cost." Well, in my opinion, it is reasonable to get all of the security deposit back because the cost of replacing hardwood floors that run seamlessly throughout the bottom floor (about 1500 square feet) is a lot more than the security deposit.

You would think that would be the rest of this story, because we have a beginning, middle and an end. But no. There's a twist. Of course.

Instead of just saying, "Ok." Or just not replying at all, Flunky the King of all Asshats throws in his own, unrelated opinion. And, just to make sure he has an audience, he sends the note to me, Marty Sunshine and Jim the Property Management Bookkeeper. He says that the reason the floor was wet was because of a "design issue," making it so that the back door, which is a good foot off the ground, not "close properly." Therefore, it wasn't the tenant's fault.

Thinking he could not be serious, I just wrote back, "I have had tenants living in this house for ten years who never had a problem keeping the rain out. The floor was fine when they moved in, it is not fine now. I am not releasing the deposit."

Now then, at this point, it seems reasonable that we are through. Right? Nope. Flunky did the most asshatty thing any asshat has ever done. He told me the water damage was not the tenant's fault, it was my fault because I did not maintain the property. He went on to declare  he knew about this "design flaw" which is only a rusted piece of metal that allegedly caused this issue and he never brought it to my attention, Additionally, he went on to say if I wanted Flunky to inspect the property while the tenant was living there, I should have paid him because then I could have gotten a laundry list of maintenance issues that I should have known about.

I will let that sink in for a moment.

Let's look at a few facts. I am an out of state landlord who hired this bunch of yo-yos to protect my asset. I am paying them. You get that, right? I had no idea there was an issue with the home. Nobody told me until after there was a problem (and it is a BS excuse anyway that some rusted piece of metal or a "design flaw" caused the tenant not to shut the door during a rain storm). But more to the point, he admitted he knew there was a problem and never told me.

I am pleased to say I waited ten minutes before replying. I explained I was under the impression the property management company worked for the owners. This was expressly explained when I signed the agreement to allow the property management company to take care of my homes. I also pointed out that his boss and owner of the company, Luigi, agreed with me, the floors were ruined by the tenant's negligence. On top of that, the tenant violated the terms of the lease by not leaving the hardwood floors in the condition they received them in. Additionally, and here is the biggie: Flunky had just admitted he was negligent, so as far as I was concerned, either the property management company was paying for a new floor or the tenant was.

I ended it by saying the deposit was mine. This matter was closed. And then I did the most mature thing I could think of. I marked his e-mail as SPAM. Marty Sunshine can deal with him.  Poor Jim the Bookkeeper, he had to be privy to all that. I am sorry I couldn't be a fly on the wall and hear all the nasty things Flunky said about me this afternoon. But I will tell you this. Either I get that deposit for the ruined floors or all hell is breaking loose.

Gratuitous Vacation Pictures

Carolsue swears Luigi's company is a front for something. I tend to agree, but I am hard-pressed to figure out what it could be a front for. An illegal tamale stand perhaps? Probably not. Tamales aren't easy to make and I am of the mind those folks can't handle anything more complicated than successfully tying their shoes on the second try.

When I first hired Luigi, they were a rock star of a property management company. This isn't as much a bias, as it was empirical evidence: I had interviewed every company in Birmingham. But now the honeymoon is over. Given we are expecting hoping to close our accidental business this year, I am biding my time with these folks out, but I have to tell you, my patience is at an all-time low. Most of my lack of patience stems from stupid regular e-mails I get from Flunky the Maintenance Asshat.

I am not making this up when I say the man looks like the comic book store owner from The Simpsons. Stereotypes are earned, and this man has earned every one of my predispositions he emits from every pore. He doesn't like me and makes no secret of it. Though I am not a fan of his, I would like to think I am more professional.

A few weeks ago, after threatening for years, the tenants in Moody moved out. I instantly took the house out of management. Nobody over in Luigi's office said anything about it, and I just figured my e-mail to every e-mail address I had over there saying, "When the tenant moves out and everything is wrapped up, take the home out of management please," pretty much covered it. If Luigi or Flunky didn't do anything with this news, I knew their bookkeeper would.

While sitting on Uncle Sunshine's island in Florida a couple of weeks ago, Flunky sent me a startling e-mail. I was startled because he admitted to something that anyone who manages ANY property should never, ever admit. His e-mail said,

"We don't have keys to your home in Moody. Do you want to pay for re-keying the front only? Or do you want to pay for re keying the front and back?"

I never did answer his question because I had several questions of my own. The biggest one was, WHY? Why do you not have spare keys to this house? HOW? How is it possible you don't have spare keys? WHEN? When are you going to get the keys back from the tenant? I even said, "This is property management 101. Property managers are supposed to have a copy of the keys."

Flunky wrote back, hemming and hawing, blaming me for taking the house out of management being the main reason they were, four weeks later, just getting around to breaking the news to me they didn't have the keys. Meanwhile, who is to say the tenant actually moved out? Who is to say the tenant didn't just give the place up to a drug using lunatic. Or worse, what if the former (I hope former) tenants gave the key to their neighbor and my most loathsome former tenant, the man who lives directly across the street, Mr. Smith? I am sure there are other scenarios that I haven't thought of, or worse, ones I have, but it boils down to this: THE TENANTS HAVE NOT RETURNED THE KEYS AND NOBODY OVER THERE IS THE LEAST BIT CONCERNED.

When I asked Flunky if he had keys to my other properties. I also advised, "Before you guess the answer, go check. If you don't have keys, why not? I want an exact date that you will have them. You work for me, not the tenants." That sounds professional. Probably.

This is Why I Save Every E-mail

I never consider it a stellar day when I start out with e-mails from Flunky the Property Maintenance Asshat. He annoyed me on vacation last month--another blog I haven't gotten around to writing--and he is annoying me now.

You may remember this particular incident. The tenant in question had water on her floor. Apparently it rained and the weather stripping wasn't doing its job. Or something. For whatever reason, the tenant could not see her way to actually wiping up the water and now there is a bigger issue: the hardwood floor is warped.

But, you see, the tenant moved out a few weeks ago. And the first response to the e-mail from Maria, my "contact" over there who never contacts me back, was "They ruined the hardwoods, do not release the security deposit." Just to make sure everyone knew I was serious, I also told the bookkeeper I was fighting for the deposit, so don't release it to the former tenants. I thought this was resolved 14 days ago and I went on my merry way, with full delusional knowledge I would be seeing this money in a few weeks.

But of course, nothing in life ever works the way I think it should. And, even though the security deposit is rightfully mine apparently Flunky did not feel that way. So, this morning I started my day with six different e-mails from Flunky saying that the warped floors were there all along and that the tenants did nothing wrong. He even CC'd Marty Sunshine just to, I guess, make sure I wouldn't protest. To solidify his point, because I was pretty sure he knew I wouldn't agree, but that's just a guess, he got Luigi involved.

Luigi happens to be the owner of this property management company. And right on time, Luigi wrote me. He said he was pretty sure he and I discussed the condition of the hardwoods when the tenant moved in, saying they were already warped. In fact, he was sure he saw them when the tenant moved in. So, case closed.

I wrote Luigi back. I explained that I did not recall ever discussing the floors with him. And, when did Luigi start handling move-ins, because I don't remember that either. And finally I asked if he had an e-mail that might jog my memory so we can put this silly business behind us.

Quick as a wink, Luigi back pedaled. No, he didn't handle move-ins. He must have been at this house for some other reason once upon a time before the tenant moved in, but he KNOWS we discussed it. I am willing to bet if I went through my cell phone records I would not see one call from him since February of 2014, back in our honeymoon period. Simply, I  don't like talking on the phone and I always want a paper trail.

Also, to make his point, Luigi also sent me over some weird e-mail that had absolutely nothing to do with the above issue, but suggested it might jog my memory. He did comment that he was "still looking" for proof.

In return, I sent him two past e-mails I kept that mentioned this issue. One in 2015 when Flunky stated there was a problem with the weather stripping and he had fixed it. The other e-mail was three months later saying there was water coming in under the door that the tenant didn't clean up.

Luigi's response was to say, "Aha! See! Things can break after they are fixed!" Therefore the tenant doesn't owe me the deposit.

I wrote back, "Actually, if you guys fixed the problem and there was water on the floor then the tenant was 100 percent responsible, so the deposit is mine.

My e-mail box has been strangely quiet since then.

Chrissy Update

Taking a great chunk of morning out of my day yesterday, I called a handful of brokers yesterday and plead Chrissy's case. Frankly, I thought I did a downright wonderful job of selling her to potential owners. Even my broker said he was moved by my spiel. However, nobody, including my broker, would consider giving her a lease under her circumstances. Not that I blame them. I gave a lot of people in tough situations second chances. A lot of times it worked out. But not always. If you are curious about the times it didn't work out, start reading this blog from the beginning.

I did call the person who referred her to me and said, "You hate me. Why?" She assured me, she most certainly did not hate me. Then she gave me some crazy pep talk that was as a great a sell as I had given to the people I had talked with prior to her.

There is one more solution for Chrissy that I came up with. It is probably in her best interest to buy a home. She won't need background checks. Mortgage lenders won't care if she is a (multiple) felon. Her neighbors won't (necessarily) know her background if she doesn't mention it. She can afford it. And it sure beats living with her mother for the next ten years.

Today's Rental Client

So, I'm handling rentals again. For those of you new to this blog and are unsure of the significance of that last sentence, please think of finding tenants for unsuspecting landlords like this: Forcefully bang your head against a wall. Stop, gasp for breath. Decide how much pain you are in. Remove money from your bank account until you are overdrawn. If still conscious, repeat the process.

And, for those of you who read this blog and I have helped rent your home or helped you find a rental, you don't count. I like you.

The reason I am handling rentals is too extraneous for this blog, but to summarize, we have medical bills that aren't covered under our insurance for the next few months (we are fine). Additionally, the agent in my office who primarily handles property management made an emergency trip across country this week to take care of her dying mother. She is gone until further notice. So, I'm doing rentals.

Chrissy, 23, wants a place to live. In fact, she wants to move in with her best pal, Janet (also 23). The two of them have been friends for years. In fact, they were in prison together. However, they are having a bit of a trouble finding a landlord who wants to lease to a couple of young adults with multiple (did I mention MULTIPLE) felonies.

Oh yes, Chrissy also has an eviction. When I spoke with her today, she wanted to know if the eviction might be an issue. It might. But I am guessing she has bigger issues that might be harder to overlook. By the way, Janet does not have an eviction. Chrissy also wanted to know why any landlord would conduct a background check. Why indeed?

Chrissy and Janet are a referral from a professional colleague, whom I am now convinced hates me. However, I am going to give this a go and see if I can spend all of my free time and sanity finding them a place to live.

Both girls (apparently) are gainfully employed and I am told can provide letters of recommendations from their parole officers and Chrissy at least, promises she can get a co-signer. But when I talked to her, she was confused. Like a good millineal she innocently asked, "Why won't someone just give me a chance?" Someone will. Her mother.

I am Sure Mr. Jones Speaks for All

If we could just take a moment out of our day to please remember those folks who were affected by last night's tragedy. I know businesses are probably closed all through Alabama today, and probably the rest of the week. Flags will be at half-mast. Schools are closed as the state comes to terms with the terrible news.

Horrible news, actually. The University of Alabama (or Alabama State University, I don't know), lost their big-time championship football game last night. I am not sure the First Amendment protects me as I write these blasphemous words. Yep. They tanked.

According to the words of that football player, Hootie Jones, it wasn't really the team's fault. He said, "We felt like the refs were just against us." Glad that was cleared up.

Hopefully after an appropriate term of grieving, the State will be able to move past this.

Negotiating a Win-Win Scenario

Shannon

I forgot to mention the part of Shannon's e-mail that made me roll my eyes 180 degrees. He told me to give him my mortgage balances so he would "know how much to offer" for my homes.

Here's an idea Shannon, offer what you want to offer and see what I say. That would be more in line with the "win-win" don't you think?

I Think I'm Qualified to Deal With the Unpredictable

So last week I got an e-mail from someone named Shannon. Turns out Shannon is a dude, by the way. Anyway, Shannon wrote me, said he got my e-mail address from some former employee (but didn't say who) and that he heard I wanted to sell my properties. Anyway, he was checking in to tell me he would love to take a few houses off my hands.

I immediately replied, cc'ing Kirby, and saying, "Talk to the guy who represents me." Kirby in turn told me later what their game plan just happens to be. I am quite familiar with what they do, because I have talked to several people over the years who have actually been to the seminars put on by "successful investors" who are told to do the exact same thing. The very first part of the seminar happens to be that the attendee has to make 100 hand-written signs and place them all over town with phrases like, "I buy homes for cash. Any condition." I feel like I have talked several folks out of going down this path of investing, but apparently, I didn't happen to reach Shannon.

Anyway, what Shannon is planning to do is lease my home from me, find a tenant and just pay my mortgage. He would get any residual money from the transaction. Why would I do this when I can just rent out my own homes? I am not sure.

His other suggestion was for me to carry the mortgage on these properties, transfer title to his name, and once again he would just pay my expenses and take what is left for himself. If the house burned down, if the tenant ran a meth lab or any numerous scenarios I may have written about in the past eight years happened, it would be my ass on the line, not Shannon's. I am very familiar with this last scenario, because I did an unsuccessful micro-version of this and ended up will all my homes back at the end of the day. However, this was before the Dodd-Frank Act which makes such a thing on a grand scale illegal.

When Kirby told me Shannon's grand plan, we both had a great chuckle. Nope. I wasn't interested. But Shannon wasn't to be deterred. He had Michael, his "aquisistionist" (Kirby said, "is  aquisistionist even a word??") send me an e-mail--completely bypassing Kirby-- saying "When are we doing this? Sign here."

I responded kindly saying I was only interested in a straight sale, one where title was transferred and I would no longer be involved for any reason. I wasn't interested in lease purchases. I wasn't interested in carrying a mortgage. But if they wanted to make an offer on a property, I would consider it. Otherwise, please have a nice day.

One would think that would be enough, but instead Shannon sent me a condescending e-mail full of grammatical errors and misspellings. Mind you, he didn't send it to Kirby, MY AGENT. Just to me. Shannon said that I "obviously didn't understand their business model," because otherwise I would be absolutely excited to jump at his generous offer. Keep in mind, both of his offers were for me to just give him the houses and keep the liability.

Shannon also said he is the only person in Birmingham who can structure this deal and it would be--I'm not making this up--a win-win for both of us. He also went on to tell me of all the ugly things that would happen to me if I didn't give him my homes, including (but not limited to): me having to take care of these homes, deal with tenants, pay taxes, pay homeowner's insurance and--again, I am not making this up--I would be forced to "deal with the unpredictable."

Oh no. Not that.

Marty Sunshine read the e-mail over my shoulder and said, "He thinks he is negotiating."

I replied, "He thinks I am two degrees shy of stupid."

I forwarded the e-mail to Kirby. We both had a great laugh at Shannon's expense. When Kirby replied he said, "Oh boy. I didn’t know that he was the only one that can structure those kind of deals. I need to hook up with him so that I can learn how to do them." 

Yea. Me too. 

What Went Right (the Big Picture)

I tend to write more about what goes wrong in our accidental business because, let's face it, it is less boring. But today I wanted to take a moment to discuss what went right.

1. I surrounded myself with quality people. It took a while, but I could see positive changes when I did so. For example, I had the wrong real estate agent for a long time. I wanted to be loyal, because she was loyal to me. But I realized at one point she wasn't a good fit. So, I found someone who was: Jack. Jack was a great fit at the time for many reasons. First, he understood investing the way the Rajun Cajun never did or would. Second, he set boundaries with me I didn't even know I needed. I appreciate all the Rajun Cajun did to help me (and she was paid for her assistance), but I would have handled those chores myself or found people who could help me if Jack hadn't told me upfront what his expectations were.

1.1 I also found someone who would help with the daily boots on the ground kind of work. I owe a great deal of gratitude to Carolsue for this. Thank you my friend.

2. I (finally) hired a property management company. In all fairness, when the market changed in 2008 and I saw that our business model was changing to rentals instead of to a REIT, I fought for a property management company. Mr. Ex-Partner didn't want to spend the money on having someone else manage our homes, after all, he had me. Marty--and I am not being unkind, just stating the facts--didn't realize how stressful managing a gazillion homes was on me and the toll it was taking on my health. After a surgery in 2009 to fix something in me that was caused by stress, he started to come around. But if the truth be told, I just went out and got a property management company. When I did it, I didn't ask permission. Nor am I sorry.

3. I figured out what good tenants looked like. Granted, this was a direct correlation from experiencing bad tenants. But once I got rid of the Waywards, Mrs. 508s and Mr. Smiths of the world, I became more selective. Carolsue's input was invaluable. Though I didn't always listen to her, she was right about folks more often than not. Please understand, there is a huge difference between "bad tenant" and "obnoxious tenant." I had several obnoxious tenants you are more than welcome to read about in the archives of this ole' blog. But obnoxious people having personal problems that trickle down to their landlord is very different than just downright bad people renting my homes.

4. I knew when to get out. However, I couldn't convince our three partners (Marty and the Ex-Partners) I was right. I take a smug satisfactions in knowing this. But an, "I told you so!" doesn't get me anywhere.

5. We started buying homes in the right neighborhoods. If I had to do it all again, I can think of four properties Rajun Cajun advised us about and encouraged us to buy that I wouldn't touch again. The "right homes" we bought were always winners. The "wrong homes" we bought were always losers.

6. The education I got from this experience is invaluable. It is also intrinsic. There is no way to cover all I have learned, such as conducting business in the South--another culture--managing a company, forecasting, talking with investors, lawyers and banks, and lots of other things my college degree touched but didn't really do justice. I remember meeting with a group of investors, me the Yankee, them the Southern boys. I felt awkward and inadequate stumbling through my presentation (that I had practiced for weeks leading up to that moment). When I was done, I answered questions and got the approval and agreement for funding I was looking for. I was floored. I had taken a big step in growing our business. Of course, this was late 2007/early 2008, so the rest didn't go the way I hoped, but I wouldn't be afraid to do that kind of thing again if I had to.

7. Speaking of not being afraid, I would start another business. I would invest again and probably will in the future. Next time I hope what I have gained from this experience has a better outcome.