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Author retools special education style into resources for landlords

By Elizabeth Bettendorf
Published July 7, 2006

As a child growing up in Lakeland, Bryan Chavis fought labels:

Hyperactivity, dyslexia, attention deficit disorder.

He spent years in a special education classroom, all but forgotten, sentenced by teachers to a refrigerator box where he couldn't distract other students.

"When I got to middle school, they put me in a closet," recalled the local real estate expert who just last month signed a three-book deal with Vigliano & Associates, a New York City literary agency with a long roster of celebrity clients and best-selling books.

Just four years ago, Chavis self-published a book on property management. He sold it out of the trunk of his Jetta in Brandon, where he first leased apartments.

He liked apartment leasing because it initially allowed him to work from home.

"I needed to work from home because my car never ran," he confessed, laughing.

Later, he fell in love with the profession, absorbed the ins and outs so well that he worked his way up into management, learned to evaluate property and target potentially profitable neighborhoods. He went on to manage properties for private investors, but decided it was too time-consuming to grow a business.

He wrote the book after he met an old man at the Atlanta airport during a layover and found himself frustrated over not being able to teach average investors "who owned a duplex or quad" the tricks of big rental property players.

"The guy said: 'Why don't you put all your knowledge into a book,' " recalled Chavis, 33. "So on the way home I started writing."

His book, Landlording 101, changed his life forever, he said.

That's because he wrote and initially self-published it the way he knew best: text on the right side of the page, lots of illustrations and larger than normal font. His easy learning style caught the attention of some well-known Tampa Bay residents including New York Yankees right fielder Gary Sheffield, super welterweight boxing champion Winky Wright, and Harry Hedaya, president and founder of the Loan Corporation, who bought half of Chavis' company, the Landlord Academy.

"People don't have five years to learn what I learned. They might have to put a tenant into their condo tomorrow. I had to simplify it for them," Chavis said. "I kind of copied the style of the (special learning) books they gave to us students with ADD and dyslexia because our eyes jumped all over the page. I thought: 'If this worked for someone with ADD, just think how easy it will be for someone who doesn't have it.' "

With $150 in his bank account, Chavis and his wife, Laney, developed a property management course, hoping to teach average people how to make money.

They started by teaching three or four students in a storage closet at the FedEx Kinkos at Dale Mabry Highway and Kennedy Boulevard.

The couple, who now operate a permanent school in the West Shore area, wanted to educate everyone from investors to community leaders on how to manage property well. They also operate a Web site, www.landlording101.com.

Besides the usual lessons in increasing cash flow and trimming expenses, he trained his pupils in everything from lease-writing to fair housing laws to scrutinizing vacancy rates in targeted neighborhoods. Maintenance and safety were important, too.

Clients now include, among others, the cities of Bradenton and St. Petersburg and the Greater Tampa Association of Realtors.

Completion of his course earns students the title of Certified Professional Landlord, recognized as a continuing education credit by the Florida Real Estate Commission.

Chavis, who, as part of his three-book deal, is working on his autobiography as well as another book on rental investing, envisions his Landlording 101 to work for his pupils, much like a McDonald's franchise.

"McDonald's are run the same way everywhere - thanks to operations manuals, French fries are made a certain way without deviating," he explains. "Every store has the same menu, and they are essentially run by children."

He envisions Landlording 101 being sold from kiosks at Wal-Mart, where everything from his DVDs to requisite contract forms are marketed together.

"This is not about flipping," he explains.

"It's about long-term investing, making your money work for you. It's about checkers vs. chess, where you're always several moves ahead."

[Last modified July 5, 2006, 13:07:52]