Hi There

Hello and welcome to the first post on my blog. As the title implies I am in fact a landlord and I have also pretty much had it by this point. I've had many trials and tribulations over the past couple of years and figured I should start a blog to write about them. My hope is that other weary souls may find this and either learn from my experiences or at least know they are not alone. If nothing else writing this blog may make me feel a bit better.

So a little background. For a long time I had wanted to get into an investment property, but I either didn't have the cash or couldn't convince my wife that it was a good idea. Finally I was able to have both and so in 2004 I started looking around for my first property. I did my homework first, understanding the costs associated and the importance of positive cashflow. The market was still a bit crazy then and the numbers just wouldn't work out on a lot of properties.

But one day I came across an ad for a property being sold by owner. It was a two family that was currently rented, and even at the price he was asking I'd be well on the positive side of things. When we went to look at the place there were 6 other people there looking, and even though there were some obvious things that needed updating it was clear the place was going to go quickly. So we made an offer on the spot, which turned out to be a good strategic move. After a little back and forth the owner accepted the offer and we became investment property owners.

A lot has happened since then. Some decent times, and some incredibly bad times. Especially recently. Unlike some blogs I'm going to mix my posts with current happenings as well as anecdotes from the past. I'll try to make it obvious which are which.