Bad screening is the single most expensive mistake a landlord makes. Every eviction, every trashed unit, every month of unpaid rent traces back to the moment you handed over the keys to someone you should not have. Proper screening costs about $50 per applicant. A bad tenant costs $7,000-$8,500 on average. The math is not … Read more
You walk into the unit after the tenant moves out and your stomach drops. Holes in the walls. Carpet destroyed. Kitchen cabinets ripped off the hinges. Cigarette burns on countertops. Maybe worse. This happens more often than anyone talks about. Here is exactly what to do, how to recover costs, and how to prevent it … Read more
Evicting a tenant in New York is slow, expensive, and loaded with procedural traps. One wrong step and your case gets dismissed. You start over. The tenant stays. You keep losing money. This guide covers the actual process from start to finish, with realistic timelines for Onondaga County and Central New York. No sugarcoating. Two … Read more
Your tenant missed rent. Maybe they texted you an excuse. Maybe they went silent. Either way, the clock is ticking and every day you wait costs you money. This is not the time to be nice. This is the time to follow a process. New York landlord-tenant law is one of the most tenant-friendly systems … Read more
Every January and February, Syracuse landlords brace for the same phone call: water pouring through a ceiling, flooding a basement, or pooling on a first floor. Burst pipes are one of the most expensive and most preventable maintenance disasters in Central New York rental property. The damage from a single burst pipe can easily run … Read more
Heating type is one of the most underappreciated factors in rental property performance in Central New York. It affects your utility costs (or your tenant’s), your maintenance budget, your vacancy rate, and how much rent you can realistically charge. And yet, most landlords treat it as a fixed feature of the building rather than a … Read more
Here’s a fact that every Syracuse landlord needs to sit with: the vast majority of the city’s housing stock was built before 1978. That means lead paint is not a hypothetical concern. It’s a near certainty in most rental units across Onondaga County. If you own pre-1978 housing, you have specific legal obligations under federal, … Read more
If you own rental property in Syracuse or anywhere in Central New York, snow isn’t just a seasonal inconvenience. It’s a liability issue, a maintenance headache, and a line item that can wreck your operating budget if you’re not planning for it. Syracuse averages over 120 inches of snow per year, and lake effect systems … Read more
A bitterly cold evening in March of 2021, Syracuse police discovered 93-year-old Connie Tuori brutally murdered in her apartment at the Skyline building. Officers stepped around used syringes, scattered drug paraphernalia, and human waste on the hallway floors as they investigate the scene. The corridors, dimly lit and thick with the smell of human waste, … Read more
Once upon a time, in the majestic world of real estate, there existed a sect of wizards known as appraisers. With a wave of their magical wands, (or should we say, calculators) they could decree the value of a kingdom (read: property) with exactitude. Or so the tale goes. In reality, these wizards often … Read more