IT’S YOUR CALL
Case Study:

You’re a small time real estate investor. You manage ten rental properties to bring in a little extra income. You enjoy working with people and managing your own investments. You recently experienced a prolonged vacancy in one of your apartments. In order to boost your cash flow, you relaxed your renter requirements, and rented to “John”, who seemed like a nice guy, but something didn’t feel “right”. You never could definitively say what was wrong and why, so you went against your “gut” and signed the contract.

Things went great for two months, but have recently become concerning. John was only able to produce $250 for his rent last month. That’s $200 shy of his rent obligation. In addition, he hasn’t paid you anything this month and the month is nearly over. He is $650 behind on his rent. However, delinquent rent is not the only issue with John.

Marty rents the apartment right next to John’s. Over the last three weeks he has initiated conversations with you regarding John. Marty claims there is a great deal of activity at John’s apartment. People come and go at all hours. Marty tells you that he is certain that John is using various illegal drugs, including crack cocaine. In addition, Marty claims the police have been called numerous times to the property. Marty is concerned about his personal safety and the security of his apartment. Marty has always been your confidant and informer at this property. His information has historically been correct, but on a few occasions, he has exaggerated some information.

You decide that these concerns warrant immediate attention. You have decided to address this issue with John personally, but have not been able to reach him via phone, (his phone has been disconnected), and all attempts to reach him at his job have failed. (He has been terminated for having a physical altercation with a fellow employee). You have driven down to his apartment and are now standing outside his door. You knock on the door. You hear footsteps approaching…

How will you use verbal and nonverbal communication to address this issue?

John’s Bio - 34 yr old male, 6’3” tall, 260 lbs, athletic build.

Write a sentence or two stating exactly what your next action/response would look like. Then, support your decision using information from your text. The format for your answer (and the group's final answer) should be:

Action: Sentence or two
Support: Paragraph or two that provides support, explanation, reasoning using what you have learned in the chapter