[.ca] Landlording, 10th Edition: A Handymanual for Scrupulous ... (ISBN 0932956300)

Very Informative, tons of information.:
I recently (within the past 6 months) acquired a rental property, and the book has helped me manage my properties better and had many many excellent tips. His advice is pretty candid- he tells you its ok to say no and be a little bit heavy handed. He has many anectodes as example scenarios to drive his points home. His main focus is on finding good tenants, and leases, as it should be, since they are the source of your revenue. In addition, he discusses many easily implementable ways to increase your profits, especially if you have multiple properties. The book tries to be the one book you will need to be a landlord, and achieves that goal. However, you may find that some of his discussions topics are overly long (IE dealing with pets, waterbeds) and some not long enough (IE legal/liability issues). It is on the issue of law that you will NEED another reference, but nothing short of an entire book or library of books will properly inform you of all the legal issues involved. The cons of the book is that it seemed to be a bit overly long. For example there is about 20 pages of comic strips at the end of the book that I suppose are supposed to be humorous ways to convery things to your tenants (like paying rent) but I found them to be completely useless. The forms included are nice, but they would be far more useful if they were included on a CD. If you really want to be a better landlord, you would be far better off printing new forms w/ your name on them, and not distributing photocopies- This brings me to my next weakness. Some parts of the book push his other products a bit too much. He sells forms on CD ...and a program he wrote to manage properties ...and he mentions them a bit too much in the book for me to say that he is being completely objective. If he eliminated the 20 pages of comics and 30 pages of forms, it would have been quite cost effective for him to distribute all of those things on a CD. In addition, the chapter on computers could probably be omitted. The information was outdated on the first day of printing, bores those born since 1975 who have had to learn to use them, and on top of that does not really inform the target reader enough to the point where they could effectively use one. He should have raised the bar a little and targeted those already familiar w/ office suites on how to make useful databases, word processor templates of the forms, and advanced spreadsheets. The book has a focus squarely on property management. Do not buy this book if you are looking for how to evaluate a property, or estimate cashflow. Landlording covers the ART of property management, not the science of analyzing the potential income of a property. Do not let the negatives discourage you. I mention them because most Amazon reviews tend to all be "5 stars! this book was great!" Overall, this book is excellent, and the best I found at the bookstore on managing property. The book appears a little bit 'no frills' and does not have much shelf appeal( IE pretty layout and pictures), but the information contained inside is the invaluable experience of someone who has successfully managed over 200 properties.

The absolute BEST, accept NO substitute!:
I just finished reading the 9th edition of Leigh Robinsons's super, excellent, definitive tome on being a Landlord or Landlady. I had bought and read his 3rd edition in 1981 and found that to be excellent. I have used the Rental Application form from that book hundred's if not thousands of times. That earlier edition is worn out the back is broken and the pages are dog eared. I was long over due for a new copy. There are many, many updates from the earlier version, and the book has grown from 270 pages to 494 pages! The latest edition has over 60 forms made and revised over the years by the author, a hand-on landlord himself. This book is a tremendous value, filled to the gills and them some with useful, practical, down to earth advice from somebody who actually is a landlord. Leigh Robinson knows his stuff, there is no question about it. If you are currently a landlord/lady then you should run, or trot to your keyboard and order this book from Amazon.com. If you think you might want to become a landlord/lady then this book is recommended for you also. One example contained in the book is having escrow accounts for the tenant's security deposits. I have personally used this for years even though not required by state law. The bank I use does not charge me anything to set up the escrow account with a separate sub-account for each tenant. Even people sharing one place have a separate individual sub-account with interest accruing to the tenant. Another example from the book is the landlord/lady's car. You can drive your Mercedes, Porsche, or BMW, just not to your rental properties. Personally I like a 1982 Cordoba, but a beat up car or pickup truck will do. The reason for this is many tenants think that all of their rent ends up in the landlord/lady's pocket. They forget about mortgage, taxes, insurance, utilities, repairs, supplies, etc. The author recommends that no appliances be furnished. Usually for houses we don't provide any appliances except ranges, but supply refrigerators for apartments. Very rarely would we supply washer, dryer, air conditioners, etc. Leave that to the tenants, this reduces repair bills and responsibility. One owner that I talked to had a refrigerator fail and the tenant claimed that the owner was responsible for spoiled food. Since then that landlord does not provide any tenant with a refrigerator, and therefore is not responsible if the appliance breaks or for food spoiled. The author notes that 50% of tenants have pets and discusses at length the pros and cons of renting to the pet's owner. Coin operated laundry is also discussed with the author's recommendation being that you only provide if there are 16 people or 12 bedrooms in the building. For smaller building than that it is not feasible to provide that to tenants. Leigh Robinson's recommendation on page 273 for wording on a section 8 lease could save thousands of dollars. In my opinion this book is invaluable and worth many more times the asking price. There is no better book on "Landlording" and I think I've read most of them. Buy it, enjoy it, use it, and profit from it.

THE BEST!!:
I have scoured the internet and the local book stores for books on this subject, and I have found this one to be the best by far. The format is VERY user friendly. It is filled with enough information to satisfy people who are currently in the business but easy enough for a beginner (such as myself) to understand. Trust me, you want this book, but you should also have another one that is specific to your locale. This book gives you everything you need to know EXCEPT the local laws and regulations that are specific to your state/city.

NEOPHYTES EVERYWHERE:
This helped me a lot as a inexperienced landlord. It is very informative and will touch all areas of the business that you would never think of. Experience does not have to be the best teacher.

Funny and very readable:
I started to read this book last night and I could not put it down. Yes, I was reading this Landlord book, not some mystery novel. This book is funny, easy to understand, full of great examples and anecdotes. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!