by Marc Courtenay

As with all of life’s responsibilities there are only so many hours a day in the lives of property managers and owners. Yet all of us are bombarded with email, text messages and loads of social media opportunities like Facebook and LinkedIn. Our clients and residents all want to communicate with us as well. The only way to effectively manage the information in your life is to begin by prioritizing what you should devote time to and what you should either delegate or delete. To manage information while you’re managing a business one has to begin by making critical decisions and sticking with them.

RepairClinic.com, America’s most popular online store with replacement parts for appliances and outdoor power equipment, today shared a list of the top three most overlooked home appliance dangers and tips on how families can protect themselves.

“People often forget about dangers associated with major home appliances because they’re as much a part of daily life as a toothbrush,” said Chris Hall, president of RepairClinic. com and appliance repair expert. “It’s important to be aware of these dangers and to take proper care to reduce risks and stay safe.”

By: Naomi Nicholson ARM, MG Properties

By: Neil Fjellestad & Chris De Marco

Rental ownership has a long history of satisfying the primary investment priorities of personal financial independence: safety of capital, inflation hedge and tax-favored income.  Traditionally, if the detailed financial statements of the wealthy are available for review it becomes apparent that long-term income producing real estate assets directly or indirectly contribute substantially to their net worth.

Certainly there are exceptions that get the notoriety. There are the entrepreneurs that hit the jackpot with a new invention, the right innovation at the right time and/or the market control of a needed commodity. Then there are the speculators that successfully capture the benefits of leveraged capital, cheap labor or some windfall in the short-term that cannot be repeated with consistency.

However, forget the outliers and the top one-percent and concentrate on the basics of what has worked for the top twenty-percent. Locally understood and available rental properties purchased carefully one at a time consistently becomes the safest real asset to own.  Note that a small share in a national real estate investment trust may seem like a “safe way to get the benefits of real estate ownership” but in fact, this is just another financial asset with the same characteristics and historically similar results as any other stock market investment.

By Jack Nooren

Judging by the reports recently published in the local media, San Diego’s real estate market continues to be neck-deep in turmoil.  With home values still adjusting to the new market conditions, and a large numbers of homes still in foreclosure, the county is likely to face a shortage of apartments by August 2012.

Approximately 13,000 apartment buildings dot the skyline of San Diego, but currently just less than 130 apartment buildings are up for sale.  Due to the shortage of saleable properties, cap rates have been compressed, fetching owners a higher value.  It is the other extreme though when it comes to commercial sectors such as retail, office and industrial. Here, cap rates and vacancy rates remain at the highest peak while values continue to decline.

Source: Costar

By Ronald R. Reitz, CPA

When and why should a property owner contact a Public Adjuster?

You should consider contacting a Pubic Adjuster as soon as you suffer a loss. The insured has certain policy conditions that must be strictly adhered to. These conditions are detailed in the policy and they will vary by the type of policy i.e. commercial versus residential versus manuscript. You may start off at a disadvantage if   you wait until your insurance company has begun the adjusting process and  you may discover you have not met certain policy conditions or missed deadlines.

I believe it is the insured’s responsibility to determine the value of their claim and it can be a cumbersome process gathering bids from various contractors while you are reading your insurance policy and trying to understand what it means. Insurance policies are very complex documents and are not very easy to understand, many of them have certain limits that increase or decrease depending on the total amount of your losses – and each coverage area can be different. Perhaps you simply do not have sufficient time to document and determine the full value of your claim. Some people try to handle the adjustment process on their own, and quickly learn there are not enough hours in the day to gather all information required to prove your claim.

By Kim Hopkins

When you are looking for an electrician, look for someone whom you can form a long term relationship with. It’s going to save you a lot of time and also save your company money if you can find someone whom you trust and who will become part of your maintenance team.

Find Recommended Electricians

You can get recommendations for electricians from other apartment managers and also from homeowners. You can also search on-line for electrician Los Angeles or electrician Anaheim, and so on. If you add the word reviews to your search, you can look for companies that have the best reviews.

Another approach is to search websites that feature reviews. Reviews appear on many websites including Google Places, Yelp.com, AngiesList.com, and CitySearch.com. You may be familiar with AngiesList.com, a paid service. It’s an excellent source of recommendations for contractors. It asks customers to rate contractors, including electricians, and give specifics about how their job went.

By Foothill Painting

There are a few reasons you might not have heard of roof coating until now, and it isn’t because the snake oil salesman hasn’t been in your office. Roof coating has been around more than two decades, but just now is catching the eye of the public thanks to companies like A Amazing Roof Coating, a subsidiary of Foothill Painting Co. Inc. in Tujunga, Ca. “We’ve been in business 60 years, and this amazing process is a game changer for property owners,” said Donald Freed of Foothill Painting and Coating. “Customers want to be environmentally conscious these days, but that sometimes means cutting into the bottom line. We all want to do our part, and with roof coating you can have the best of both worlds; a more environmentally friendly roofing system at half the cost of a new roof.”

by Stephen C. Duringer, Esq.

Question One of my residents wants to replace his roommate with another.  Seems he has already done this, and is just now getting around to asking for my permission.  I don’t really mind, the last roommate was a bit of a flake.  If I want to allow this, what is the best way?

Answer There are several possibilities, but they depend on the type of rental agreement you currently have, and who the parties are.  If your original tenant is the only party to the lease, then you have two possibilities.  The first would be to leave the rental agreement intact, respond in writing to your tenants ‘request for permission’ to sublet by granting permission to sublet to this specific person, and no others.  This keeps the original rental agreement intact, without altering any terms.  It keeps the tenant in a superior position over his subtenant thereby allowing him a remedy to remove him if the subtenancy doesn’t work out, without bothering you.  The second method would be to enter into a new rental agreement, listing both tenants on the agreement as authorized occupants, making them jointly and severally liable to perform.  This is generally a cleaner method for you, keeps it simple, but it elevates the new roommate to the same position as your original tenant, making them equal.  If the original lease included the former roommate, then ideally, you will request and receive a written notice from the former roommate stating that they have moved out of the unit, and that they are relinquishing their right to the security deposit.  Do not just ‘alter’ the original agreement by just adding the new roommates name.  Any alteration to a contract that is not signed and acknowledged by all parties may void that agreement.