Real Estate investing is a lifestyle choice.

I was asked what I meant by that the other day.  So I thought I would share a recent story.  It happened over a Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

We currently have an ad placed to fill a vacancy.  I was communicating with a potential prospect, and set up an appointment to show the apartment on a Sunday morning.  I just had to figure out how to fit it in to my sons hockey and parade schedule that day.  Here is what I did, my wife (Shelly) and two boys headed to the rink.  When my son got on the ice, I ran out, met the prospect, showed the apartment, had the tenant fill out the application and made it back to the rink with time to spare.

I still needed a few more pieces of information to start processing the application, so I could not start the screening process right away (I like to start the process right away, especially since good tenants have choices, they could be looking at more than one apartment).

The prospect emailed me the information, while we were having supper at my parents.  As soon as we finished supper we rushed home, Shelly put the kids to bed, and I ran a credit check, and started calling references.

We were able to process the application by early the next day (once we got in touch with the references, past landlords, etc…)

I contacted him to offer the apartment, he was excited and we made an appointment for me to go to his current apartment to do a lease signing the next night at 7:00 p.m. (after my regular day job).

Then about an hour later he called back and it turns out, he was not on a month to month lease, but a one year.  To make a long story short, he is locked in for about four more months.

So, back to the drawing board.  I immediately went on Kijiji and reposted the ad as a top ad.

We got another prospect, only this time Shelly agreed to show the apartment.

As a real estate investing and property management team, we have to be on the ball and ready for action at all times.  It is important in any family to be on the same page with what ever goals you are working towards.

This is just one story of many that I could share.

I hope this post provides some insight into how we fit property management and real estate investing into our life.

I often say to those who use the “I do not have enough time” or other similar excuses for not taking action in there lives, to take a good look in the mirror and consider the alternative.

Until next time,

Design your landlord experience,

Michael P Currie

Photo Credit to Rawpixel.com

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