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Kudos to My Property Manager

I used berate my PM alot on here.  In fact, since I’ve posted about my PM back in 2006 and 2007 they have improved greatly.  When I first hired them, they were a small 2 person mom and son operation.  In the past 2 years they have expanded to as far as I can tell at least 7 employees.  I don’t have communication problems anymore, I get my rent through direct deposit, I get monthly statements emailed to me, emails are answered quickly and most of all, I get regular updates.  

The amount of work they’ve done for me in the past year makes me the monthly fee seem like a bargain.

One of my SLC townhomes was rented starting July 2nd.  It was rented at $1250/mo which includes the $100/mo for installing a fridge, washer and dryer.  The cost for the appliances came out to $1,080 including taxes, delivery and install.  So in about 11 months the appliance will be paid for. I gave my PM a price range for all appliances and she went out and purchased them, had them delivered and installed.

On my 2nd SLC townhome there was a leak where the toilet attaches to the floor.  Unfortunately, the bathrooms are carpeted!  Yes, the builder offered carpeted bathrooms as standard and when I bought these I couldn’t change these options.  The toilet leak made it necessary for me to replace the carpet in the bathrooms.  I am going to replace it with either vinyl flooring or tile depending on the price.  My PM has is getting bids on both options.

Just imagine how much time that would have taken me to coordinate.  I know that this is what a PM is supposed to do.  But how often is it that smooth?  It’s been going this way for over a year now.  So kudos to my Salt Lake City property managers - CDA Properties.  Notice the beneficial anchor text? ;)

In the meantime, the 2nd SLC townhome has a rental application on it so I’m hoping to get it filled this month.

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Making Money Online - June 2008

Here are the numbers for June 2008. 

Adsense revenue from this blog: $99
Adsense revenue from other sites: $41
Revenue from advertising sales: $76
Revenue from affiliate sales: $0
Ebiz’s: $968

Total Revenue: $1184

Sorry no commentary today… Just the numbers…

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Ebiz#1 conversions update

It has been a month since I implemented the one page checkout to my ebiz#1.  The metric I was measuring was Shopping Cart adds vs. Sales.  When I posted my results on June 5th I had a shopping cart abandonment rate of 85% based on data from March 2008 to May 2008.

I went back and tried to piece together data from January using Google Analytics and my sales log.  I had to remove the phone sales and add the returned orders.  I believe the data is fairly accurate but not perfect.

The graph below is based on Online Sales divided by Shopping Cart Adds.

The one page checkout was implemented on May 28th.  Therefore, the entire month of June used the one page checkout page.  The month of May had a suprisingly poor conversion rate of 13%.  Therefore it wasn’t fair to compare my 1 page checkout to just May 2008.  If I did that it would look like the 1 page checkout was a huge success.

By going back to January 2008, I think I can safely say that my site’s conversion rate is about 17%.  The one page checkout conversion rate for June was 17.4%.   We cannot conclude anything from this except that it looks like the one page checkout did not increase conversions.

I will be tracking this monthly now to see if anything changes.

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1 for 2 on Tenants in SLC

Today my PM signed a lease for SLC Townhome #1.  The tenants wanted the appliances (washer, dryer and fridge) and agreed to pay an additional $100/mo.  So this townhome is rented for $1250/mo which brings in a decent $400/mo cashflow ($300 for 9 months).  I am spending about $900 for the appliances so they will be paid for in 9 months.

The tenants for SLC Townhome #2 that were suppose to move in sight unseen have not been heard from again.  Back to the drawing board.

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General Update again

Vegas - Vegas was great.  I didn’t play any poker but watched alot of it.  I saw a bunch of the TV poker pros and watched my friends play cash games.  We also had a great run at the craps table.  The whole table was hot.  Every roller hit at least one point, most hit multiples.  My friend rolled for about 45 minutes straight hitting 4 points and a ton of 6 and 8s.  Anyway, that run made my whole trip free!

SLC Townhome Tenants - Good news according to my PM.  Both townhomes have rental applications on them.  The potential tenants for Townhome #1 are meeting the PMs on Tuesday to sign the lease.  They want a washer, dryer and fridge put in.

The potential tenants for Townhome #2 are from Texas and will be moving in sight unseen at the beginning of July.

Chicago Condo - The new tenants have moved in.  As expected they were a scatter brained.  They told me they were moving in at 3pm and that they would call when the movers were done packing.  I had my parents go there at 3:15pm to give them the keys.  My parents waited until 4pm and then called them.  They said something happened and they weren’t moving in today and that they thought they were suppose to call only when the movers were done.  Obviously the movers were never gonna be done because they weren’t moving that day but WTF, what is wrong with their brains?  Anyway, that pisses me off.   I just know that they are going to have late fees like crazy if I don’t remind them to send rent.  I’m going to remind them once on July 25th.  Any bets on when August rent will show up?

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WSOP 2008 here I come

I’m off to Vegas today.  The World Series of Poker 2008 is underway in Las Vegas and continues through July 12th.  For the first time, I’m going to Vegas and I don’t plan on gambling at all.  This is actually a business trip for the new website that we are launching soon. 

I’m going to Vegas to meet some of the poker pros in person.  Since they are all in Vegas for the WSOP, this is an opportune time to go meet them and also to hang out and watch some tournaments.

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General Update

SLC Townhome Tenants - Well still no tenant in Townhome #1.  The bad news is that the tenants in Townhome #2 are getting a divorce and are leaving tomorrow.  They’ve been told that they still owe rent until a new tenant is found, but given their circumstances I’m sure paying rent on a place they both don’t want to live in will be the last thing on their mind.

So after tomorrow I will have two empty townhomes in SLC.  I’ll probably drop the price of one dramatically ( $150) to get it rented so I won’t have two mortgages to pay.

It’s turning out that my Option ARM loan is working out as designed.  Aside from that fact that it’s interest rate has adjusted down to around 6.5%, it can now do exactly what it was designed to do.  It was designed to help an investor through the times of vacancy but having a minimum payment negative am option.  I’ve never paid the minimum, in fact I’ve been paying the 30 amortized rate, but with 2 empty units I will be paying the minimum neg. am payment next month.

Chicago Condo - The new tenants are moving into my Chicago condo.  The tenants are graduate students but they seem very irresponsible or naive.  It seems like they’ve never rented a place before.  First, they sent me a $500 deposit to hold the condo in April.  According to our contract, they still owed me $1300 by May 1st.  I send them numerous reminders and May 1st comes around and I don’t receive the $1300. I could have kept their $500 deposit and found a new tenant.   I call them and tell them that I’m going to start advertising the unit again and they immediately overnight a check for $1300. 

Next comes move in day, today.  I told them last week via email and voice mail that I will not give them the keys until I get this month’s prorated rent and July’s rent.  I don’t get a response.  I call them Friday again and finally get in touch with them.  The tenant says, “Oh so rent is due before we move in?”  It’s like they don’t listen or read my messages.  I tell them yes and if I don’t get their rent I’m not giving them the keys which would leave them homeless for one night.  Today, one of the tenant’s parents transfers the money into my account.  Nothing like getting it done at the last minute.

I’m not too worried about not getting paid rent since their parents are footing the bill.  But I have a feeling that these tenants will be paying alot of late fees. 

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