News & Insights

Property Maintenance: How Much Should I Budget?

Being a successful landlord requires the ability to plan for all the routine and unexpected rental property expenses, starting with maintenance. But for many new landlords and investors, preparing an accurate rental property budget is easier said than done. Landlords often overlook many property maintenance variables when estimating rental income and profits. Sadly, some end up losing their properties as a result. As a landlord, the following rental property budget template should help you put aside enough cash for those inevitable “rainy days.”

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8 Things that make a Construction Project Successful (And on Time!)

Construction projects quickly become price propositions. Construction managers and construction companies understand how volatile raw materials prices can put pressure on a project. For instance, Mortgage News Daily recently reported how “even though lumber prices have recently declined, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) says builders are facing some of the fastest increases of other building material costs in history.” And while savvy managers have long known how to hedge against that particular risk, other less obvious pitfalls have plunged many projects into delay, decline, and downright failure.

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8 Necessary Skills Any Construction Project Manager Must Have

People want to learn how to lead well. Just look at the perpetually burgeoning publishing field of leadership manuals. From time-worn classics such as Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People to newer additions such as Good to Great by Jim Collins and The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell, there’s no shortage of practical and inspirational tomes about how to become a great leader. However, these books often run into a common issue: Because they’re written for a general audience, implementing their recommendations can prove challenging when applying them to a specific field.

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The Day-to-day Tasks of a Construction Manager

Construction managers can have challenging jobs — and some might even consider them the most important part of an entire project. True, owners set the vision, and project managers oversee the entire thing, making sure it starts well and finishes strong. The role of a construction manager is different. Construction manager duties involve the starting and finishing of the structure (or structures), the task of turning an empty space into an edifice. Unfortunately, owners and project managers don’t always understand a construction manager’s daily tasks, so when issues crop up, so can unnecessary conflicts.

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6 Types of Commercial Construction Contracts You Must Know

There’s no doubt that commercial construction is big business. Despite the fact that construction suffered a worldwide correction in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ReportLinker estimates that “global construction output will expand by 4.5% in 2021,” and Statista reported that the “construction industry grew to a spending value of close to 12 trillion U.S. dollars before the coronavirus pandemic.” But this doesn’t mean that the industry is without challenges. A 2015 report by KPMG discovered that more than two-thirds of owners blame contractors for underperforming construction projects and more than half had an underperforming project during the last year.

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Why Multi-Year Leases Are (Usually) a Bad Idea for Landlords

To many tenants, landlording seems like a risk-free way to basically print money, an investment approach with precious few downsides. How wrong that idea is! Veteran and neophyte landlords alike understand just how challenging and problematic a task it can become. Just consider the task of acquiring — and then retaining them. Some landlords swear that signing multi-year leases provides them with the best possible return, but does it really just open them up to more risk?

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Commercial Lease Buyout: 7 Things You Need to Consider

Whether you have a successful or struggling business, you may find yourself looking to get out of your lease. Your reasons may vary and include anything from needing a different space to requiring a geographical change, from struggling to meet your current rent to discovering that your landlord is more trouble than he or she is worth. In any case, when you’re wondering how to get out of a commercial lease, it pays to know your options — and one of the most important is a commercial lease buyout. 

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Implied Repair Covenants in Commercial Leasing

The United States traces its common-law heritage back over more than a millennia, and the statutes regulating real-estate transactions have changed substantially (to put it mildly). According to a study by Paula C. Murray that was published in the University of Richmond Law Review, “The tenant bore all the risk of the physical condition of the property — caveat lessee. The tenant could provide for landlord repairs in the lease, but could not withhold rent if the landlord failed to make those repairs. Additionally, the tenant assumed primary responsibility for the condition of the premises once he took possession of the property.”

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