Knowing what services SSVF can provide, which of your tenants may qualify, and how they can access the program could not only keep monthly rent payments coming in consistently, but could even help you avoid the tiresome eviction process.  The overall goal of SSVF is to stabilize Veterans in permanent housing by offering 90 days of case management, housing counseling, financial planning, and even temporary financial assistance when needed.

For otherwise ideal tenants impacted financially by the current economy, making late rental payments or falling behind may become unavoidable.  The SSVF program is able to step in and assist Veterans who are concerned about eviction and at-risk of homelessness if they are able to show that their situation can be financially stabilized within 90 days.  A late rental payment may have been the result of a tenant having to take unpaid leave from a job or having to make an unexpected car repair.  These are situations that our SSVF program at New Directions, a nonprofit in Los Angeles, California providing treatment and comprehensive care to Veterans, has been able to alleviate.

While not all landlords may have personal relationships with their tenants to the point where they know the ins and outs of their financial situation, knowing your tenant is a Veteran and struggling to make rent is enough of a reason to refer them to the Supportive Services for Veteran Families program.  If our program is unable to help directly, we work to refer Veterans to an agency that can.  Eligibility requirements nationwide are fairly straightforward, with some agencies tacking on extra guidelines in order to target specific subgroups of the Veteran population.  All prospective program participants must be Veterans and have a discharge status other than dishonorable.  Income restrictions will vary depending on geographic location, but at New Directions we reach out to very low income Veterans.  Half of those served by our program must be chronically homeless or have dependents, but not all SSVF programs will share this goal.

Accessing the Supportive Services for Veteran Families program should be as simple as a phone call or an email.  For landlords and Veterans in the Los Angeles area looking for more information about New Directions and our SSVF program, please visit http://www.ndvets.org or contact the SSVF program supervisor, Eduardo Gonzalez, at 310-914-4045 or egonzalez@ndvets.org.  Interested landlords and Veterans outside of Los Angeles can call 1-877-737–0111, email SSVF@va.gov, or visit http://www.va.gov/homeless/ssvf.asp.

NOTE: The above is a guest post written by New Directions staff and is something that I personally feel strongly about. The fact that there is even a need for a program like this in the United States of America is shameful.  This is not to mention how service members are treated while they’re in the military. And for what? The promise of a pension  provided they don’t piss off a superior? Free medical care forever when it suits the government’s budget?  Thanks for reading. – Landlord-Success.com

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Supportive Services for Veterans Family Program

Let’s get one thing straight to start: Your insurance agent does not work for you. They work for themselves and their business which is selling insurance. I have heard more lines of bovine excrement from insurance agents than I can shake a stick at (except, of course, maybe from real estate agents.)

Ok, now that we have that straight…I have a friend who recently bought a single-family home and paid cash for it (not hard in today’s real estate market.) My friend, of course wanted to insure the property against fire, weather and the ever looming threat of a liability (slip and fall) lawsuit. When he received the proposal for the new insurance policy, the replacement cost of the property was roughly double what it would actually cost to rebuild the property from the ground up.

When he inquired with the insurance agent as to why the agent “passed the buck” saying that  they use a company who provides a “replacement cost estimator” calculation based on local construction costs and materials. The insurance agent also mentioned that there is nothing they could do to reduce that amount. For the uninitiated, the replacement cost of a building is usually an amount the whole policy premium is based on. Most of the premium line item amounts are simply a percentage of the replacement cost. So by keeping that amount high (and increasing it every year), the insurance agent and insurance provider is assured of higher and higher premiums.

I should also mentioned that the agent handed my friend a line of garbage which included the fact that she, the insurance agent, was “in the same boat” and there was nothing she could do about it either, as if that was any consolation. When my friend looked into the company providing the “replacement cost estimator” the company’s main selling point was to “increase the premiums” charged by the insurance agency and “insure a more stable cash flow” for the business. That nugget was stated right on their web site, not hidden in the fine print of a contract. By the way consumers have no choice in the matter either. As in, they can’t demand that the insurance agent use a different company’s “replacement cost estimator.”

Not wanting to play that game, my friend asked the agent about increasing the “hurricane deductible” (windstorm coverage) as a way to reduce the premium. In Florida, the “windstorm portion” of a homeowners insurance policy is a large part of the premium. By doubling the windstorm deductible, the agent was able to reduce the premium by only by about 10%. Typically, in Florida anyway, the windstorm insurance will be used to replace your roof if it’s damaged in a storm. Well, by reducing the policy premium by 10%, my friend’s windstorm deductible was double what it would cost to replace the entire roof.

In the end, my friend opted for a liability only policy and decided to “self insure” the property itself thereby reducing his premium by 75%. Now the reason I call this a “racket” is because my friend owned this property outright, as in, without a mortgage. If he had a mortgage, he would have had no choice BUT to buy full insurance coverage thereby perpetuating this huge money suck. Just lovely, isn’t it?

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Welcome To The Homeowners Insurance Racket

From the outset, the company’s sales pitch sounds really great and the costs don’t seem too onerous but  the devil is usually in the details.

Upon further inspection of the coverage details, it seems that there are the normal dollar amount limits to what they will pay and then there are the  expected eligibility requirements. It seems that the company only will accept what sounds to me like perfect tenants.

The tenant must have been occupying the property for at least 12 months with no delinquency in paying their rent. In my experience, I’ve found this situation to be EXTREMELY rare. If the tenant has lived in the property less than 12 months or has paid their rent late within that time, Aon Rent Protect requires a credit check, eviction search and a criminal records check. All of which should have been run by the landlord before renting anyway.

For as long as I’ve been in this game, it’s rare to come across innovative products or services and can actually help a landlord in a time of need. If this service works as advertised, it can be added peace of mind for a landlord when a tenant’s situation goes “sideways.”

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Interesting: Non-Paying Tenant Insurance

Now, you may not think of garbage collection as a “pleasant” subject but just the way this company goes about its job is light years ahead of those other idiots. Here’s why:

• How many times have you forgotten to take your garbage cans to the curb? And upon hearing the garbage truck coming down the street you attempt to quickly get the garbage out in while in various states of undress with your hair looking like a complete “hot mess.” Only to have the garbage men laugh at you as you get to the curb just as they’ve passed. Well, the new company makes multiple passes down each street. As a result your garbage ALWAYS gets collected.
• In my neighborhood anyway, getting Waste Management to accept recycling was like pulling teeth. First they refused saying that they didn’t have the facilities, then they would only take CERTAIN items and leave the rest on your driveway to be blown down the street thereby annoying your neighbors. The new company takes ALL recycling. Even if you make a mistake and include something that’s marginal, they’ll still take it and presumably discard it at the plant. Problem solved, no more annoyed neighbors.
• I haven’t had to call customer service at the new company yet so I can’t comment but I would think that ANYTHING would be better that  getting a collections letter from a local “loser” attorney when your bill is 15 days late. This is when they used to bill separately for garbage collection instead of including it on your water bill like any normal city would. Duh, City of Palm Bay.

So the long and short of it is that the new company “solves” all of the above issues AND apparently did it for $2 less (it wasn’t actually $2 but some small amount less) thereby convincing our city council to terminate Waste Management’s contract.

I have to say, I just LOVE to see these big companies weasel themselves into a monopoly situation, only to provide bad service without an excuse, and then get kicked to the curb by the municipality they service. Kudos to Waste Pro USA for providing a good service AND making their customers happy.

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New Garbage Collection Company

With Google Voice, you can get a phone number in one of many area-codes, anywhere in the United States. Once you get a number assigned, you can set up multiple other phones to work with the service. Using Google Voice, you can place and receive phone calls and receive voicemail, which is nicely transcribed (sometimes accurately) for you and stored online within your Google Voice dashboard. The great thing however, is that Google Voice keeps a record of text-message conversations in the same dashboard.

Google is sometimes lambasted by privacy advocates for storing all information about how you use their products….forever. This sounds ominous until you find yourself in court with the tenant above and conveniently you have a complete log of all the text messages, voice messages, placed calls and received calls all printed out and ready for the judge.

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How Google Voice Can Help Landlords

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New Post on Allstate’s Good Hands℠ Community

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Check Us Out at Allstate’s Good Hands Community

So recently, I had a tenant who had just moved to the area and  wanted a 6-month lease.Normally I don’t accept 6-month leases but she said she would pre-pay the entire lease including the security deposit and I accepted. A month before the lease came up for renewal, I spoke with the tenant about renewing and sounded very positive about signing a new 1-year lease. She even went so far as to request that I send the lease for her to sign.

The next phone message I got from her 2 days later, was that she had moved to another house with about 25 days left on her lease. Talk about flaky. I should also mention that she placed this call on a public holiday when she knew she wouldn’t have to talk to me directly. Now that’s what I call flaky AND cowardly.

The very next day after the public holiday, I was contacted by an ex-tenant who (ready for this?) moved out at the end of her lease because she determined that she couldn’t afford to pay her rent. This is quite a shocker because most tenants seem to want a big dramatic showdown because THEY can’t pay THEIR rent, like it’s my fault or something. This was not the case with this ex-tenant. In fact, she has referred her friends to me as potential tenants because, “…they have their act together.” Let me tell you, dear reader, it is absolute LANDLORD GOLD when you have good ex-tenants pre-screening potential new tenants and referring them to you.

The punchline of this story is that this ex-tenant called to find out if I had any units available for rent. “Why yes! Yes I do!”, I answered. I have to say that I couldn’t be happier with this situation. I always treat my tenants like valued customers provided that they keep up their end of the bargain. This time, it paid off in spades!

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Fastest Tenant Turnaround Ever

So, Landlord-Success.com is five years-old today. I would like to say thanks to all the readers of this blog, even the disgruntled ones. You know, the ones who feel the need to post ranting comments with bad spelling and atrocious grammar? Oh that’s right. I don’t publish those comments as I like to maintain some semblance of a good user experience here.

I would also like to thank the mortgage companies who, because of their bad behavior and mistreatment of their clients, make for oodles of content and occasionally a firestorm of comments. I swear, you couldn’t manufacture worse stories and by the way, the mortgage companies standard response is, “Well, you signed a contract…” Those responses DO get published here. They’ve threatened us, sent “cease and desist” emails to us and yet…….we’re 5 years-old today!

We intend to be around for at least 5 more years so please, keep reading. As long as mortgage companies and tenants misbehave, you’ll see it here. You should also see stories about good behavior too but the bad behavior is more fun to read because chances are we’ve all experienced it.

Thanks again for reading!

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Landlord-Success.com Is 5 Today

One of the mortgages on a rental property we own is serviced by these jokers and it seems that I’m not the only one who feels like this. I’ve asked around about other people’s experience with this company and the sentiments all seem to be the same. LBPS is making a (bad) name for themselves by being incompetent, difficult to work with and annoying in general.

I’ll start with their insurance department: I have heard from no less than 3 property insurance agents who have expressed such frustration in dealing with LBPS that the mere mention of the name elicits groans all around. Apparently, if the insurance agent needs documents or escrow information from LBPS it takes an inordinate amount of time for them to produce these documents. When asked if the documents can be emailed to speed things up, the response from LBPS is that “they don’t do email.” Any documents will have to be sent via US Mail. Now remember, LBPS is a subsidiary of International Business Machines (IBM), one of the largest and oldest computer companies in the world….and their subsidiary “doesn’t do email?”

Next, I’ve heard from a number of their other customers that any request for information about their account is met by some pretty surly requests for unrelated information to “verify their account.” These requests include verification of home phone numbers, cell phone numbers, work phone numbers and email addresses. The last one is interesting because remember, LBPS/IBM “doesn’t do email.” If that’s the case why do they need to verify an email address? If you ask me, all of this “verifying of contact information” sounds like you’re dealing with someone in a collections department, especially the recorded announcement at the beginning of the call that says “we may use any information you give us to collect on a debt.” This leads me to my last point…

I recently received a call from someone at LBPS who again was calling  to “verify contact information.” Basically they called and just started asking questions about contact information. Let me mention at this point that in the 6 years this loan has been active, not once have I made a late payment on the account. At the end of the call the LBPS representative asked me if there was anything else they could do for me today. I said that no, I didn’t have any other questions but that I never had a question in the first place and I was the one being called. I mentioned to the rep that he had still not given me a reason why he was calling. At this point he stumbled and fumbled over his words and told me to “have a nice day.” My conclusion is that if it walks like a collections agent and talks like a collections agent…..it’s probably a collections agent!

The main question is: Why is LBPS having their collections agents call customers who have not made a late payment on a mortgage since the beginning of the loan? And by the way, you can tell the difference between a collections agent and a customer service rep by their “polish”, or lack there of, over the phone. You know, typical collection agents don’t need to speak English properly and clearly, they just need to collect. In my, and others experience this is the only kind of person you’re going to interact with when you make contact with LBPS. In case it’s not clear, we’re not ALL stupid LBPS. We know a duck, or collections agent as the case may be, when we see/hear one.

EDIT: Around the time I was about to publish this post, I opened my LBPS monthly statement so I could make my payment, to find that LBPS had inserted a flyer notifying me that they were, wait for it…..rebranding! Apparently they’re changing their name to SETERUS, Inc. The amusing thing about this turn of events is that typically rebranding does not remove the stench of bad service, only time and actual change can do that. It’s almost like they’re following Wells Fargo‘s unabashed customer abuse tactics.

As a final note, IBM should be ashamed to associate their good name with an organization like LBPS/SETERUS. In another life, I did a whole lot of business with IBM and never have I ever encountered an experience like those described above. The IBM name has always stood for quality and innovation in my eyes and the eyes of the rest of the world. In my opinion, LBPS/SETERUS is diminishing that good name more and more everyday.

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LBPS-Seterus Nonsense