Dulcey Schuster's Blog

Uh-oh, despite your thorough tenant screening  you have discovered that you have bad tenants.  This can happen to anyone; sometimes people look good on paper and put up a good front when you meet them. The most common issue we face as landlords or property managers is that tenants fail to pay ren...

The summer months are upon us and that means that air conditioning units will be working overtime.  In southern Oregon, where I live and manage rental properties, we've been having some pretty hot weather with most days in the mid 90's. I've gotten several calls already this summer from different...

Fireworks are synonymous with our celebration of Independence Day. But injuries, fires and home insurance claims are also a part of this tradition. If a fire is caused by illegal fireworks your family sets off, your home owners insurance policy may not cover it. However, if the fire is started by...

If you own and rent real estate as I do you have likely had a conversation with a friend, a colleague, or even a total stranger and once they hear you are a landlord they for some reason feel compelled to crack a joke or imply that you are a slumlord. When I get that kind of reaction I immediatel...

If you got your tenant screening report back and you note that the applicant has a felony charge would you still rent to him or her? If you said "No" you may be discriminating. When we think of discrimination we usually think of intentional acts which exclude members of certain groups from employ...

What is it that seasoned landlords and property management services know about tenant screening that every property owner should?  This guide will show you how to successfully screen a tenant quickly and accurately and to form an informed decision on which prospective tenants to approve and which...

Given the unknown future of the economy I participate in a lot of conversations about how to best position ourselves for 1. a slowly recovering economy (our current trajectory) or 2. an economic collapse.  When it comes to being a property investor it begs the question, Is it best to have our pro...

Rentec Direct, maker of leading Property Management Software and tenant screening solutions, is offering their premium tenant screening package for just $21, which includes; credit, nationwide criminal, eviction, and an address search. The discount code is good from June 16th to June 22nd, 2014 t...

To a landlord or property manager, vacancies are one of the biggest concerns since vacancies are catastrophic to cash flow.  It’s important that when a property becomes vacant the amount of time that passes until the next tenant moves in is as short as possible. A loss of rental income for a coup...

As a property management software distributor catering to the property management industry, we're often asked:  "What documents do we need to keep?".  This varies state to state; however, I've begun compiling a list of documents that landlords and property managers absolutely must keep; not just ...