If you've been running (or thinking about running) a short-term rental in Dayton, here's the good news and the "don't get comfortable" news in the same breath: right now, Dayton doesn't require a special permit or license for short-term rentals — the city handles concerns case by case rather than through a dedicated STR ordinance. That's different from Columbus, Cincinnati, or Cleveland, all of which have their own STR rules on the books.

But "no rules yet" isn't the same as "no rules ever." Let's break down what actually applies today and what's sitting in the legislature that could change your math.

What Applies to You Right Now

Ohio law only treats a property as a "hotel" for tax purposes once it hits five or more rooms — so if you're renting a single-family home or a spare bedroom, you almost certainly clear that bar on the low side, which means most Dayton hosts with fewer than five rooms don't owe any of the three local lodging taxes that technically exist on paper. That said, state law still requires you to register your property with the Montgomery County Auditor — that part isn't optional, permit or no permit.

Translation: light regulatory lift today, but there's still a paperwork step most new hosts skip.

What's Coming

Two bills are working their way through the Ohio legislature — Senate Bill 104 and House Bill 109 — and both would require booking platforms to collect lodging tax on every short-term rental, no matter how small. If ... Read More…

Instead, he died owning two houses with a combined value of less than $200,000, with almost no cash in the bank, and living mostly off Social Security.

Dad was a sort of real estate pioneer. He was smart, a millionaire back when a million dollars was real money, one of the founders of Cincinnati REIA, and the teacher of what was probably the most popular real estate investing class in Southern Ohio.

Through DECADES (he bought his first apartment building in 1964 and his last rental house around 2004) of work and sacrifice, he built a portfolio of about 100 apartments and 150 single-family houses.

And then he got Alzheimer’s.

Long before the official diagnosis, we could all see that something was wrong with his executive functioning.

A roof would leak, and he would spend weeks waffling about whether it needed to be repaired or replaced. Properties sat vacant longer and longer and deteriorated further and further. The manager of one of his apartment buildings essentially stopped managing it, leaving a heavily mortgaged building with a broken boiler and only two tenants in 13 units—one of whom wasn’t paying.

Dad knew, at least off and on, what needed to be done.

But increasingly, he couldn’t make himself do it.

And because his entire identity was wrapped up in being the brilliant real estate expert and self-made millionaire, he became fiercely protective of his right to keep running the business. Even after he understood that he had Alzheimer&rs ... Read More…

Mr. Land Trust® expands on some of the many reasons to use a Trust to hold title to your real estate:

Reason #1: There are hundreds of thousands of lawsuits filed every year in America.

Many of these lawsuits are filed against the owners of real estate because they are easy prey for contingency fee lawyers and their deadbeat clients looking to make a quick buck off honest hard-working real estate investors. (I read about one investor who bought a vacant lot and signed personally for the financing. The buyer discovered after the purchase that the site had been a gas station with underground gas storage tanks that polluted the ground. The EPA was a constant threat. The buyer stopped making payments on his bank loan and now the bank is foreclosing).

Reason #2: You are buying a Pure Option or entering a Lease-Option.

You could enter an Installment Contract where fee title will remain in the seller’s name until full payment is made to satisfy the terms of the contract purchase.  

Your concern is that by the time you have created enough value added to the property to sell for a profit, the owner (the title-holder) may have done something stupid to cloud the title such as filed bankruptcy, had a lien recorded against him/her, made repairs that resulted in a mechanics lien, gotten divorced, borrowed against the property, signed a long-term lease for under market rents, etc. 

You can’t prevent problems like these from cropping up. What you can do i ... Read More…

You've found the perfect property — good bones, solid neighborhood, ready to rent. But the owner's asking price is $20k below market, and your down payment is tight. You walk. Mistake.

That seller might be willing to finance the deal themselves. Meaning they become your lender, not a bank. No mortgage approval process, no appraisals, no 45-day waiting game. Just you, the seller, and a note.

Seller financing (also called owner financing) is one of the most underused tools in the Dayton market. And it's especially powerful for investors hitting down-payment constraints or dealing with properties that conventional lenders won't touch.

Why Sellers Say Yes

Banks are picky. A fixer-upper, a multi-unit property, or an off-market deal often doesn't qualify for traditional financing. The seller's stuck — they need to sell, but their pool of buyers shrinks to all-cash investors. Enter you.

If you offer a reasonable down payment (typically 15–30%), a fixed interest rate (3–7%, depending on market), and a clear promissory note, a seller sees cash in their pocket now and steady income for 5–10 years. Many retirees love this: better than a CD rate, and secured by real estate.

The Basic Structure

Three elements you need:

1. Promissory note — the formal IOU. Amount, interest rate, term, and monthly payment. This document is everything. Don't skip it or DIY it carelessly; get a real estate attorney (budget $300–500) to draft it.
2. Deed of trust ... Read More…

If you own mid-term rentals in Dayton, your busy season is about to hit. Q4 corporate housing demand — the wave that starts building in September and peaks through year-end — is coming, and if you're not ready, you'll leave money on the table.

Here's why: Wright-Patterson Air Force Base cycles through temporary duty (TDY) assignments. Healthcare systems staff for winter flu surges and ramp up traveling nurse placements. Tech companies deploy year-end project teams. All of them need furnished, month-to-month flexibility. That's your bread and butter.

The trick? Prep starts now, in August.

Why Q4 Demand Spikes

TDY rotations, PCS moves delayed from summer, and corporate budget cycles all converge in the fourth quarter. WPAFB alone generates a predictable surge of short-notice housing needs. Healthcare networks (Premier, Kettering) staff up traveling nurses for winter demand. And if you've got corporate housing on your radar, end-of-year project deployments mean boosted inquiries.

The demand is real — but so is the competition for quality units. If your properties aren't camera-ready and your lease paperwork isn't dialed in by September 1, you'll watch someone else scoop your bookings.

What to Do This Month

1. Deep clean and photo refresh. Your listing photos are your first impression. If they're from 2024, reshoot them. Furnished MTRs live on visual appeal — one grainy kitchen pic and you've lost the sale.

2. Audit your lease terms. Corporate tena ... Read More…

When you’re circling a new Ohio metro — Dayton, Columbus, Cincinnati, Toledo, Cleveland, whatever’s on your radar — you don’t need a week of research to figure out whether it deserves more of your time. One focused evening is enough to separate “worth exploring” from “not a fit.”

Below is the streamlined process I use when I’m vetting markets across the state.

1. Start With Two Numbers That Actually Matter

Pick a handful of metros you want to compare. For each one, grab:

• Median home value
• Average rent

Any free public site will give you those two figures. Ignore the charts, filters, and “insights.” You’re building a quick baseline, not a dissertation.

Those two numbers are the foundation for everything else.

2. Turn Those Numbers Into a Yield Snapshot

Take the monthly rent and divide it by the median price.
That’s your rent‑to‑price ratio — a fast way to see how much income a typical dollar of real estate produces in that metro.

This isn’t deal‑level underwriting. It’s a sorting tool.

If the ratio comes in below roughly 0.5%, that’s a caution flag. Not a deal‑killer — just a reminder that your return must come from something other than strong starting cash flow. Maybe it’s operational upside, maybe it’s a discount, maybe it’s long‑term appreciation. But you need to know which one.

3. Pressure‑Test Your Rent Assumptions Again ... Read More…

 Every December, I watch fellow investors frantically digging through glove compartments for Home Depot receipts like they're on an archaeological expedition. Don't be that investor.

The truth is, most of the tax savings you'll claim next April are decided by what you do (or don't do) between now and December 31st. July is the perfect checkpoint — half the year is behind you, and there's still plenty of runway to fix what's broken. Here are five moves every housing provider should make this month.

1. Reconcile Your Books — All Six Months

If your bookkeeping system is currently "a shoebox and good intentions," this is your intervention. Pull your bank and credit card statements from January through June and make sure every rental income deposit and expense is categorized. Do it now while you can still remember what that $340 charge in March was for. In my mid-term rentals, I reconcile monthly — but if you've fallen behind, a mid-year catch-up session is far less painful than a full-year one.

2. Check Your Estimated Tax Payments

Rental income doesn't have taxes withheld, and if you're having a stronger year than last year — new doors, higher rents, a flip that closed — your quarterly estimated payments may be too low. Underpay all year and the IRS adds penalties on top. Compare your actual first-half income to what you projected in January, and adjust your remaining payments if needed. One sentence of fine print: talk to your CPA or tax p ... Read More…

You found the perfect little duplex near the healthcare corridor. The numbers work, the seller's motivated... and then your lender quotes you a rate that makes your calculator flinch. Sound familiar?

Here's the thing most new investors don't realize: the bank isn't the only lender in town. Sometimes the best lender is sitting across the closing table from you — the seller.

What Seller Financing Actually Is

Seller financing (also called owner financing) means the seller acts as the bank. Instead of you bringing a mortgage from a lender, the seller lets you pay for the property over time. You sign a promissory note, agree on a price, interest rate, monthly payment, and term, and you make payments directly to them.

No underwriting committee. No 45-day closing timeline. No explaining to a loan officer why you have three LLCs. (Not that I'd know anything about that.)

Why a Seller Would Ever Say Yes

This is the question I hear most, and it's fair — why would anyone play banker? A few common reasons:

• They own the property free and clear. Many long-time Dayton landlords do, especially folks who bought decades ago and are ready to retire from tenants and toilets.
• Steady income beats a lump sum. Monthly payments with interest can be more attractive than a pile of cash earning next to nothing.
• Potential tax advantages. Spreading the sale over years may help the seller manage capital gains — though that's a conversation for their CPA, not for us over coffee.
... Read More…

6/10/26 -  Landlords and housing providers, please read this carefully, and you will see that positive change is on the horizon.

New guidance from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development limits the types of Fair Housing Act complaints the agency will accept regarding assistance or service animals.  Those who have followed me for some time have seen my previous articles over the years about this, based on my experiences with legislation and litigation in Ohio. The litigation was the most telling because the analysis that the Court of Appeals followed is very similar to what is laid out below and what the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is doing. They are going back to a strict reading of the actual law. Let me give you a quick review.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) protects people with disabilities. Disabilities are defined as something that interferes with an essential daily activity. Service or assistance animals must be able to address that disability. The two biggest examples I can quickly recall are guide dogs and dogs trained to prevent injury to a person experiencing a sudden seizure or a drop in blood sugar.

In recent years, this has become a wide-open, exploited area with multiple online cottage industries springing up to provide fake certifications for emotional support animals. This resulted in a stretch way beyond the bounds of what the ADA encompassed, and emotional issues are not frequently co ... Read More…