Myles of Investments

Read about my successes and failures. Learn from my experiences and gain insight without losing any cash!!!

Lesson: Catching a Falling Knife
Lesson: Currency Exchange
Lesson: Mutual Fund
Lesson: Paid to Wait
Lesson: Pricing in a Downturn

This is where you’ll find find my Blog. I will comment on the latest news relating to investing, real estate, and the financial markets.

House Alarms

We all know that a house alarm is a great way to protect your home, and of course it can reduce your insurance too. It is also a great way to protect a rental investment. But, what might surprise you is that a house alarm can actually make it easier to find tenants for your units!! House alarms can be a great way to reduce the amount of idle time a duplex property sits waiting to find the right tenant. You can earn more money having a single family house that is split into two, than by renting out the entire space, but it can be hard to find renters who feel safe with this arrangement. And, as always, making renters want to move in and feel comfortable is important.

Many good renters don’t feel comfortable knowing there is someone else in the house even when there are separate entrances and no shared spaces. A house alarm is a great way to help obtain the best renters. Typically companies install these systems for little or no cost. You can have a house alarm installed and have the tenant pay for monitoring, or build the cost of monitoring into the price of the rent. Offering this service allows single professional women, or a business person who is away from home often, or a family with children, feel more comfortable renting part of a multiplex from you, because they feel protected from the tenants in the other units, and the outside world.

I will give you a real life example. We were being transferred with my job to another city, but wanted to keep our house, as we always thought that it was a home we would we would want to come back to, and if we could make it an asset, then why not? We had a young couple in the basement renting a completely separated unit from the top, and lots of prospective renters for the upstairs. The single woman that eventually rented the upper unit noted the security system and asked if it was in working order. She snapped up our place right away, and said the house alarm was one of the reasons that she chose our unit.

A house alarm will protect your property, your investment, and provide protection to your tenants. After all, a good long-term renter makes the job of being a landlord a lot easier.