How To Create Extra Revenue On Your Rental Properties

With maintenance costs eating up his rental profits, our guest started looking for new ways to generate enough side income to cover the monthly mortgage on his apartment buildings… and he found them! 

Al Williamson—LeadingLandlord.com, is a former civil engineer and the author of Building Wealth With Inner City Rentals: Success the Catalytic Landlord Way. And today, he joins us to talk about the ancillary cash flow opportunities for your rental properties. 

Al spent years doing the research, packaged all his ideas up and put them into a book called 40 Ways To Increase The Net Income of Your Rental Property.

On today’s show, Al explains how the short/long term rental business works and shows us some creative ways to earn extra money on your property rentals every month.

With years of testing, Al has concluded that furnished rentals set the stage for all these other income streams, earning about 30% above market. Listen in as Al delves into the details of this strategy and how it compares with corporate extended-stays. Plus, we dive into: 

• Other ways to bring in extra money 
• Rental arbitrage & the risks
• Worst advice Al has seen given
• Airbnbs and more!

Also, find out the details behind the incentives he offers to his long-term tenants… it’s a win win situation for all. 

Al proves that he is not your traditional landlord, he has taken an old strategy and put a unique spin on it by constructing the perfect formula of cash flow options, which covers the mortgage on his units without using the rent! 

Plus, Al has generously offered to give one of the Art of Passive Income listeners, his book. Check out The Motivation & Wealth Creation Group for details!

TIP OF THE WEEK

Mark: Learn more about Al Williamson and his incredibly creative ways to increase the net income of any rental property by visiting LeadingLandlord.com. 

Scott: Check out Elephant.Rocks for text reminders. What’s cool about it is that you can text elephant and use real normal language like, “Hey, remind me to call mom tomorrow at 10:00 AM”, and then it will schedule it and remind you at 10:00 AM to call your mom.

Al: My tip of the week is to practice preventative maintenance, use Green Gobbler for your drains before clogs appear. It’s a biologically friendly product that is proven to prevent clogs and prevents any unnecessary plumbing bills.

Isn’t it time to create passive income so you can work where you want, when you want and with whomever you want?

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Are you a real estate investor who is coming up short on funds needed to close the deal on that great opportunity knocking at your door?

Our guest today, Bruce Mack, is a professional real estate investor who has done over 102 million in transactions and has been a licensed financial advisor for over two decades.

Bruce discovered that there is a big hole in the funding boat when he saw real estate people coming up short on their funding and were losing out on deals. So he founded Platinum Financing Group to plug that hole. 

Platinum Financing offers a variety of unique finance solutions and he’s going to talk about some of those solutions today.

Bruce, who says there are few asset classes they won’t work with, starts us off by going over two critical pain points—getting funded when you’re first starting out and protecting your funds. 

Listen in as we go over:

• The various programs offered
• Why corporate credit is not a workable solution for real estate investors
• How not to be classified as a dealer

Then, find out what Bruce uncovered on his search for the holy grail of trusts as he does a deep dive into trusts and the program, Asset Protection Tax Mitigation Trust.

Specifically with asset protection, it’s bulletproof in as much no lien or judgment could ever be executed against an individual or against the trust.

Bruce Mack

Are LLCs a viable source of protection?

The answer and so much more on today’s valuable and informative episode of The Art of Passive Income! 

TIP OF THE WEEK

Mark: My tip of the week is to go to PlatinumFinancingGroup.com.

Bruce: Check out the book, The One-Minute Manager by Kenneth H. Blanchard and Spencer Johnson. It’s an hour read to learn how to be a good one-minute manager.

Also, if you are interested in learning about the financing component, go to PlatinumFinancingGroup.com. There is an active calendar and you can block out 15-minutes to discuss what you want on initial consult. 

And lastly, for those who are looking for complementary trust consultation go to PlatinumTrustGroup.com.

Isn’t it time to create passive income so you can work where you want, when you want and with whomever you want?

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Today’s guest is going to take one of the biggest pain points in your business, bookkeeping, and solve it.

Ben Day, owner of LionShareBookkeeping.com, gives business owners back their time, money and sanity. He specializes in small businesses and real estate investors: from wholesalers, flippers, and rentals.

Listen in as Ben talks about all the moving pieces of accounting and why, as a business owner, you need to educate yourself and get financial clarity so you know how to communicate with your accountant. 

We dive deep into:

• Why bookkeeping is killing people’s businesses
• The biggest mistakes Ben sees people make
• Business types—LLC, S Corp, C Corp

Find out why Ben suggests to do a deal before you choose your business type. Plus, he gives advice on getting set up right from day one. 

To learn more about bookkeeping in general, Ben recommends reading Rich Dad Poor Dad to get financially literate. Also, check out his website for free resources.

Most of us can probably agree, bookkeeping ranks pretty low on the fun-o-meter. But, whether you do it yourself or you outsource it, it’s important that you get educated on this vital piece of your business.

TIP OF THE WEEK

Mark: My tip of the week is to get yourself out of bookkeeping, let the experts handle it, go to LionShareBookkeeping.com. Focus on working on your business, in growing your business, and allow the bookkeepers that are experts on it to make our life better, improve your cash flow, do some tax planning.

Scott: We just made a change, we took Posting Domination and Accounting for Land Investors, we put it under the umbrella of InvestorNinjas.com. Go learn how to build your accounting system for your business. 

Ben: Work communication is always the hardest part of any business, regardless of the business type. Check out the Chrome plugin—Loom.com, a tool that helps you get your message across through instantly shareable video.

Isn’t it time to create passive income so you can work where you want, when you want and with whomever you want?

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Our guest today is Scott Krone—founder of Coda Management Group. Coda teams up with investors to purchase strategically located, undervalued warehouse space and convert it into climate controlled self-storage facilities. They are a top three operator.

Scott began his career in multifamily 25 years ago and when the crash came in ’08 he began buying into the commercial realm and started seeing that there were some inefficiencies within the self-storage arena that he could take advantage of.

I think the biggest thing that we try to do is we’re always analyzing risk, we’re looking at stress tests, we’re looking at how to minimize that risk in the marketplace and the way we’re doing that is really down the front end and that’s the reason why we’ve chosen this vehicle because of the fact that we can assess that risk going into it.

Scott Krone

Listen in as Scott gets into the weeds of self-storage and why it makes such a great investment. As Scott describes it, “it’s apartments without toilet’s”… a more simplified version that costs about 1/10th of multifamily. There’s a lot less risk making it the safest asset class in real estate with the lowest default rates of all asset classes.

We delve deep into:

• The costs that go into buying a building
• Location, Location, Location
• Mitigating the risks
• A typical hold period
• Creating value
• The definition of pace financing and opportunity zone
• Investor’s ROI

Plus, find out the biggest mistake Scott sees people make in the self-storage arena and so much more on today’s Episode of The Art of Passive Income!

TIP OF THE WEEK

Mark: Learn more about Scott and his company at CodaMG.com.

Scott: My tip of the week is just to Google the 12 Steps to Intimacy in Attracting and Keeping Customers. If you think about this through the same concept as going through and building a relationship with your customer, you can apply the same 12 Steps to marketing and to your customer, too.

Scott Krone: Check out the book, The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery by Ian Morgan Cron. This book has helped us the most in the past few years. The concept is—that we all have— the nine personality types; the idea of this is the more healthy you are, the less this personality types get highlighted; the less healthy you are, they become more magnified and ugly in essence.

Isn’t it time to create passive income so you can work where you want, when you want and with whomever you want?

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Today’s guest has a really intriguing niche, in fact, it leaves both Mark & Scott with that shiny object twinkle in their eyes. 

Brad Smotherman joins the guys to talk about his unique niche within the niche of house flipping. Brad is a professional house flipper but the way that he sells houses is very unique and special and as Mark says, very cool.

What makes Brad’s strategy so unique from the typical house flipper?

After doing some fix and flips, Brad soon realized that there was no money there and that the real money was in the financing, so he became the bank. Brad’s strategy is to get the property under contract, buy it with equity and sell it on owner financing, creating a wrap note. 

Listen in as Brad walks us through an average deal, along with:

• The passive income on an average note
• Finding the houses and the buyers
• The types of properties he buys
• Working in multiple states
• Foreclosures and more!

Another perk to Brad’s strategy that we discuss in today’s episode is that there are no repairs to have to deal with! 

But, what about the Dodd Frank act? 

Dodd Frank is a banking regulatory act, part of which  clamps down on owner financing. Brad says that it’s not a concern in his strategy and explains why.

Also, find out which buyer’s pool is vast, yet there aren’t many players in it.

All of this and more on today’s episode of The Art of Passive Income!

TIP OF THE WEEK

Mark: Learn more about Brad at BradSmotherman.com also check out Brad’s podcast, Investor Creator Podcast With Brad.

Scott: Check out ColorZilla.com—a chrome extension that allows you to get the colors from any website.

Brad: Read the book, 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson.

Isn’t it time to create passive income so you can work where you want, when you want and with whomever you want?

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On today’s podcast we talk with The Mindful Landlord, Terrie Schauer, about how to run a rental property while keeping your peace of mind.

Terrie is a real estate coach with a PhD in nothing to do with real estate. And today, she talks to us about how to reduce the headaches in rental properties by bringing zen like qualities to the landlord experience.

Terrie has been managing rental properties half of her life and it was what helped finance her PhD. But during the process, she discovered that she liked being a landlord and was good at it, so she decided to follow that path after college instead of her chosen field of study.

Listen in as we discuss:

• The dangers of scaling too fast
• Vetting tenants
• Incremental progress
• Overcoming fear
• Property management automation

And finally, don’t sweat the small stuff!

Terrie’s number one tip of being mindful is to be able to prioritize between the small and the not small stuff for your own peace of mind.

For those thinking about getting into the realm of property management, check out Terrie’s book: Mindful Landlord: How to Run Rental Property For Profit and Peace of Mind. 

I feel like you can’t overstate the importance of choosing your tenants carefully because you’re really choosing your quality of life when you let someone into one of your units.

Terrie Schauer

Listen in now as Terrie teaches us a thing or two about mitigating the headaches behind the three r’s—renters, rodents, rehabs… on this episode of The Art of Passive Income!

TIP OF THE WEEK

Mark: Learn more about Terrie at TerrieSchauer.com.

Scott: Read the book, The Miracle Equation: The Two Decisions That Move Your Biggest Goals from Possible, to Probable, to Inevitable by Hal Elrod.

Terrie: “A little bit of something is better than a lot of nothing.” If you’re ever sitting there and thinking I don’t have time to run a 5k, or I don’t have time to learn this piece of real estate knowledge, I don’t have time to read this book, do whatever you can. Those little 5-minute things that you do will add up and they will put you further ahead over a long period of time than if you do nothing. 

A great book on the topic is: Incremental Improvements: Change Your Life One Small Step at a Time by Mike Brodsky.

Isn’t it time to create passive income so you can work where you want, when you want and with whomever you want?

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This notion that the customer is always right, we don’t necessarily believe that. In fact, we don’t necessarily believe that the customer even knows what he or she wants. It’s not their job.

Join us on today’s show as we talk with the Founder of the Avenue Group, Jeremy Greenberg, about customer diplomacy and why it’s important to build a transactional relationship with our customers and to have that balanced partnership and foster it to develop information that helps both the business and it customers.

Jeremy, who is also a Co-Founder and CEO Flyte Fitness, has built multimillion dollar businesses for two Fortune 500 companies (Capital One and Avon Products). He is an Entrepreneur in Residence at the Wharton school University of Pennsylvania, where he holds an MBA.

Listen in as we go over:

• Jeremy’s biggest entrepreneurial lesson learned
• Surveys—do they work to gain customer insight or are they biased based on the way you think?
• Worst advice Jeremy has seen given in customer diplomacy

Plus, Jeremy gives examples of companies that are dialed into customer service and experience while the one that’s off-track is Facebook. Find out where Jeremy says their biggest challenge lies!

TIP OF THE WEEK

Mark: Get smarter and learn more at AveGroup.com.

Scott: Check out the book, Late bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement by Rich Karlgaard. 

Jeremy:  At the beginning of the week, write down the main things you want to accomplish that week. Things that if you complete, you will consider a successful week. Do that for four weeks, and see how it works for you. It is really helpful.

Isn’t it time to create passive income so you can work where you want, when you want and with whomever you want?

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This is nacho typical Round Table episode—First, some serious gratitude, then some serious fun! 

Having the time and money to live their best lives, Mark asks the guys to dig deep to get to a more personal and intimate level to find out what they are most grateful for, that this business provides them.

Joining Mark are: 

• Mike Zaino
• Scott Bossman
• Tate Litchfield
• Scott Todd

Here is a little sneak peek into their answers… 

Mike—To me it’s time freedom. Everybody knows I still work the fire department, I’m blessed with a great schedule there, but as far as every other day of the week it’s just basically do whatever I want, whenever I want. And not just the time freedom, but to be free of debt. I don’t have that immense pressure of debt on me anymore. I don’t feel the burden and that weight. Debt can be crushing and if anybody out there is suffering from any type of debt you know what I’m talking about, it affects you at all levels of your life. 

Scott Bossman—I’m just not rushed anymore. Like when you’re working 8:00-5:00 and you’ve got to get kids to school in the morning and you’ve got to get them home in the afternoon and you’ve got to have dinner ready. It has improved my family relationships. This summer was my first summer home not working a job in 24 years and I was able to go golfing on a Monday with my son and go fishing on a Thursday with my other son and to be able to do these things with my boys that I was never able to do before.

Tate—The money that this business creates, I’m grateful for that. But after all is said and done, it’s allowed me to really spend time on things that I want to and that includes my health. I’m able to focus on maintaining a healthy lifestyle which is important because your health is wealth. I’m also really grateful for the time with my young family. It allows me to be a present dad. I don’t miss the milestones. I get to go to dance practices and these kinds of activities that my daughter finds interesting and I love it. I love being the only dad who goes to scissors classes.

Scott Todd—I’m thankful that this is a business that has allowed myself and others to enjoy the life that they want on their own timeframe, being able to do what you want, that’s the coolest thing to me about this business. It allows you to give back to the community, to give back to mankind. It’s not ‘all about me’,  it’s about living and being a better person because you have the time freedom to do it. And you have the economic freedom to help other people. When you can do that, man, life all of a sudden gets a lot more better. 

What is Mark grateful for? 

“I’m so grateful for so many things and everything you guys were talking about I’m super, super grateful for. When I was younger, I was Tate and then as I was going through my career I felt like what Scott felt like, being able to get out of my job in 18 months. Then to be able to spend time with my loved ones like, you know, just that morning routine like what Zaino was saying and Bossman being able to have those special moments throughout the week with my family. 

I’ve experienced all of those things. So today, I think what I’m most grateful for is The Land Geek community and being able to live vicariously through other people’s success. On Facebook yesterday with the Dude Buddy and the Zen Master, out of nowhere Nick Ringling is like, ‘Yeah, you know, I’m 8 months out of Flight School”…I think he made $187,000. And Paul Brewers like, “Yeah, I paid for Flight School tuition in my first deal.” Josh Deel same thing. 

I mean this is out of the blue. Like we’re not asking them to go on and do this. And I think through me hearing these stories of success… like a Tyler and Jen Kelly, I feel like now I can really die in peace, at least professionally, that I’ve made enough of an impact to do that. I think having that ability to make an impact in other people’s lives I’m most grateful for.”

Mark also shares a story about a recent heartwarming rescue mission that Scott Todd was on. 

Then the guys get on topic of Thanksgiving and their family traditions which, for obvious reasons, leads to the topic of food…. Cheesecake Factory may or may not have been mentioned. Ok, it was.  

Finally, have you ever been in a nacho emergency but didn’t know where to go? Scott Todd has you covered in this week’s Tip of the Week! #PleaseBringBackErikPetersonAndMimiSchmidt

The Land Geek Team is super grateful for all of our listeners, without you there wouldn’t be a podcast!  We hope you all had a warm fulfilling Thanksgiving.

TIP OF THE WEEK

Scott Todd: Check out the DataBaseOfNachos.com to find nachos near you!

Isn’t it time to create passive income so you can work where you want, when you want and with whomever you want?

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Our guest today, Cliff Hayden, is a real estate investor and the founder of ShowMeTheRental.com—an online software tool that automates the most difficult part of property management: finding and screening qualified leads.

In the late 90’s, Cliff was tired of being a puppet on a string for the corporation he worked for. Intrigued by real estate, he wanted to pursue it but wanted to make sure it was going to be the right avenue for him.

Then with timing on his side, he found a way to give real estate a try it before he left the comfort of a paycheck… he got himself suspended!

After making his salary in just the first month and holding the longest suspension in his company’s history, Cliff decided to go all in and quit his job to pursue real estate investing as a career.

Business was good for Cliff but he grew tired of taking hundreds of calls and emails from unqualified leads just to find that one good renter. He was tired of managing showings and following up with people.

He was struggling to find time for his family. He decided he needed a better way. And when he couldn’t find a better way, he built it.

Since developing ShowMeTheRental.com, Cliff is able to focus on his business and let the website manage the leads so he can spend more quality time with the people he loves.

I do have some regrets and one of them was not being around for my two older kids like I should’ve been because I was working all the time. So I’m trying to make up for that now and with this system and with the other systems we’re using I have time to do whatever I want, it’s a new feeling but it’s a great feeling to have freedom in your day.

Listen in as Cliff shares the details of those early days and how he made the transition from trading time for money to finding the right balance of priorities in his life.

Also, find out:

• How ShowMeTheRental works
• Cliff’s first investment property
• How he leads by example for his kids

Cliff went from a corporate puppet to real estate success because he had one thing…burning desire. And that, paired with a smart exit strategy was the perfect recipe to create the lifestyle he desired.

TIP OF THE WEEK

Mark: Go to ShowMeTheRental.com, it’s a great tool at an amazing value of $49 until your house rents.

Scott: This book could help our listeners who struggle with sales. Check out, Questions that Sell: The Powerful Process for Discovering What Your Customer Really Wants by Paul Cherry.

Cliff: Check out the app, Blinkist. Key takeaways from books that will take 15 to 20 minutes to read. It’s a really good tool to keep your mind sharp.

Isn’t it time to create passive income so you can work where you want, when you want and with whomever you want?

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Over the next few episodes of The Land Geek Round Table, we are going to take a deep dive into scaling your land business. The objective is to take you from working IN the business to working ON the business, on your schedule!

Joining Mark this week are:

• Tate Litchfield
• Mike Zaino
• Mimi Schmidt
• Scott Todd

Listen in as the team talks about what life in the business looked like when they were first starting out and what it looks like now, working on the business… and we can tell you, it looks much different!  

We all want to have our money problem solved. But ultimately, you want your time problem solved so that you have complete control of how you spend your time in your life. If Monday or Tuesday is the same day as Saturday or Sunday or Friday, that’s an amazing feeling. I remember that first time I got sick after I quit my investment banking job and this amazing sense of relief that there was no one to call, there’s no stress, I didn’t have to deal with a manager or anything like that. I could just be sick.  -Mark

Find out the details on:

• How many hours a day they worked then and now
• Their first hires
• How long it took them to get to where they are today

Beside time, find out what it took for our team to get to the point of where they are today—running a successful business that will run with or without them. Bottom line, their success comes down to determination. 

You are going to have obstacles along the way, both in the business and in your personal life but if you’re able to push through them and keep going, there is no reason why you can’t be successful in this business. 

I think that people need to understand, also reiterate the fact that it’s the deep work that got us to this point. It’s like you always say, ‘it’s simple, but it’s not easy’. You’re going to get kicked in the teeth in this business. It takes a lot of deep work and a lot of mistakes and recoveries and commitment because a lot of people get stopped in this business and I think that it comes down to, it can be sort of an excuse when something strong comes up that blocks you and you don’t push through it. 

You have to not allow that to become an excuse. 

I don’t want to belittle anybody’s issues that will come up in the business but we all have these things that happen and we’ve all pushed through them. We’re here now because we pushed through that. So it’s important to realize that, if you’re out there listening and you’re struggling, that we’ve done that and it’s the only reason we’re having good results now is because we pushed through it and you can too so that’s like the other side of it. -Mike

And finally, work at YOUR OWN pace. The definition of success is not based on speed or keeping up with others in the business. 

People are going to do well at their own pace. How I define success is not necessarily how Mimi defines success. There is no success spectrum that says, ‘well, he did it in this amount of time, well, then that makes him successful’. 

How do you define success? 

If you define success by building a passive income and getting the heck out of your day job, what does it matter how long it takes? It does not matter and should not matter. 

Unfortunately, I think that a lot of times people put artificial time horizons on their success and they go, “Well, okay, I’m going to try this for six months.” Well, I can tell you in six months, you won’t be successful. End of story if that’s your time horizon. I don’t know what you’re going to be successful in for six months but it’s not this. But if you’re willing to continue to chisel away slowly and methodically at building the business that you want, well then you can do it. It’s just you have to do it. That’s the difference. -Scott

TIP OF THE WEEK

Mark: Check out Tentrr.com—it’s like Airbnb but with tents. You can share your land, become a camp keeper and earn annual income by hosting guests on your land.

Isn’t it time to create passive income so you can work where you want, when you want and with whomever you want?

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