Implementation

Although involved in real estate investing for several years, being new to this niche, we knew there would be dues to pay. We set up office and home in a singlewide in the park. Our undivided attention would be given to climbing up this learning curve.

At one time, Madison Woods had been a nice place to live, but it declined over the years due to poor management. The previous owner began improving the park; we were now left with finishing the job and changing its reputation so that it would attract quality residents.

Since we took possession of Madison Woods at the beginning of the month, the first task was rent collection. As we went door to door introducing ourselves and collecting rent, we gave each resident the opportunity to change the date that rent was due, allowing each to pick a date that was convenient for them. Although this would make bookkeeping more complicated, we hoped it would aid in rent collection efforts. There were several residents who accumulated large balances under the previous owner. This would not be acceptable from now on.

There were no leases or any documentation on who resided in the community. We created a resident profile form to gather information about who lived in the dwelling, their phone number, the vehicles they drove, emergency contact info, etc. Some residents were very reluctant to provided even basic personal information. In most cases we didn’t push the issue. According to Georgia landlord tenant law, in the absence of a written lease, there is a tenancy at will, which among other things, requires 60 days notice for a landlord to terminate a lease. This along with curing other possible ambiguities provided motivation for us to draft a rental agreement. Eventually all residents will be on written lease, but for now all new residents are required to sign it.

It quickly became apparent that we needed to outline our expectations for resident behavior. There had not been any rules or regulations in place. We created community guidelines detailing unacceptable activities, and with vigorous enforcement, most of these activities ceased within a few weeks. The chief nuisance was loud music emanating from vehicles or residences. It pleases me greatly to now have a quiet community, with only rare, isolated instances of noise levels being intrusive.

The next task was physical clean up; the front entrance contained more than a 100 tree stumps that needed to be removed in order to improve the landscaping at the community’s front entrance. There were mountains of debris that had set so long it was overgrown with weeds- remnants of previous home demolitions. Through trial and error, we found the cheapest way to remove a home was hiring a bulldozer and dump truck. Eventually, we were able to have this done for $600 per home. While we were vigorously tearing down homes that we deemed not salvageable, Katrina hit and we worried about the impact this would have on the supply of available homes. We decided that even homes requiring extensive rehab was preferable than none at all, and ceased home removal.

We were beginning to get the lay of the land. We were getting to know the residents. We knew there were bad apples in the barrel, but we were not prepared for the magnitude of the problem.

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