Being a landlord can be an agonizing and very rewarding business. I have been a landlord for over 14 years and currently have 55 rental units. I happen to love it, but it is not all roses all the time. Surprisingly, being a landlord is not that tough and you can manage many units without a lot of work, but you have to have your business set up correctly. You can scale your landlord business with or without professional property management. I happen to think property managers are expensive for what they do, but I also understand the tremendous value they can bring. There are many different reasons you should consider using a property manager, but before you make that decision consider these 6 questions:Where are your properties located? I have tried long distance management and can tell you it is tough. For it to work, you need great systems in place, which is not easy to set up when you are not on the ground. You will also most likely be relying, at least to some extent, on other people who are not licensed to do what you need them to do. This could include anything from signing a lease, to collecting rent, to fixing a faucet. In my business, I feel it is worth the money to hire property managers to manage all my out of state properties.How many properties do you have?You can manage a lot of properties with just a few hours of work a month. I manage all my in state properties myself because it is easy to do and is not worth it to me to pay someone else to do it. In fact, when you are getting started, I would strongly encourage you to manage your own properties. This will help you gain valuable experience, even if you want to eventually turn them over to a manger. To manage multiple properties, you need good systems. This includes a team to do your handy work (basic handyman, plumber, electrician, appliance repair, etc.) Obviously, this is all outsourced so you don’t need employees for this to work. You also need a great leasing agent. A leasing agent is someone who will typically give you advice on what needs to be done to get a unit ready and they will market, show, and negotiate your property. You can have them do the lease signing too, although I would recommend you do that so you get a chance to meet the tenant. Other systems you will need to implement include; rent collection, evictions, move ins and outs, maintenance requests, property improvements, enforcing the lease, transferring utilities, etc. I would consider a manager if I got so many properties that I felt overwhelmed, and in this case I would hand select properties to turn over.Are you organized?Here is where you have to be honest with yourself, which is not always easy to do. To manage multiple properties you really do need to be organized. You will have payments coming in for rent and going out for maintenance, mortgages, utilities and more. You will be getting maintenance requests, requests to add or remove people from the lease, request from government agencies, and requests from a slew of others. If you cannot stay on top of this, it is time to hire some professional help.Do you have a problem property?These are the worst and you won’t know you bought one until after you own it for a while. I have a few that give me trouble. Although I still manage them myself, those few problem properties take up more of my time than everything else I have combined. This is one time that I would consider a manager for a local property.Can you afford it?As I mentioned, property management can be expensive. You should expect to pay ½ or more of the first month’s rent in a leasing fee, 6-10 percent of the gross rent amount in a management fee, and additional costs for maintenance (this is usually marked up). I would try to look at this as if the property can afford it, not you. You really don’t want to get into the habit of feeding your investments, so if there is not enough cash flow from the property, then you might consider managing it yourself until you can get your expenses down or your rents up.Do you have the time?Because it only takes a handful of hours a month, my guess is you do have the time. The real question is, do you want to be managing the property with that time? As you get older and your goals change, it might make since to start to step away from your landlord business. Retiring is the obvious example. At that point in your life, you will most likely be deciding between professional management and liquidation.

Community PropertyCalifornia is a community property state. All property that is purchased or acquired during marriage, or transmuted (converted) to community property during marriage is community property.The husband and wife in a marriage, each own an undivided one half interest in all community property of the marriage.Community property is not divided, unless divorce proceedings are initiated, or upon the death of either the husband or wife.Community property can be either real property or personal property. Community property can also be businesses, pension plans, or any other type of tangible thing that is acquired during marriage.Community property is ordinarily one of the major issues involved in divorce actions.Quasi Community PropertyQuasi community property is property that is acquired outside of the state of California during marriage. Although married couples may have purchased property in a state that is not a community property state like California, the property will basically be treated as though it were community property for purposes division in a divorce action in the state of California.BusinessesBusinesses that were started during a marriage are community property.
In some instances a person may have owned an existing business before they were married, and continue the business after marriage. In a divorce action, the courts will allocate a percentage of value to the business “after marriage” to determine which portion of the business is community property.If you owned an existing business before marriage, it is extremely important for you to consult with an attorney in a divorce action as soon as possible.PensionsAny portion of Pensions, IRA’s, 401(k) s, Retirement plans, etc., that were contributed during marriage are community property.Ordinarily the funds from pension plans are not obtainable until the pension plan vests and matures. Therefore special orders are necessary from the court so that each party is able to get their portion of any retirement plan after it matures and vests. These orders are ordinarily called qualified domestic relations orders or QDRO’s for short.Obviously parties to a divorce have a vested interest in ensuring that they get their fair portion of any pension or retirement plans after a divorce.Community Income, Bank Accounts, Stock, and InvestmentsAll income earned during a marriage is considered community income. This is true even in one of the parties to a marriage earns money in a business that was theirs prior to marriage. Community income is the same as community property, in that each party owns a one half undivided interest in community income.Each party to the marriage has a right to spend and use community income, even if they are not the one that earned the money. However, after legal separation or the initiation of divorce proceedings, parties may only use community property for the necessities of life and to pay their attorney.Likewise, any bank accounts, stock, and/or investments that are acquired during the marriage are also community property. This is true even if the bank account, stock, and/or investment is only in the name of one of the parties.Some parties try to secret money into separate bank accounts during marriage, and/or hide assets there were acquired during marriage from the other party.If you are a party in a divorce action, you have what is called a fiduciary duty of disclosure. What this means is that you must disclose all assets, bank accounts, and other of the investments that were acquired during the marriage to the other party. If you fail to fully disclose your assets and/or income to the court and the other party, the court could severely punish you.You may have read about the case where a wife won the lottery, and then initiated divorce proceedings against her husband. She failed to inform the court and her husband about the fact that she won the lottery. As punishment for her failure to disclose the fact that she won the lottery, the court gave her husband the entire amount of the lottery winnings.Separate PropertySeparate property is all property that was acquired before marriage; during marriage by devise, will, or inheritance; and after legal separation. The proceeds from a personal-injury judgment or settlement are also separate property, even if they were received during marriage.Upon the court making a finding that property is separate property, the person owning said separate property will leave the marriage with their separate property.Separate property can be transmuted (converted) to community property by intent, or by inadvertence. For instance, a party may have a separate bank account before marriage that would be considered separate property. If the party then takes income that was earned during marriage and deposits that money into their separate bank account, they may have by inadvertence converted that bank account to community property.Obviously, parties in a divorce proceeding will most likely want to keep their own separate property after the divorce is over. It is very important for you to contact an attorney with regard to the issue of separate property to ensure that you get to keep her separate property after the divorce.If you are contemplating filing for divorce or are presently involved in a divorce proceeding, you may call our law firm for a free consultation at 818-739-1544 ext. 10, or go to our family law website at http://www.divorce-legal.net .By Norman Gregory Fernandez, Esq., © 2006

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I learned options late in life, accidentally, trawling the pages of the ancient magazine Exchange and Mart in 1995. A full page article showed how an options trader could work from home, (actually in bed) using prices from the BBC’s teletext, back in the day. A lot has changed, but options have been around for centuries-pre-dating shares, being used for pricing ships’ cargoes. In the 1980s options became exchange traded, and fortunes were made. Warren Buffett is a keen options trader, Nassim Taleb was the most prolific. They are not idiots and neither are you if you have read thus far.

Investing is the word we use for a trade that went wrong! Investing is mostly passive and requires you to be right and/or to tuck your stocks away for decades. With markets hitting new highs and valuations stretched, you have to realise the stock market cannot keep going up. If you are happy with paltry dividends and the certainty that your stock will at some point in the future be worth half what it is today, then read no further. QE is no longer on the table and that is all that has separated stocks from realistic valuations.

So what are options all about? In our world we only trade the FTSE100 options. Why? Because the entire index is unlikely to get arrested for fraud/sexual harassment/bogus accounting/toxic products, and all the other nasties that can destroy a company’s rep in a heartbeat. So FTSE is the underlying on which our derivatives are based. Options are the right to buy or sell the underlying (priced by the exchange at £10 per point cash settled) but NOT the obligation. In the same way as insurance companies collect premiums, however, options can be sold. Did you ever see a poor insurance company? When you get it right, selling options can bring you a monthly income stream of a comfortable 2% per month, consistently. Nothing else comes close.

So who are the buyers of options if everybody sells them? Well that is the biggest part of education, and the reason I have traded profitably since 1999. Yes I have had failures, and panics- but I made nice profits in February while the market dropped 10%, despite being a bit dim! I learned about options from an expensive course and from much of the free training on the internet. A while ago I met a like-minded options trader, he runs the website to which I contribute every week, with a real trade, and general tittle tattle about our world. It’s utterly mind-blowing when you start to understand options and the endless combinations, and 20 or more strategies that we use. I love options trading and I want to reach those with a pot of cash who seek income, and a sensible method with risk management, but who don’t know where to start. We are not just about newbies though-there are insights for all. And… we don’t want your money.