Category — Landlord Biz

The numbers on running a band: you can’t make a living at it.  At least not a decent living.  The Klezmatics former drummer, David Licht, had a business card that read “percussion, painting, plaster,” and he was with the top band.

Real music, real estate, real numbers . . .

The Consumer Price Index has averaged 4 percent the past 30 years.  The Dow Jones, 8 percent; U.S. bonds, 6 percent; and my real estate, more than those.

What’s a measly percent point or two? A lot.  This has to do with large numbers.

People think, “Wow, I got a 40 percent discount at Marc’s.”  Yeah, 40 percent on a loaf of bread.  Big deal.   If you can get 40 percent off on a piece of property — that’s something.  Doesn’t usually happen.  But if you can get an extra percentage point or two on a large number, over, say, 30 years, you’re making thousands and thousands more dough.

You can’t get more than the Dow Jones without a lot of risk.

My father took a lot of risks. He had postal machines, a door-to-door cosmetics company and a foot powder company.  He went broke on all of them.

I was an artiste. My father dragged me into the real estate biz; he blindfolded me and led me before a firing squad of prima donna plumbers, pissed-off tenants and youse-guys garbage haulers.

Hey, no biz is all fun.  You do certain things to eat.  You do other things so you’re not just eating.

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Tomorrow:

ONE BIG NEGOTIATION . . . My adult life.

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Garbage men and coin-op laundry men . . . the biggest sleazeballs.

Particularly coin-op guys.  Some of these men are descendants of mobsters.  (Landlords use coin-operated washers and dryers in apartment laundry rooms.)

I got locked into a 20-year contract with a coin-op guy and could never get out of it.  The opt-out clause was to send a certified letter 60-90 days in advance of expiration, with a $2 ochre stamp with sprinkles on it, or something.

Contracts — with my band and in real estate — they’re basically worthless.  If the client is a creep, you should figure that out in advance.  (Easier said than done.)

An upholstery-shop owner told me he was going to rent forever and die there, and then he bailed in two years.  He left several truck loads of stinky, stained foam in the store.

Immigrant storeowners, that’s what I often deal with.

The Korean man is raising his kids at the dry cleaners.  Maybe he has beds in the basement.  One of my Chinese guys put a shower in his basement.  I caught him but let it go.  Against city code.  He said he was a descendent of  nobility.

A lot of foreigners say they’re nobility. One man from Azerbaijan had a last name with 17 letters in it.  I told him to change his name.  He didn’t like that.  He said he was royalty.

My father changed his name in 1941 from Soltzberg to Stratton.  He couldn’t get a job even though he was a Phi Beta Kappa chemistry grad from Ohio State.

Immigrants, in negotiations they’ll bring their wives and  kids — whatever it takes to get a low-ball price on a lease.  The archetypal Korean wife . . . ballistic – basically histrionic – in negotiations.  But once the lease is signed, the Koreans are golden.

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Tomorrow:

WHERE HAVE ALL THE FAMOUS PEOPLE GONE? . . . About Harvey Pekar, Flory Jagoda and LeBron James

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It’s always stressful to negotiate a contract. I do a few per week. Real estate biz or the band. The lowest number you mention, that’s the one that sticks. If you say, “It’ll be between $6,500 and $6,800,” the customer just hears the $6,500. Never casually bandy about a low number. That’s the one that sticks.

You can do a million negotiations and never get used to it. Just like going on stage. You go on stage, and if you’re not nervous, you’re screwed up. I’m not saying you should be a nervous wreck — which is often the case the first couple years — but you should be a bit anxious. Even if you’re playing for seven people. We drove all the way to Grand Rapids, Mich., to play for about 30 people. Yeah, yeah, we’re pros and the show must go on, but it was a disappointment – that small number and such a long drive.

We did a show in Middletown, Ohio, for seven people. I told our singer to do a Beatles song in Yiddish just for fun. Big hit. Ohio premiere.

“Home hospitality” — that’s another negotiating tactic promoters use. “Would you please stay in a house, rather than a hotel?” Don’t do it.

I once put a band up in one of my vacant apartments. The band was Eli “Paperboy” Reed and the True Loves. Eli was just starting out. About nine of his guys barreled into the empty apartment. It cost me $50 to clean up after them. Not that they trashed the place. They didn’t. But nine guys overnight — the tub had some hairs in it the next morning, and there were foot prints. I knew what I was getting into. I knew that upfront. Support the arts.

Yiddishe Cup did a home hospitality where the host family didn’t show up. The festival volunteer took us to a flophouse near a paper mill. Looked like some rundown student housing. One bed, one cot, a couch and three sleeping bags. One bathroom.

So instead we went to a hotel, which wasn’t easy to come by because parents weekend was happening at a nearby college.

The next day I got half our hotel expenses back from the festival organizer. That encounter was like the real estate biz — hocking and negotiating. The music biz is 90 percent fun; this was the other 10 percent.

I told her the flop house was “not habitable.” Also, I mentioned my guys were 46-years- old and up. “We’re not college kids.”

She said, “We didn’t know you’re that old.”

Look at the photo in the brochure then! I asked her if she’d put her own family up in that dump. She said she would.

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Never take less than the equivalent of two months’ rent on move in. If a person can’t pay that, you’ll be chasing that person from the get-go.

I once had a custodian who took a ring instead of a security deposit. The renter was an elderly retired nurse from Houston. Also, a felon. But we didn’t know that. She conned her way into the apartment with a dime store ring.

I did a little “self-help” — legal-talk for evicting her without the court’s permission. I got a couple guys, and we moved her stuff into the basement. Her lawyer took several thousand from me. That was my last self-help.

I’m not “mom and pop” — I have a layer between me and the tenants: my on-site building managers/custodians.

How did I get to be bigger than “mom and pop.” First off, it helped my father was Toby Stratton. He bought a six-store, 21-suiter in 1965. He put down 8 percent and got two second mortgages. That’s heavy leverage. Gambling.

The band biz — we’re not “mom and pop” either. “Mom and pop” in the music biz would be a bar band — $100 per night per guy. Yiddishe Cup is above that. We’ve played the soft-seat auditoriums. That’s what the music biz calls the college auditoriums with cushy chairs.

For example, we played Loras College in Iowa and ate at the Ground Round afterward — the only place in Dubuque that was open after 10 p.m.

We’ve played Mt. Union College, Beloit College, Michigan State, UNC-Greensboro, Chautauqua Institution, City of El Paso (Tex.), Kenyon, Wabash, Cottey College in Nevada, Missouri. That’s the gateway to the Ozarks. A lot of places.

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The thing I do with my hands — no joke — is play the clarinet.  I have the same clarinet I had when I was 13.  Selmer Signet X.  I like pushing the keys and hearing the pads snap shut on the black wood.  My clarinet is pretty indestructible.  I once heard an expert say clarinets “get blown out” after a couple years.  Not mine.  It works fine.

Landlord and musician . . . I’m a hyphenated guy.  Depends what kind of cocktail party I’m at, whether I say “landlord” or “musician” first.

I don’t try to hide the landlord part.  I should!  Everybody hates landlords.  Nobody paid rent as a child, so people think they should live free as adults too.  The walls, heat and water — that should be free, like the wind, rain and baby food.

I used to feel guilty about charging rent.  I hadn’t really done anything to deserve the rent, other than to maintain a building —a building which I hadn’t even built. Now I’m middle-aged, and, hey, I feel fine collecting rent.  Somebody has to keep these old buildings from falling down.

Landlord-musician.  I know one more in Cleveland.  He’s a self-described “dago.”  Tough guy.  Wears a toupee, plays accordion and trumpet, and tells dirty jokes.  He’s got a strip center on the West Side.

Strip center — weird term.  Short for shopping strip center.

I don’t have any strip centers.  I have about 25 storefronts: Main Street-style.  The stores are on street level, with apartments above.  Like Disneyland’s Main Street.  But with mice.  Not Mickey.

There’s no money in the arts: I’ve rented to art galleries.  They all go under.  Things that don’t go under: bars, beauty parlors, tanning salons and flower shops.

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