Owning a rental isn't passive income

📅 Invite to You: Free 4-Class Learning Series

Many landlords think that owning a rental is “passive income”. If you’re someone who preaches this, I don’t know if we can be good friends…

It is my firm stance that every housing provider should be educated about the rental industry in order to treat tenants with care and respect.

So, any opportunity I get to share resources with the Openroom community, I will try my best to do so.

This time, I’ve teamed up with my good friend Hart Togman at Rent Panda to deliver 4 virtual lunch & learn sessions.

Hart’s team at Rent Panda has scaled to 1,500+ units under management now. He’s definitely way more knowledgeable than I am on everything in the rental realm.

He’s going to teach for an hour every Wednesday about writing a rental ad, screening tenants, adding lease addendums, and operating systematically. No-brainer: SAVE YOURSELF A SEAT HERE.

While the topics are geared towards landlords and investors, aspiring ones are MORE THAN WELCOME to join in. Some may say the more you learn the more you might never want to be in this industry…

Last week, he told me about the moment he got a call from his resident manager about illegal drugs in the rental unit. Another one about how a resident put 40-ish Q-tips into the toilet and clogged it up.

Did I mention it’s free of charge AND Hart said he’ll bring templates to share with everyone?

I promise there will be laughs and knowledge. I mean, just look at some of the questions I’ve asked him bluntly before.

You can absolutely bring the questions you’re too afraid to ask. I know I’ve got many.

💁🏻‍♀️ Fun Fact: How to pronounce my name

My parents never gave me an “English” name. I didn’t know there was such a thing some 20 years ago when we immigrated to Canada.

You know when you go into particular cafes and they ask you for your name? You should guess the variations I’ve received in the past.

Not going to lie, I say my name is Stacey when I go to Starbucks. 😆 😭

I can’t be the only one - right?!

I thought this was fun to include from my friend Kevin (Board Director at SOLO) the other day so you never feel awkward asking me about my name!

One of the great things about unique names is that you won’t get a duplicate if you search me inside Openroom. My parents thought ahead.

📅 Weiting’s Thoughts as a Parent

When Hart and I were deciding when to host the virtual events, we discussed what would be good for families with young kids. Hart and I are parents of very young kids ourselves.

Many of the events I’ve hosted in the past were in the evenings or cutting into the 3 PM kiddo pick-up zone, which meant many community members weren’t able to attend.

I mean, there’s cooking dinner, showers, playtime, bedtime stories - it’s a lot in the hours leading up to 9 PM. Honestly, I’m snoring in bed already.

Many of you have told me this in the past so thank you so much for speaking up!!!

This time, we’re aiming to bring it to everyone at lunch hour so you can bring your food along, take a small break from work, and learn something new with us.

If you’ve got ideas for learning sessions we can conduct with our partners, reply and let me know.

I always like hearing from you. If I don’t respond, just hit reply again.

Have a fantastic Trick or Treat next week!

Weiting Bollu
Mom, Rental Housing Provider, Rental Housing Advocate, Educator, and Openroom Co-Founder & CEO

Openroom collects public tenancy records and connects them to the broader financial credit system to help you make informed decisions about who to rent from and who to rent to.

We enable you to screen tenants or future landlords, help you report rental debt, give rewards to great residents, or bundle it all into BureauEdge.

We also educate about rental housing and we advocate for a more transparent and connected rental ecosystem to support both responsible housing providers and residents. Send us an opinion piece at [email protected].