An Introduction

The Carriage House

Well folks, I've finally done it - started a blog! This thing has been incubating for almost a decade at this point but I've always been hesitant to pull the trigger. I've never attempted a blog before, but I imagine it's similar to having a houseplant. It needs to be watered, pruned, fertilized, and regularly tended. Spoiler alert: I have about a 50% success rate with houseplants. So no promises here, but I'm going to try my best to keep this thing alive.

First a little bit about how I got here on my journey... Back in 2005, I was living in a tiny apartment in the now restored Riverview Manor. My rent was only $450 a month including utilities! Life was good but I'm a fixer, reformer, and problem solver at heart and I needed something to tinker with and call my own. I found a cozy carriage house in Midtown Harrisburg and fell in love. 

Five years later I upgraded to a larger townhouse Uptown but couldn't bear the thought of losing my first place so I decided to try being a landlady. During my research phase, I happened on the book, Landlording: A Handymanual for Scrupulous Landlords and Landladies Who Do It Themselves. Wow. If you're thinking about becoming a landlord, do yourself a favor and read this book!  This quickly became my favorite resource. After that it didn't take long to develop my forms, processes and find my first tenant. Who knew I would love it so much!? Maybe it was my hospitality background, or my meticulous methods, but it just felt so natural. I enjoyed it so much, that two years later I purchased a four-unit building in Old Uptown Harrisburg and started Libra Properties. Things got real very quickly!

Managing five units wasn't as hard as it might sound. Don't get me wrong, it came with it's share of nightmares, but there were lots of laughs, victories, and valuable lessons too. Like the time the water heater burst in the middle of blizzard and no one would come out to replace it. But more on that later. I ended up selling the multi-unit after five years, but the stories and lessons will be with me forever. 

All this to say that over the years, I've accumulated a lot of valuable information about home improvement, real estate, landlording, neighbors, plants, plumbing, and who knows what else! Now I'm here to share it all with you. My intention is to have content that is a resource to you, to save you time, and to save you from some of the mistakes, err scratch that - detours I have taken.