How HUD Calculates Fair Market Rent: The 40th Percentile Explained
A walk through the data, formulas, and annual adjustments behind the number that sets housing voucher payment standards nationwide.
Rosa MarchettiRentals
Rentals covers running a property after purchase: advertising a unit, screening applicants, writing leases, setting and raising rent, handling repairs, and ending a tenancy lawfully. Turnover is treated as the expense it is. Aimed at landlords managing their own units and owners supervising a management company from a distance.
The operating half of a rental business: screening, lease terms, rent setting, maintenance response, eviction, and what a vacant month really costs.
Self-Managing vs a Property Manager: The Fee Versus Hours Trade
Hiring a manager converts a recurring fee into recovered hours and distance from operations — and the trade resolves into measurable hours, costs, and regulation exposure.
Peter Almeida
Rent-Reporting Services: The Mechanics and Limits Landlords Should Know
Rent-reporting services push payment histories into credit bureau files, which helps some tenants and streamlines collections leverage for some landlords — with boundaries worth reading first.
Rosa Marchetti
Turnover Costs Itemized: Painting, Make-Ready, and the Days Vacant
Every turnover carries the same five cost lines and the same hidden line — days vacant — and owners who itemize them price retention and rent correctly.
Rosa Marchetti
Pet Policies and Pet Rent: What Landlords May and May Not Charge
Pet deposits, pet rent, and assistance-animal rules are three separate frameworks — and confusing them is the most expensive pet-policy mistake a landlord can make.
Peter Almeida
Short-Term vs Long-Term Rentals: Regulation Risk Differs by City
Short-term rental rules are city-level, change often, and can erase a revenue model overnight — so the durable comparison is regulatory, not just financial.
Peter Almeida
Building a Maintenance Reserve: What Aging Systems Actually Cost
A maintenance reserve sized to the age of the roof, the HVAC, and the plumbing survives the year a water heater and a compressor fail together.
Peter Almeida
Lease Renewals: The Vacancy-Cost Math Behind Every Retention Offer
A retention offer is worth making only when the vacancy cost it avoids exceeds the rent it gives up — and the comparison is a short, checkable calculation.
Rosa Marchetti
How to Set Rent From Comparables Without Under-Pricing the Unit
A comparables process built on recent, nearby, like-kind listings prices a unit from evidence instead of habit — and catches under-pricing before a year of it compounds.
Rosa Marchetti
Security Deposit Caps by State: A Framework Landlords Can Verify
Deposit limits, interest rules, and return deadlines differ by state, so the workable approach is a verification framework rather than a memorized number.
Rosa Marchetti