The Money Kings are keepin' it real, baby!!!

For your consideration: Real Estate Profits And Losses.
Scenario 28: Criminals Everywhere.

If you’ve never been arrested, if you’ve never been to jail, if you’re now a landlord, you’re in for a real treat!

Well, basically, um, uh, how can we say this . . .

If you’re new to this landlord game, don’t be surprised if you find that most everyone you deal with is a criminal.

Now, we’re not saying that all criminals are bad. We acknowledge that the point of our criminal justice system in America is rehabilitative, i.e., The Man wants people to live free and clear of trouble. If you mess up, depending on what you do of course, you’re be locked up. Eventually, however, you’ll get out. When you do, you’ll have plenty of chances to fly right, if you’re shrewd enough.

Here are some tips for dealing with prospective tenants and their possible criminal pasts:

1. Make sure you’re searching your state department of corrections free databases and your free sex offender registries before renting.
2. Remember that you can, as a matter of course, deny rental services to anyone convicted of a crime. Make sure you’re up front about this in your rental app, before the prospects sign.
3. Ask your prospective tenants for something called an “Alpha Report” from the local police. This will cost them about $16. They HAVE to actually walk into the police station to order this report. This action alone might be enough to weed out potential problems!
4. Remember, that you can evict current tenants, if you found out they lied on their apps about past criminal histories—because, The Money Kings just KNOW you’re going to ask them to denote if they’ve ever been convicted of a crime.

Remember: In retrospect, with all the problems in banking and lending, real estate agents, tenants, loan sharks, independent contractors, investors, etc., YOU’RE IN THE REAL ESTATE BUSINESS now.

This means there are criminals everywhere. Greed in the real estate industry is insidious.

Observe:

• Loan officers telling people to lie on their applications. You sign a contract for a sale and then wind up wasting all of your time, because someone finds out the buyer lied and now the financing has “fallen through.”
• Real estate agents lying to you about the area you’re buying in and redlining and blockbusting.
• Tenants dealing drugs out of your units. Tenants scrapping metal from houses and then storing their booty in your units. Tenants living with their boyfriends/girlfriends collecting welfare and food stamps while simultaneous lying to the public aid office about living alone and NEEDING money.
• Guys in black suits coming to break your legs, because you can’t pay back that money you borrowed to fix the roof of your place in times of desperation.
• Independent contractors giving you itemized lists of expenses with inflated numbers, and then “losing” receipts when you ask for proof of purchase costs.
• ”Investors” conning people into signing “take over payment” loans with sellers, assuming responsibility for renting places and then never sending any money to the seller, then skipping town. OR, our personal favorite, “investors” breaking into vacant units far away from their owners, changing the locks, showing the units, accepting security deposits and first month’s rent from tenants and then promptly skipping town leaving owners with tenants they don’t even know in their units!

All of the above scenarios of fraud and deception are all happening to landlords now!

Beware of criminals everywhere!

Good luck out there.

Keywords: real, estate, tenant, criminal, beware, lying, everyone, money