Customer Reviews

The Landlord's Kit: A Complete Set of Ready-To-Use Forms, Letters, and Notices to Increase Profits, Take Control, and Eliminate the Hassle

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

If you have a "day job" and own a few rental properties on the side, this book won't help much. It's got some cool ideas for someone that wants to add some pizzazz (read "work") to thier property management practices. I have to admit that I even used one or two ideas. But this isn't a reasonable "how to" for someone who actually needs help learning how to rent properties. I didn't use any of the forms, either. They are too casual and sometimes flippant - I wanted a more professional and legally sound basis to work from. For a comprhensive guide get "Landlording: A Handy Manual for Scrupulous Landlords and Landladies Who Do It Themselves." And don't forget Nolo's "Every Landlord's Tax Deduction Guide." This topic needs it's own book. Even "Landlording" won't educate you on this topic adequately.

Most of the information and forms in this book is very appropriate if you have hundreds of tenants knocking down your door to rent your buildings. Or perhaps if you have a hundred rental properties and don't mind if some stay vacant until the perfect tenant arrives. As a landlord with a small number of units and a somewhat tight rental market with low interest rates, I found most of the advice and forms in this book pure fantasy. Also as a one time renter if a landlord approached me with most of these forms or addressed me as this book recommends I would have moved on quickly to the next rental.

Although this book would appear to have a lot of promise, it ultimately fails. Like Mr. Taylor's self-proclaimed "Certified Professional Landlord" title (Fill in your name on page 218 for your own bogus certification!), these phony forms are imaginative but have little to no legal standing. Worse, Taylor apparently has little respect for his tenants. One form, the "Tenant Late Rent Warning and Excuses" form ("To be given to new, renewing, and late tenants.") asks tenants to mark a box as to why their rent was late. Sample excuses: I was mugged. "You didn't come by when I had the money," "I didn't have a stamp," "I'm dead." A chuckle for a landlord, but also a cynical and unprofessional suggestion. Taylor's advice on handling phone calls from prospective residents is even worse - he promotes using a hard-sell interrogation on the first contact that seems destined to drive away prospective tenants. Anyone with intentions to do good business would be well served to get more professional advice than this extremely disappointing book.

Anyone can become a landlord. Jeffrey is a master when it comes to showing one how to become a SUCCESSFUL landlord. His knowledge and insight allow a novice (like myself) to quickly learn what the pros know. Most importantly, he teaches how to avoid (often costly) mistakes. This book contains not only all the necessary forms but also helpful tips to keep you on the right track. The Landlord's Kit is a must for your landlording library.

After reading Kamatoa's review of this book I almost didn't buy it. But because the other reviewers had given it 4-5 stars I decided to chance it. And I am glad I did! The one form Kamatoa refers to (the reason for late rent form) is done tongue-in-cheek. You can take it or leave it. But all of the other forms and information I found very useful. This book contains lots of great ideas about screening and retaining tenants. After reading this book I am excited about becoming a landlord once again!

Jeffrey Taylor aka, Mr. Landlord is an exciting and dynamic speaker in person and has a wealth of practical and hands on information about being a landlord from his 20 years of experience. But to be honest I enjoyed Leigh Robinson's book "Landlording" much more. I'd still recommend that you buy this book but additonally that you buy the Robinson book too. Taylor has about 50 helpful tips in his book and will benifit the current landlord or an aspiring landlord. He has forms in the book that you will never have heard about or seen before. Some of these forms may not be applicable to your rental situation, but they are there for you to decide. I have seen Mr. Taylor in person and he is an exciting speaker, so I'm a little disappointed in the text of the book. I would rather see more Mr. Landlord, but maybe there's a second book in the offing. The author leaves you wanting more, which is not a bad thing.

The landlord's Kit is an extremely well written guide to making more money and saving alot of headache in managing property.There are a ton of great ideas that really work.Mr. Taylor aka Mr. Landlord has been helping other landlords for years...it is great to see many of his ideas in book form. The forms,letters and notices are worth a fortune. Read this book and do what it says...it works!

The forms are useless since when you copy them they contain the page numbers and chapter title from which you obtained them from. You can obtain better "legal" forms via softcopy methods(CD-ROM) internet so don't waste your time(trying to doctor the copies) and money on this book.. I will provide you mine for free.

This book along with a number of other products available from the mrlandlord.com web site has enabled me to more than double the profitability of my property portfolio with only two of Jeffrey's ideas. If you ever get the oppertunity to see this guy speak then you must go. In the mean time get his book and put the ideas into action. It is also good for commercal property as well as the residential market that it is targeted at.

TheGrocer aka thelazyfool aka Michael Pettett.

The content of this book is excellent. However it should also include an electronic copy. I tore out each page (they are perforated) and put it in a three ring binder. If you attempt to photocopy the pages you'll need white-out because on the bottom of each page is the number and title of the chapter--very annoying and time consuming. The last page of the book offers you the ability to buy the electronic copy for "half the price" for $49.50. My advice is to skip this book and just buy the e-copy.