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Fortunately, that’s one problem that’s easy to solve: An electronic payment program that allows you to debit a tenant’s credit card or bank account each month, automatically. Payments are deposited into your bank account on time, every time. Imagine that! You can schedule any number of transactions depending on your lease agreement, or, if you rent out month-to-month, you can schedule a single transaction. Taking control of your cash flow has never been more important than during this cycle of high unemployment and sudden layoffs. You need to hedge your bets that you will be the creditor who gets paid. by Dian Hymer, Inman News
by Tom Kelly, Inman News
Now, the government is backing a program to help older homeowners purchase a home with the increasingly popular financing program. Mortgage Shopping is All About Technique by Jack Guttentag, Inman News
This article is about shopping technique. Most of it is simple. In a highly imperfect market, an investment in the time needed to shop effectively can pay large dividends. by Eric Tyson, Inman News
1031 exchange accommodators, also known as qualified intermediaries, hold funds in escrow from real estate investors who have sold a property at a profit and have 180 days to close on the purchase of a replacement property (which must be identified within 45 days of the sale of the original property) in order to defer capital gains tax on the profits. In the case of LandAmerica’s Exchange Services (LES), the company held hundreds of millions of dollars from more than 400 real estate investors. by Robert Griswold
The rental is a 90-year-old home in good condition but without a lot of remodeling. It has 4 bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths, two fireplaces, a spectacular view, a garden and a one-car garage. A little less than a year ago I rented the property for $4,800 per month. I thought that the rent was very reasonable at the time, as I had many prospective tenants. But this year the rental market has clearly softened and the tenants have already indicated that they may want to move just because other rental homes are more affordable.I am really hoping that they sign a new lease and would like to offer them a fair rental rate. Can you tell me by what percentage rentals of this type have come down since they originally signed the lease? (more…) by Phoebe Chongchua, Realty Times
The TeleCheck® Check Verification Service is available to all AAOA members, including free members, either alone or with an AAOA screening package. TeleCheck is well-known for assisting merchants in separating good check writers from bad ones, allowing them to adopt a liberal check acceptance policy that will benefit both the merchants and their customers. These same national databases are available to landlords through AAOA and contain real-time information from more than 306,000 businesses and financial institutions. TeleCheck offers the most accurate check verification service in the industry. These databases provide merchants with continually updated information including bad check activity as it occurs, automated inquiries using the consumer’s identification (Driver’s License or State ID) as well as checking account data. An applicant’s check writing history can indicate what type of renter they will be. The basic Verification service quickly separates good and bad check risks using TeleCheck’s negative database. This database comprises more than 51 million bad check records and can help detect a poor rental prospect, as well as a fraudulent application. The Verification with Risk Management service uses both TeleCheck’s check writer activity and negative databases along with its risk management system to identify not only bad check writing risks, but also good ones. The risk management service utilizes TeleCheck’s risk and predictive-modeling systems to analyze over 30 variables to predict the probability of a check being good. These assessment tools include regression modeling, neural networks, & decision tree analysis. To access the service visit www.joinaaoa.org, and sign up for one of our membership options, including free membership, or our new limited membership that allows access to credit reporting. Premium members receive discounts on tenant screening. See a sample TeleCheck Verification Report. See more Tenant Screening articles. American Apartment Owners Association offers discounts on products and services related to your commercial housing investment including REAL ESTATE FORMS, tenant debt collection, tenant background checks, insurance and financing. Find out more at www.joinaaoa.org. by Meredith Martin
 Feng Shui often gets a bad rap among conservatives, mostly in my opinion, for good reason. The little chimes and Ba-Gua’s most people use are nothing more than superstition, although the information they attempt to mimic is rooted in science that has been studied….well, for a long long time.
Why did I start to pay attention to Feng Shui? Because as a real estate agent, I noticed, after a while, that certain properties seemed to go on the market every year or two, repeatedly.
 To me that was an indication that for whatever reason, it was impossible for the occupants to get comfortable and settle in. Even within the same condo complex, certain units will constantly change hands while others stay settled – and that is true even for units with identical floor plans and finishes. Unit 1 will change hands 3 times in a five or seven year period, while Unit 2 (same floor plan flipped) stays put for years.
I have a confession: I have not yet had my home ‘Feng Shui’d’ if you will. The reason is simple. A Feng Shui master is expensive and VERY hard to come by which is why the true masters end up working for the high end homes and corporate clients. If you are interested in learning a little more my favorite web site is maintained by an architect friend of mine, Simona Mainini, located in LA county. For most people flying her up to consult on their home will be too cost prohibitive, but her newsletter is free and full of interesting facts and information. Visit www.FengShuiArch.com.
For those who are just curious, like myself… Meredeth Martin is a Senior Real Estate Advisor for the Paragon Real Estate Group in San Francisco. She can be reached 415.738.7067 direct or via her web site: http://meredithmartin.com/ American Apartment Owners Association offers discounts on products and services related to your commercial housing investment including REAL ESTATE FORMS, tenant debt collection, tenant background checks, insurance and financing. Find out more at www.joinaaoa.org.
See our feature, 12 Tips for Retaining Tenants.
by Howard Bell
Bush has already released the last half of TARP, about 350 billion and Obama has every intention of using a part of this for foreclosure relief. It’s clear that we are not sure how to spend this money. I like the Obama direction of simply investing in America and bringing its infrastructure into the 21st century, but that is long term and we are hurting in the short term. Earnings are out for the banks and they are losing a lot of money because more and more are defaulting on credit and car loans as well as mortgages. Citigroup is now below $5…..sad that six months ago it was the largest bank in the world. But Bernanke is warning Obama that most of the remaining $350 billion – and possibly more – has to go to shoring up banks if they are to resume lending at anything approaching normal levels. What’s not clear to me is, even if you continue to shore up the banking system, that they will loan. The money already given to banks has not really been used to keep the economy’s wheels in motion, but for mergers and bonuses. Quite a pickle….. Howard Bell PFP CCRM is the founder/editor of Your Property Path.com, featuring over 450 articles on property management, Your Property Path SF, trade talk for the San Francisco real estate industry, and Your Property Path Amazon Store. Howard is a property manager in San Francisco and holds a certification in financial planning.   Add Super Saver to any membership for only $ 19.95! 
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Steady cash flow is a must-have to stay afloat and thrive in this economic free-for-all. 
The recent Cost vs. Value Report showed that renovations on a nationwide basis held their value better than home prices did in 2008. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), home prices declined 7 percent in 2008, while the value of homeowners’ investments in remodeling dropped only 2.8 percent in 2008.
Reverse mortgages have been available for more than two decades for older homeowners who have accrued a significant amount of equity in their homes.
Last week I reported the results of a mortgage shopping expedition, (
The November 2008 bankruptcy filing of leading 1031 exchange accommodator LandAmerica should alert all real estate investors to the real perils regarding what firm they choose for handling their 1031 exchange and holding their funds.
Q: I am a landlord with a high-end rental property located in a very nice, older part of town. 
There are an estimated 11 million real estate investors in the U.S., according to IRS data. However, not all of them chose to be a real estate investor. Some accidentally became investors due to market conditions.
Wouldn’t you like to find out if an applicant has written a bad check before you rent to them, or make sure the check they offered to you is good before you accept it and give them the keys to your property?
It’s easy to hate the financial system that broke itself and most of the world, especially when they need even more of our money. 
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