You would have to be a hermit holed up in the back-of-beyond not to have been impacted by the challenging national economy this past year.  Many areas have seen mammoth numbers of foreclosures.  My area (Denver, Colorado) has been one of the cities that has fared the best.  Still we have felt changes in the rental market.

Creativity is a key word for me in looking at how to rent during tough times, but also, being creative in renting hard-to-rent properties.  I own two buildings that have basement apartments… one of them is actually a raised ranch, so the lower units qualify as “garden level” apartments.  They are nice spacious apartments, well maintained, washer/dryer and dishwasher included and heat paid, so lots of good things going for them.  Still they are never the first choice for prospective tenants.

Frequently, I run a “Move-In Special” for these units… “First Month’s Rent FREE with Paid Deposit and Signed One Year Lease*” (*approved credit).  The same flier, of course, mentions all of the amenities I listed above and highlights the Paid Heat.  It usually gets a qualified tenant within days.  Don’t let them talk you into a six month lease instead of a year… you don’t come out ahead.

For more than one unit that you need to rent right away, I would spring for a big banner… “FREE RENT*”… or “Heat Paid… remodeled apartments.”  My friend, Robert and Julie at J & R Graphics do a great job for a reasonable price and ship everywhere. 

So… how to market properties in less than desirable neighborhoods… be careful that you don’t lie about the area or make it better than what it really is.  When questions come up about crime rates, I refer prospective tenants to:

• the neighborhood association

• Neighborhood Watch

• the city website for crime statistics

I assure prospective tenants that I do criminal background checks on my tenants, but also explain that everyone has their own comfort level.  You don’t want to talk someone into living somewhere that they will be afraid and move out in a month.

With properties in less than desirable areas, you will find that door-to-door fliers in the immediate area will bring calls.  If prospective tenants already live there, they are likely to be OK with the area.  may church youth groups and school groups will distribute fliers for you as a fund raiser.

If there is a lot of graffiti in the area, I commonly hire a laborer 0r talk my husband into painting over the graffiti just to clean up the area where we are trying to rent.  In the west part of Denver we have a community center that does it for us if we provide the paint.  Denver, also, has a department that you can call to clean up graffiti in alleys and on public property.  Sometimes, prospective tenants just need to see that someone is trying to improve things. 

The 800 pound gorilla in the corner is “Do I reduce the rent?“  If you can’t carry the mortgage without the property rented then you need to look at what you bare bones basic expenses are and get the rent to that level until things improve.  No cash flow or low cash flow is better than losing the property.  Plan ahead!

You may, also, need to change to a six month lease or month-to-month lease, but don’t do the free rent move-in offer and shorten the lease time unless you are really in a bind.  Look at all your options first.

Small improvements in hard-to-rent properties, like my basement apartments, can be enough to bring in a good tenant:

• street appeal may need trim paint, yard cleaned up, new porch light or door

• interior paint is always a big draw

• real good clean up after each move-out so that the unit stays very clean

• wash the windows and put blinds on, at least, the bedroom and bathroom windows

When faux painting was the rage several years ago, I faux painted a wall in the living room of each basement apartment.  The For Rent photos that went on craigslist.org featured the faux painted wall.  I learned to faux paint from a $5.99 video from Home Depot.  Material are cheap.

A couple of other techniques that might help rent single family homes are Lease Option and First Right of Refusal.  Basically, with a Lease Option you are giving the tenant the opportunity to purchase the property with a small down payment (a lot of folks do $2,000) and a little extra on the rent each month that is applied to their down payment when the Lease Option is exercised… one or two years.  In Colorado, those funds would need to be held in an escrow account.  Always check your local statutes.

A First Right of Refusal usually does not involve money… and it can be more applealing, because it gives the tenant the first right to purchase the property if you put it up for sale.  So it is less binding for both parties.  As always, check with a real estate attorney for specifics in you state and municipality.

A lot of room for thought in this topice, and hopefully, I’ve provided som suggestions that will be helpful and timely.  Please let us know if you have other questions or specific areas where we can be helpful.

Thanks!

B

Since Colorado made carbon monoxide detectors a law for rental properties July 1, 2009, it appears that more equipment options have hit the market.  It is likely that more states will follow suit.  Frankly, even if it isn’t law in your state, installing carbon monoxide detectors and smoke detectors just makes good sense… for safety and liability.

Even though my loyalties are usually with Home Depot, my most recent research has me gravitating to Amazon.com for a better selection and better pricing.  I’m not sure about other Home Depot stores, but the two I do the most business with have not had items in stock that their website indicates are there. 

For a hardwired (wired into your electrical system and not battery dependent) smoke and carbon monoxide alarm with voice warning, the best price for a name brand (Kidde) is on Amazon.com at $31.99.  The voice warning says what kind of warning it is to speed evacuation. 

If you just can’t manage the direct wired devises right now, Kidde’s battery operated carbon monoxide detector with digital display is a great choice.  The display shows the level of carbon monoxide and has a memory feature for previous readings.  Again the best price for name brand is $23.99 on Amazon.com.

There was another apartment building fire in Colorado Springs, Colorado last week.  Due to functioning smoke detectors, no lives were lost.

In reading about smoke detectors, it appears that ionization smoke and fire alarms detect fast moving fires quicker.  Kidde brand at Amazon.com has a battery operated device for just $7.99. 

Now, if you need a good basic battery operated smoke detector, Home Depot has the Universal Security brand for $4.45. 

It is glaringly obvious that I have not mentioned plug-in carbon monoxide detectors.  My years of experience as a landlord have taught me that anything plugged in… in a rental …is likely to be unplugged and put on a shelf if it does not suit the immediate needs of the tenant.  I don’t… rather won’t …take the risk of a tenant unplugging a carbon monoxide detector and not plugging it back in immediately.  At least a battery operated devise on the ceiling is not in the way when a receptacle is needed to plug in a new stereo.

My husband was a volunteer fire fighter for many years.  We lived with a police and fire department scanner 24/7.  I guess those years left me with a need to know that I have done as much as possible to protect those I care about. 

What other safety issues can we address that would be helpful?  Comments and suggestions are really helpful and appreciated.

Thanks,

B

When the tenant, who hadn’t asked permission to have a cat, moved recently the cat urine odor in the one-year-old carpet was overwhelming.  After getting over being totally ticked, the “how-to-proceed mode” kicked into gear.

After shampooing the carpet twice with a product from my favorite big box store without eliminating the odor, my son reminded me about Nature’s Miracle Stain Remover.  So with this amazing product and an ultra-violet light in hand, the problem areas were identified and soaked thoroughly.  The instructions say to soak the spots thoroughly, and you should.

The ultra-violet light… my generation still refers to them as “black lights” …can also help you identify if the pet sprayed the baseboards or walls.  Those areas can also be treated.  A gallon of the Miracle stuff and an ultra-violet light are a little over $40 at Petsmart.  Not so much to save an entire apartment of carpet and pad.

This is a non-toxic substance that is pet and human safe, so no worries about breathing it or doing harm to others.  Do test the carpet or surface before using it as the bottle instructs.  You don’t want to fade the carpet if it is sensitive to the product.

My situation turned out good for the most part.  The living room and bedrooms are now odor free.  Unfortunately, the walk-in bedroom closet is beyond hope.  The carpet, pad and tack strip had to be pulled out completely.

Here is the next great tip… when you have animal urine that has soaked that deep into carpet pad it is likely to have saturated the sub-floor below.  Whether the sub-floor is wood or concrete, you will need to seal it.  I have found it best to roll on an oil-based paint like Zinsser’s stain killer.  Let it thoroughly dry, with plenty of ventilation, then check for odor.  Sometimes you have to do a second coat.  Let both coats dry a couple of days before installing new carpet and pad.  If you don’t seal the sub-floor, the smell will return if the carpet and pad get wet.

My construction foreman is a dog rescue enthusiast with a big heart.  He has been known to drive across two states to rescue a dog that is in need.  He highly recommends Odor Block from Sam’s Club.

These are both commercial grade pet odor products that should take care of just about any nasty smell or pet stain.  Let me know if you have other products that work well.  We are always open to suggestions.

Yes, I, too, am a pet lover.  Currently, we only have one dog and two cats, but it is not uncommon for me to be feeding and relocating litters of feral kittens or finding a home for a stray.  I truly love pets… just not their smells.

Thanks,

B

If you watch wealthy people, the most successful one have a definite pattern of giving…  giving of their time and their resources.  The ones I have had the privilege to know, who are the happiest, give from the heart and do for others just because they want to and because they can.

Over the last several years, I have been active in a couple of neighborhood associations where we live and own rental properties.  It isn’t just the wealthy or those with a lot of property to protect who are involved…  sometimes it is just the widow with her own home or a cranky old guy, divorced and living alone with a dog, who want to run off drug dealers… and then, of course, there is the real estate investor who wants to make sure he gets his property rezoned… mostly just average folks who care about the neighborhood.

The point I want to make here is to get involved in some way in the neighborhoods and areas where you own rental property.  It doesn’t have to be lots of hours or huge sums of money, but you should know the people who live there and know who to call if something needs to be done… give back where you are investing.

There is an independent community center, not city funded, in the area where a lot of our rental properties are located.  Last summer they started a new program called Extreme Community Makeover.  It is a program that coordinates Christian college service groups to do cleanup projects in several areas of the city.  They started by asking elderly and disabled residents if they could clean up their yards, paint and plant flowers. It has been amazingly successful with hundreds of volunteers.

During the winter Extreme Community Makeover (ECM) needed storage space.  When they called to see if I had garage space, I said that I had to clean out a garage and then could loan them space for several months.  The community center director said that he would send a team to help clean the garage. What a fun time we had with six college kids on a Saturday cleaning my garage filled with miscellaneous building materials.

When there was graffiti on one of my garages recently, ECM volunteers showed up and cleaned it… and mowed the lawn while they were there!

A semi-retired friend of mine, a quiet artist with limited financial resources, tends and cares for a flower bed in a neighborhood park.  The city didn’t have funds to plant and maintain a flower bed.  The neighborhood association got donations of plants and my friend keeps it beautiful. One person is making a difference.

For the last five years, I have had the opportunity to be a part of a neighborhood cleanup day.  In advance, volunteers solicit donations of t-shirts (usually corporate sponsor can be found, frequently a realty agency), trash bags (a Home Depot donation), food to feed volunteers (coffee from a well-known national chain, breakfast burritos from a local restaurant and lunch is prepared and served by volunteers from a large neighborhood church) and funds are donated to provide entertainment for the party afterward (a band, games for the children and adults.)  We live close to INVESCO Field at Mile High, home of the Denver Broncos, and they always make a donation and send volunteers.  This is an amazing community day where 100 people show up to clean up and fill a huge roll-off with debris and by early afternoon three hundred neighborhood residents have shown up for the party in the park. Volunteers and donations make this happen.

Of course, if you have the resources to make donations… do whatever you can.  And remember to keep good records for your tax records.  Talk to your accountant about a good plan for how much you can donate annually…  I usually plan to give ten percent or more.

Investing of yourself, and your resources, in the areas where you live, invest and work pays off in many ways… your tenants will respect you for your contributions and you will just feel good about what you are doing and who you are.

This topic has been a thorn in my side for many years, but I suppose there are two sides to this coin.  If you walk through the unit with tenants before they move in and as they are moving out, a written record of each walk-through could be signed by both you and the tenants.  It is a good record (see Move-In/Move-Out Checklist at LandlordLifeline.com), but this is time consuming and frequently hard to schedule, so I don’t do it.

On the occasions in the past when I have done a move-out walk-through and pointed out things that still need cleaning, the majority of the time the cleaning was still not done.  This happened to me recently.  I gave in and did a walk-through and pointed out that cleaning under the kitchen appliances still needed to be done, as well as, cleaning the appliances better… you guessed it… they didn’t do any more cleaning and just moved out.  So my trying to be a nice lady was really just a waste of my time.

Now I have a situation where the parents of a college student to whom I rented are on the phone wanting the deposit back.  According to them I should have told their daughter what else to clean before moving out.  What I told their daughter was to read her Security Deposit Agreement and follow the detailed instructions.  She didn’t do that, so now the parents are upset with me. 

The word Landlord in Webster’s Dictionary: “land’lord, n. 1. Man from whom one rents.  2. Innkeeper.  Also, fem., land’la’dy.”  No mention of “babysitter!!“

My SOP, Standard Operating Procedure, is to provide a Move-in/Move-Out Checklist in the Tenant Move-In Packet.  At lease signing, I ask them to walk through before moving in, fill out the list then mail it to me.  After they move out I have a record for my inspection.  Most do not do the Move-In/Move-Out Checklist or mail it in. 

Several months ago new tnenats mailed in such a detailed list I thought about hiring them to do all of my walk-through checklists.  So for some tenants the list is a comfort that they will not be charged for minor damage that existed when they moved in.  The Move-In/Move-Out Checklist is a good PR move in these cases. 

If your state or municipality has ordinances or laws that require walk-throughs or documentation, you should know the details and abide by those regulations.

Do you have other methods for walk-through inspections and documentation that work for you?  Please send us you ideas.

Thanks,

B

My very first tenant, in my very first rental property, taught me valuable lessons about not being nice when it comes to hanging things on the walls.  She had this really ugly woven wall hanging that weighed a ton.  My husband finally helped her hang it, but we had a sizable plaster repair when she moved.

Another of our “early-on tenants” had a gilt framed mirror that had to weigh seventy-five pounds.  “Naomi and the giant mirror” were with us for over four years, but there was a massive hole in the wall where a couple of bolts had been inserted to hold up the mirror.

The issue doesn’t go away and, frankly, no matter how much you write into a lease or talk to tenants only a few will do as you ask… the rest just do what they want to do.  Our rentals have had craters left in the walls!  So I am always looking for ideas and products.

A new product from 3M just caught my attention, so I checked it out.  It is amazing!  Command Strips are strong enough to hold a photo of some weight and they peel off the walls… dry wall, wood paneling, plaster, ceramic… with no sticky mess.

I always tell tenants to use small finishing nails to hang photos and art on the walls.  Our lease (LandlordLifeline.com) has a clause about hanging things on the walls with small finishing nails.  It is easy to fill a small finishing nail hole with a little caulk and paint over it.  It is tough when someone wants to hang a fifty poung mirror.  my solution is to tell then to go to Home Depot and get OKK 50 lb. Picture Hangers.  Some engineering genius designed this hook that mounts to the wall with two small nails and the hook will hold fifty pounds.  I have put then to the test in my own home.  You get 20 hooks and nails for under fourteen dollars.  OOK has an extensive line of products available at Home Depot and Ace Hardware.  Good stuff.

Those nasty glue-on patches with a hook and spongy self-adhesive strips should be outlawed!  They don’t come off the wall without a chisel and then you have an even bigger hole to repair.  I try to remember to tell new tenants not to use those… little finishing nails or OOK hooks… and now Command Strips.

One of the most charming rentals I have owned over the years was a 1926 Craftsman duplex.  It had picture rail molding just a few inches below the ceiling line.  The idea was to hang a brass hook on the picture rail then use a ribbon or decorative cord to hang the picture or art at the desired height.  If you have this type of molding, I have been able to get the hooks at AceHardware.com.

And to round out this subject… folks, taping posters to the wall is a big no-no.  Push pins and thumb tacks, please.  Removing tape usually includes the paint and frequently the drywall or the plaster beneath.  Push pins and thumb tacks leave only a small hole that is easily filled with caulk.

We would love to hear about your solutions and techniques for hanging pictures and art to avoid major repairs.  I love to display family photos and photography in my own home, so I don’t was to limit that for tenants.  Help us out with ideas.

Thanks,

B

I woke up this morning from a dream about a color swatch of Cinnamon.  Yes, I dream about work in full techno-color as only a true workaholic could do.  So, why Cinnamon?

The difference between Brown and Cinnamon is a drop of red to heat up the hue.  That is exactly what marketing should be doing for your rentals.  Jazz it up a bit.

Do your rental postings on craigslist give just the basics?

• Two bdrms., 1 bath, rent $875, deposit $800, available Aug. 1

Or… have you added “the drop of red to make it Cinnamon”

• Charming 2 bedroom unit four blocks from lake in historic 1920’s four-plex, large windows, lots of light, huge walk-in closets, new paint and carpet…

The difference will have your phone ringing!

In an earlier blog I mentioned having a flier box on the “For Rent” sign in the yard.  If you are using a brochure or flier, look at the presentation.

• Is it printed on plain white copier paper or a trendy Olive or snappy Red?

• Are there facts with no pizzazz or have you added appealing details like

1.  Heat and Water PAID

2.  Washer and Dryer provided in unit

3.  Off-street parking

So when you get the “Cinnamon” in your marketing, make sure the units you are renting live up to the spark in your advertising.  This past week-end I was visiting an apartment building with a “For Lease” sign in front… by the way the flier box was empty… but the front of the building wasn’t even appealing… peeling paint, dirty windows and one of the the building numbers had fallen off.  Guess why they had vacancies?

Do you have a marketing suggestion that works for you?  Please email it to us.

Thanks,

B

Back to your kitchen that needs some lipstick and rouge.  Look at your budget and available cash.  Don’t charge a major kitchen remodel if you have no way to pay for it.  Look for a few basic things that will give the kitchen a spark and get you by for now.

• a new sink and faucet may be all you need to give it some dazzle

• How about new cabinet hardware… you may not even need hinges… just knobs or pulls to make a noticeable difference

• Paint is the Landlord’s best friend.  Try a new trendy color or maybe just an accent wall with a new color.

• Unless you have really nice rentals, you are probably fine with laminate countertops (better known as Formica) and it isn’t expensive.  Choose a neutral color with a pattern: Just because it is a rental doesn’t mean it has to be white. 

• Sometimes just updating a light fixture is enough.  I found an amazing chandelier on the clearance rack at Lowe’s… marked down from over $200 to $30.  My tenants love it!

• Check out my recent blog on purchasing new appliances

GE’s website offers a kitchen design feature that is fun.  The current GE  Cafe Do-It-Yourself Remodel takes you to an ’80s kitchen that is crying for remodel.  Click for updates and it reappears as a stunning kitchen… they changed: hardware on cabinets, backsplash from wallpaper to tile, flooring and appliances.  No floor plan or cabinet changes. 

Putting some cheer into a drab and dated rental kitchen will pay off.

• Evaluate needs

• Bargain shop

• Use your imagination… but leave room for the tenant to bring in their own touches, colors and personality.

Please send your questions on rental remodeling.  We have a TON of experience in this area and would love to help you.

Thanks,

B

This is a blog I have put off writing because it is not a strong suit for me personally.  As mentioned in former blogs, I am the big picture and Idea Person… filing annoys me.  When I first started my business, a good friend (who happens to be an accountant) agreed to handle the accounting.  Little did Terry know what a long road of training she had ahead of her.

The first time I left a large folder of crumpled receipts (with no explanations written on them) in the milk box by her front door… she called… “What is this?”  Somehow, my answer, “Monthly receipts!” did not sit well.  Thus began my learning process.

Quickbooks Pro has served us well.  But to get to the point of having organized receipts to enter into Quickbooks, you MUST have a system.  We have evolved from separate baskets for this and that… to large envelopes for each property… to a system of slots for each property that makes sense and works for us.  No matter what you… commit to doing it and stick with it.

Write on receipts as soon as you get them.  I regularly annoy cashiers by taking the time to write the property address on a receipt before leaving the register …and yes, it is worth those few seconds to have that information when you pull out the receipts for filing days later.

Now, a big lesson I had to learn was to save receipts for EVERYTHING.  Down the road the accountant can tell you something isn’t really a tax write-off, but worse yet is to find out that something is a tax write-off and you didn’t save the receipt.

• So if you have a painting crew working in a rental property and buy them burgers for lunch, SAVE THE RECEIPT.

• If you buy a light fixture at a garage sale or off craigslist, ask for a handwritten receipt.

• When you get someone to mow a lawn for cash, get a receipt… handwritten is fine.

There have been times that work was so intense that I could not get receipts filed for weeks.  Here is where the voice of experience will tell you that if you are this busy… it is time to find part-time office help.  Staying organized saves money in the long run.  Spend a little bit to have someone do the filing and data entry for you on a regular basis.

Terry, that good friend/accountant mentioned earlier, says that IRS requires you to keep records and receipts for three years.  Her advice is to CYA and save five years.  So at the end of each calendar year, we pack all of the year’s files and receipt into those nice file boxes you can get at Office Depot (or your favorite office supply big box) and haul them to the attic.  When they are six years old, they go to the commercial shredding company.  NEVER, NEVER, NEVER put your records in the public trash.  Another time we’ll talk about identity theft.

If your are a list maker, then you are several steps ahead on organization.  If you need help learning how to become a list maker or need help learning how to create a filing system, Amazon.com has some great books.  FILE DON’T PILE will get you started.

Two days ago, a realtor I have done business with for a long time called about a property I had made an offer on a year ago.  Now the owner wants to sell.  I needed a quick refresher on why, a year ago, this property seemed like a good financial move.  Wow, was I thrilled when I found a soft file of all the plans including a spreadsheet with profit projections.  Saving computer files in a logical and orderly manner really pays off.

Filing receipts, data entry, office organization and stay on top of IRS requirements will all save money and time.  I will never again do the end of the year marathon to get ready to file my taxes… never again spend days on end trying to organize receipts and files that should have been taken care of as they came through the door.  Commit and just DO it!

Perhaps we need to have a write-in contest making up a new fun name for filing… something that does not evoke the mundane drudgery that the word “filing” brings to mind.  Look forward to hearing from you soon.

Thanks,

B

A variety of scenarios could leave you with a dated kitchen that makes the unit hard to rent… you just bought a bank-owned property that hasn’t been updated in 35 years, you had long term tenants who were fine with the status quo, you had tenants who trashed the place or it has just been a long time since you did anything to this particular rental.

Occasionally you run across tenants who don’t care what the kitchen looks like, but by and large renters want a bright, clean and up-to-date space. During most rental showings folks talk about having family and friends over for dinners and bar-b-ques. An attractive kitchen can put you at the top of their list.

Now the big question is… how to do this on a budget? Evaluate what really needs to be done:

· Is the countertop damaged, dated or worn?

· Do the cabinets need cleaning, painting, re-facing or replaced?

· Could the kitchen use a new sink and faucet?

· Is the hardware on the cabinets dated and/or missing, in need of repair?

· Are the appliances scratched, dented, not working well?

· Has the lighting seen too many decades of use?

· Condition of the flooring… worn, dull, need cleaning?

If you answered yes to all or most of these, you need a complete kitchen remodel, but hopefully there were just a few points that could easily and inexpensively be remedied.

Habitat for Humanity has ReStores, retail locations where new, and near new, building materials have been donated for resale… kind of like the Goodwill of building materials. My purchases have ranged from cabinet hardware or appliances to paint and even my dining room table. If you don’t have a Habitat ReStore in your area, look for similar stores. They have become popular during the last decade.

Since Goodwill was mentioned, I really should tell you that I am a major fan of Goodwill Industries. Those light fixtures that someone changed out because they were passé are now sitting on the shelf at Goodwill for $5… and should be on their way to spruce up your rental. The best deal I ever found at Goodwill was my wedding dress… Saks Fifth Avenue… still had the hang tags on it… $6.95… and it fit!

Inexpensive resources for building materials are plentiful including of course, craigslist.org. If you haven’t developed the habit of checking out all of your resale resources first, it is time to start. Don’t buy new until you know that new is the best way to go… sometimes it is.

A variety of scenarios could leave you with a dated kitchen that makes the unit hard to rent… you just bought a bank-owned property that hasn’t been updated in 35 years, you had long term tenants who were fine with the status quo, you had tenants who trashed the place or it has just been a long time since you did anything to this particular rental.

Occasionally you run across tenants who don’t care what the kitchen looks like, but by and large renters want a bright, clean and up-to-date space. During most rental showings folks talk about having family and friends over for dinners and bar-b-ques. An attractive kitchen can put you at the top of their list.

Now the big question is… how to do this on a budget? Evaluate what really needs to be done:

· Is the countertop damaged, dated or worn?

· Do the cabinets need cleaning, painting, re-facing or replaced?

· Could the kitchen use a new sink and faucet?

· Is the hardware on the cabinets dated and/or missing, in need of repair?

· Are the appliances scratched, dented, not working well?

· Has the lighting seen too many decades of use?

· Condition of the flooring… worn, dull, need cleaning?

If you answered yes to all or most of these, you need a complete kitchen remodel, but hopefully there were just a few points that could easily and inexpensively be remedied.

Habitat for Humanity has ReStores, retail locations where new, and near new, building materials have been donated for resale… kind of like the Goodwill of building materials. My purchases have ranged from cabinet hardware or appliances to paint and even my dining room table. If you don’t have a Habitat ReStore in your area, look for similar stores. They have become popular during the last decade.

Since Goodwill was mentioned, I really should tell you that I am a major fan of Goodwill Industries. Those light fixtures that someone changed out because they were passé are now sitting on the shelf at Goodwill for $5… and should be on their way to spruce up your rental. The best deal I ever found at Goodwill was my wedding dress… Saks Fifth Avenue… still had the hang tags on it… $6.95… and it fit!

Inexpensive resources for building materials are plentiful including of course, craigslist.org. If you haven’t developed the habit of checking out all of your resale resources first, it is time to start. Don’t buy new until you know that new is the best way to go… sometimes it is.

Thanks!

B