Real Music & Real Estate . . .

Yiddishe Cup’s bandleader, Bert Stratton, is Klezmer Guy.
 

He knows about the band biz and – check this out – the real estate biz, too.
 

You may not care about the real estate biz. Hey, you may not care about the band biz. (See you.)
 

This is a blog with a gamy twist. It features tenants with snakes and skunks, and musicians with smoked fish in their pockets.
 

Stratton has written op-eds for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post.


 
 

LATE FEE OR NO LATE FEE?

I charge a $20 late fee if I don’t get the rent by the seventh day of the month. Some tenants regularly pay the $20 late fee, because $20 is nothing compared to, say, a credit-card late fee.

I had a tenant who promised to pay on the 11th. He changed to the 15th. Then the 20th.  Today — October 29 — I have just one late tenant.  She said she’s not paying because she had a stroke and is broke.  She sounded pretty good on the phone for a stroke.  I asked my wife, a former RN, about that: “Can you talk right if you just had a stroke?”

My wife, Alice, said, “It depends what part of the brain it affected.”

late fees  late feetOne guy had his foot cut off due to diabetes. That’s a decent excuse.

I generally don’t allow late payers to slide into the next month. “Mom is sick . . . My grandmother died . . . I switched banks and they messed up my account.”

Why didn’t you call me?  Why am I calling you?

Maybe I should charge more than $20. Some landlords charge by the day, like $10/day.  But life is too short for that kind of intense bookkeeping.

I have a tenant who has been late every month for 30 years.  I hope I outlive him to get his final month’s rent.

Sometimes I lean too hard on the tenants and get no late fee — no rent.

Yiddishe Cup is a soul band, Jewish and otherwise.  Check out our version of Aretha’s “Respect.”  We play a wide range of American pop music.  Please don’t boot us out of your wedding after the hora.  Hey, we’re better than those other wedding bands!  We’re slicker than schmaltz laced with WD-40.  Our newest singer is Tamar Gray.  She works the crowd.  Fun . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyjzxJW3y78

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3 comments

1 Ken G. { 10.29.14 at 11:14 pm }

As for the video, just imagine the movements if this were an African-American crowd….

I’m glad to read something about real estate again. That guy with the amputation – how many days did you give him?

2 Ken G. { 10.29.14 at 11:16 pm }

A tenant’s chant:
“I had a stroke and I’m broke….”

3 Bert Stratton { 10.30.14 at 8:58 am }

To Ken G.:

The tenant with the amputation — still with me! Each late-payment case is a little different. One size doesn’t fit all. Most important factor: how long the tenant has resided at the building. Newcomers (two-years-and-under) get zero slack, rule of thumb.

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