
Clark Answers His Critics on Clark Stinks / Owning Rental Property
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Clark Howard
I'm so glad you're with us here on the Clark Howard Show. You know our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you so you make better financial decisions in your life. And today's Friday. So we have Clark Stinks for you today, where you get to hear where I gave a lame answer, an incomplete one, or in your opinion, just flat out dumb and wrong. And then after Clark Stinks, we're going to talk about strategies. If you're considering becoming a landlord right now and buying property to turn into a rental, we need to talk about what works and what doesn't in today's housing market. And Krista, without further ado, it's time to hear how I'm messing up. I should have never encouraged you to speak. You almost think I'm pretty stupid.
Krista
You should be ashamed of yourself.
Clark Howard
Well, maybe I'm wrong.
Krista
Maybe I'm wrong.
Clark Howard
Maybe you're right, pal.
Krista
I think you're gonna like the beginning of this one from Mike in Kansas. He says you don't stink as bad as my beloved Chiefs this year.
Clark Howard
Sorry Mike, the the Chiefs have had a run like almost no other team and ran out of gas this year. But since you live in Kansas, what you have to look forward to is the team is moving from Missouri to Kansas. Did you know that?
Krista
No.
Clark Howard
Yeah, they're moving across the state line. I don't know when the new stadium will be built.
Krista
So Mike says. But on the 17 year old who wanted to open a Roth IRA with his mowing money, wouldn't you first need to confirm that he's claiming that income on his taxes? The jobs he mentioned are typically cash jobs and may not necessarily show up in a Schedule C. Maybe there isn't a cross reference for our friends at the IRS to compare Roth IRA contributions to ensure the individual actually had earned income on his or her tax return. Seems like a good kid. I just don't Want him to get in trouble at an early age.
Clark Howard
Okay, that's a great question. And we've had this before and we had a variety of opinions from CPAs on this. If you remember when this came up before, that his income may not be high enough to require for him to file a tax return, but at the same time he needs to. This was the consensus of the different opinions. At the same time, he needs to have some kind of record of what he earned from various jobs he did. If he was ever subject to an audit for having put money in a Roth IRA and doesn't have any kind of trail showing reportable income.
Krista
I thought that they were supposed to file a simple tax return.
Clark Howard
Yeah, but that's what, that's what we had the fuss about before is I.
Krista
Bet we'll get more.
Clark Howard
I said that he needed to report the income and file a return. And then we heard pretty emphatically no. As long as you're below a certain threshold, you don't have to. So let's have the responses come in now from the CPAs who do tax. We'd like to have round two of this.
Krista
Oh, gosh.
Clark Howard
So you just go to clark.comclarkstinks and let's have your professional opinion. Since I'm not a cpa. Have your professional opinion on this question. Since we had quite a brouhaha last time this came up. That may have been three years ago. It was a while ago.
Krista
Wayne in Florida says Clark is a little stinky when he paints all time shares with a broad brush. We purchased 200 points from the Disney Vacation Club for $13,000 in May of 2000. After we enjoyed using these points for 25 years, Disney exercised their right of first refusal and bought them back in July of 25 for 11, 500.
Clark Howard
Fantastic.
Krista
In full disclosure, the annual fee when we sold was $10 a point. Thank you. Thanks for all you and your team do. Wayne.
Clark Howard
Wayne. That is fantastic. That is. That may be the most positive.
Krista
Yes.
Clark Howard
Timeshare related story.
Krista
And we've heard ever. Thousands and thousands of negative ones.
Clark Howard
Wow. To be fair, so you ended up selling for only $1,500 less than you bought 26 years ago. Phenomenal.
Krista
So the $10 a point, the annual fee, what's that? $2,000 a year? They were paying 200 points. Okay. Corey in California says, dear Clark, you stink because your beloved Consumer Reports stinks. When looking at cars for a purchase I hope to be able to make this year, I noticed the their rating does not include the crash safety rating. One car they marked as top rated had the worst NHTSA rating in its category. Why would they not include such a huge aspect of a car?
Clark Howard
That's a great question. I didn't realize that they don't include crash rating. You know, it's funny about that. What does that say about me? I read the Consumer Reports vehicle reviews and I've never thought about, well, what's the safety rating on this vehicle?
Krista
Tom in Georgia says Clark, did I hear you right? I think you told a small landlord to just ditch the check and receive Venmo. We are a small LLC and we've steered clear of venmo and Zell, etc. Largely on your advice and we do still receive some paper checks. Please clarify, is Venmo for an llc? Fine, as long as we don't send money. Also, any implications for piercing the corporate veil? I guessing set a Venmo specifically for the llc. Thanks.
Clark Howard
Yeah, so that's true, Tom. Exactly. That you would set a separate Venmo account specifically for the llc. So what I said before, and I hope I said it right when I said it before, is that as the recipient there's not the risk to you that there is the sender from Venmo or Cash app. I sure don't like big bad sell but but anyway, when you receive money that way, it's a safe method of receipt for you. There are risks to the sender. If money is intercepted in any way or rerouted in any way or sent to the wrong place, the money takes a one way trip and there's no way to reclaim it.
Krista
Perry in California says my home insurer raised my premium by 10% per Clark. I had decided to request quotes from other companies and after hours I had the following results. The original insurer quote another company nearly 50% above the original insurer's new quote. One offer above original insurer quote for useless California Fair Plan 15 denials for any coverage Now I'm receiving many calls daily from different companies, mostly insurers as it appears my phone number has been sold to telemarketers. So how did shopping around benefit me?
Clark Howard
I wasted a lot of your time, didn't I? Your situation is crazy terrible. And the California Fair Plan for people who aren't aware in states with high risk like California from the fires and Florida from the hurricanes, end up with insurers of last resort, either directly or indirectly subsidized by taxpayers. And the California Fair Plan has not come through so well from last year's tragic fires. People been just miserably unhappy with how California Fair has performed. And that's just terrible that shopping around told you at least that he you were with now with the increase was actually somebody you should be happy to have and stay with. But that's very unusual. It's very unusual situation. You describe because of the special circumstances in California that 15 insurers told you get lost when you called for quotes and the only one who quoted you was 50% higher. That is clearly a broken insurance market.
Krista
Eric in Arizona says Clark, the question on the question about insurance rates for electric vehicles versus gas power vehicles, vehicles, you missed the mark. The reason the Model Y is more expensive to insure is because Teslas are more expensive to repair. There are a number of articles in the automotive press about how expensive Tesla vehicles are to repair after an accident. Insurance on EVs made by conventional auto manufacturers should be less expensive than that for Teslas.
Clark Howard
Eric, thank you for that. Now Tesla, to combat that market problem that their, their riders are facing, their drivers now offers insurance and steadily more states. And they announced in late December that they're going to significantly increase the number of states that they offer Tesla auto insurance in. And my daughter, I don't know if I mentioned this when this came up before, my daughter lives in California and switched to Tesla insurance and her premiums dropped 70% from when she was insured by USA. I mean it was shocking. She called me, said I got this quote from Tesla. Could this possibly be right? I said, do they send it to you in writing? And she sent it to me, same coverages and it was 70% cheaper. And lemonade, which I talked about recently, is insuring Teslas in a number of states now and is much cheaper to insure a Tesla than other insurers. Now. Both Tesla and Lemonade may find out later they blew it and didn't underwrite well and that they did not collect enough premiums. But the, the repair costs for Teslas is pretty high and I don't know how it compares. Since every vehicle in an accident seems to be expensive to repair. I don't know how much worse it is for Teslas than others.
Krista
Frank in Colorado says Clark, you stink like my high school gym socks.
Clark Howard
Thank you.
Krista
As a coverage for your water line, there is a better coverage available. Check with your home insurance. A lot of companies have a policy that you can add that covers all services, water, power, gas and a big one, your sewer line.
Clark Howard
Thank you for that. Okay, so you can add, with a lot of home insurers, you can add the optional additional coverages My worry about that is if they then treat a claim as a traditional homeowner's claim that sits on your record for a long time and can harm your ability to shop for insurance, it may lead to a higher premium for your homeowners insurance going forward. But you're absolutely right that a number of insurers sell a variety of optional coverages that by the way used to be part of a standard homeowner's policy. But just know that there is the after effects of a claim, the risk that goes with that that comes with buying those optional add ons from your homeowners.
Krista
Insurer Linda in New York says Clark's stinks worse than a sumo wrestler's mu washi after a 15 day tournament. In regard to unthawing a credit freeze, he mentioned a woman who had her original pin number from the initial freeze, but since the credit reporting agencies have moved away from this practice, she has been permanently locked out with her efforts for resolution failing. I'm in the same situation and I refuse to send a copy of every piece of identifying information in my life to their overseas centers. Folks in our conundrum could certainly use assistance and your SEAL laugh implied sucks to be you wrap up was anything but helpful. P.S. thank you for all you do. It truly is beneficial minus the topic above.
Clark Howard
Well, thank you for that and I understand your frustration. I have a SEAL laugh.
Krista
I that's. I didn't she said that.
Clark Howard
I like that. Anyway, I'm I've been talking with my sister in law who's in this situation and she feels like she's beating her head against the wall getting no help from the credit bureau, trying to get her credit unfrozen for something she's trying to do. And so far I've been of no help helping her with the credit bureau. The credit bureaus are obviously not the easiest organizations in the world to work with and your point is very valid that instead of a SEAL laugh I should come up with an answer. And I'm going to see if I can come up with one. And I appreciate that. So thank you. And if I do come up with an answer on how to deal with this problem of credit being permafrozen with no easy way to get it thawed, I will certainly share this again on the podcast and YouTube show coming up ahead. It is a very unusual time to try to own investment real estate and make money from it. I want to talk strategy with you on this because people continue to ask me is it a good time for them to buy and manage rental property as an investment.
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Could have done better like cutting your own hair. Yikes. Or forgetting sunscreen so now you look like a tomato.
Krista
Ouch.
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Could have done better. Same goes for where you invest. Level up and invest smarter with Schwab. Get market Insights, education and human help when you need it. Learn more@schwab.com we all have moments when we could have done better. Like cutting your own hair. Yikes. Or forgetting sunscreen so now you look like a tomato.
Krista
Ouch.
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Coulda done better. Same goes for where you invest. Level up and invest smarter with Schwab. Get market insights, education and human help when you need it. Learn more@schwab.com.
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This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Apple Card members can earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases wherever they shop. This means you could be earning daily cash on just about anything, like a slice of pizza from your local pizza place or a latte from the corner coffee shop. Apply for Apple Card in the Wallet app to see your credit limit offer in minutes. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch terms and.
Clark Howard
More@Applecard.Com this is such an odd circumstance. We have in a lot of metro areas around the country a significant percent of single family homes owned by big private equity investors. For them, there's a great business case that they've decided to owning single family homes that they then rent out and then same time over and over again over the last three years when you've asked me hey, is it a good idea for me to buy a place and rent it out? And I've said again and again the economics aren't great right now. Probably not something you should do. How is it that the Wall street crowd has gone all in on this in these three years? I've said this is really hazardous for you to own rental property. So the reason is that for a while home prices and rents trended up kind of in tandem. But then starting about three years ago, home prices were going up and Rents were much more gradually rising today in a lot of markets, rents have stalled out or even fallen. Home prices also have, but at a much higher point. So it's much, much more difficult now for you to make money today, starting from scratch, buying a potential rental property and getting a decent return on it. Now there's a really simple old thing that real estate investors used to use as a simple back of the envelope way to determine if a property that you're targeting is a good rental. And it's so simple and other people will disagree with this, but it's a long time kind of not rule but guideline that you should be able to charge rent equal to 1% or more per month what it costs you to buy a place. And it's very difficult today for a targeted property to equate to that. You might find instead of being able to get, you know, 1% of the value of a place and rent each month, that right now in a lot of markets you may only be able to get like a third of a cent or a half a cent in rent for each dollar that a place costs you to buy, making it fundamentally not a great idea. So where is it that people are finding opportunity? They're finding opportunity in rentals or projected possible rentals when they buy a home that's a mess, a home that has not been well taken care of, a home that may be in really bad shape and is ended up in foreclosure or distress sale, that the opportunity right now requires a lot more work. And it's not like you buy a home that's a mess and you go out and you hire a general contractor to repair it, update it, shine it up and then put it on the market as a rental. Because you've got to pay all those contractors and subcontractors markups. Right now it's threading a needle for you to become an investor in real estate that you're going to rent out. And that needle is this. You have to buy a place that's a mess and you have to be capable of doing much of the work yourself. That means it's a much more limited market than then I talked about for decades. We're just in a cycle right now that it's hard to make it work. Gosh, I was at Chick Fil a eating dinner and a would be real estate investor came up and started talking to me about the idea of a place that they were thinking of buying. And I had to explain why the economics of what they were looking at buying in my Opinion didn't work and I hated to be negative and I was discouraging a really enthusiastic person from proceeding as being a would be landlord. And maybe I was too negative, but I don't think so. So you really got to let the numbers guide you because we are in a cycle that the cost of acquisition ownership is hard. Now, even a lot of these Wall street private equity outfits buying homes have slowed down their buying in a lot of markets. Some are even shedding some of the homes they bought heavily in bulk and bulk purchases. In fact, some of the deals going on now are where builders who've built out developments and have had trouble moving the properties have been moving them in bulk to private equity. You and I can't compete against that. And really we need to wait till conditions change where it becomes economical again, becomes a smart decision again to be a landlord buying properties one at a time. And what did I do in the cycle of rising prices, I reduced the number of rental properties I owned. Now it's not a, a thing that I do a lot of. I have at this point, I have two rental properties and I'm hoping to go from two to one soon because the economics just don't support something that has made me a lot of money over the years. And by the way, if you are a professional real estate investor and you feel I'm missing a strategy that would make it work, I'd love your feedback.
Krista
Caroline in Arizona wrote into you and says, my husband and I are in our late 20s and we want to be sure we're efficiently saving for retirement. Now, I have a steady high income job, but my husband will be leaving his traditional job this year to be part of an entrepreneurial venture. As such, he will be paid as a 1099. Our combined income precludes us from contributing to a Roth IRA. I fund my 401k but I don't have an employer match. We also just bought a house and we want to aggressively pay down our mortgage. Where else should we be putting our savings? Thank you for all you do to help people save money and spend wisely.
Clark Howard
Thank you very much, Caroline. Yes.
Krista
Gosh.
Clark Howard
And I got good news for you. Since your husband's being paid 1099 at this new venture, he can set up his own retirement account and there are a variety of Alphabet options that are available. Since he will be a one person entity getting this 1099, he will be able to set up a self employed 401k. You can do a self employed or solo. It's called solo or self employed, Roth 401k or traditional. So far you've been making as a family very high income, obviously to be Roth income ineligible. So your husband, based on the tax bracket y' all can guess you're going to be in in 26 if he does a solo or self employed 401k and you can do it with all my usual suspects, the low cost companies based on expected tax bracket. That's how you make a decision between putting money into Roth 401k or traditional 401k through that solo or self employed 401k. Some firms only let you do a solo traditional 401k. Others let you do either. There's also a SEP that your husband can do that. SEP stands for simplified employee pension. And a SEP requires virtually no paperwork. It instantly morphs into being like an IRA and these things he's eligible for because now he's going to be self employed.
Krista
All right, Todd in Florida says my bank's read from Fair Isaac suggests I need at least 11 revolving accounts to have an excellent rating in the FICO category.
Clark Howard
What?
Krista
We have four credit cards, which is almost more than I want anyway, but FICO says I should have seven more open or right.
Clark Howard
So Todd, Todd, let's talk here. So when you see your FICO score, you didn't say what it is, but FICO looks for anything at all and a lot of times it shows no context. So they'll say you need more of this or more of that. And if your credit score is already rock solid, let's say on a FICO scale, 760 or above, then you don't need to worry about that. You can ignore it. The things that really matter are two, that you pay every bill on time every month is the number one factor in your score. Number two, how much of your available credit you're using on these four cards. That is the second biggest factor. Those two things are most of what matters. Having different types of credit, things like that, new applications for credit, that kind of thing. Those are smaller on the scale. If you've got four different cards from different issuers and you're using very little in your available credit and you pay all your bills on time, I'd be shocked if you don't have a great score already. And four, four cards is plenty unless you're a nincompoop like me and you've got all these different rewards you're chasing.
Krista
Megan in Pennsylvania says the only home Internet available in my area currently is Verizon light. This offers 10-25 Mbps for the first 150 gigs of data, then up to 10 for the remainder of the bill cycle. Do you think this is enough? They're asking $50 a month.
Clark Howard
Yeah. So Verizon varies the rates on Verizon. This is Verizon lte, which is their wireless Internet service you can have in a home. And Verizon does not publish a straight price schedule. And what they do is based on how much competition they're facing where you live. They vary how good or bad the offer is for the service. Since it's the only Internet available where.
Krista
You live, don't you think Starlink might be available?
Clark Howard
Well, but we're talking price because they're the only traditional, let's call them Internet service where you live. They cap your data available at a good speed and then they throttle you down to this slower speed. So the only way you know if it's going to be good enough for what you need over a month is for you to test it out and see are you able to stream once you've gone through the 150 gigs of data. And second, do you know you already go over 150amonth or are you steadily under that? If you're under it, it doesn't matter. But if you are over it, you need to just try for a while under their cap and see if it is in fact a problem. Now then, Krista mentioned that you do have an alternative and you do have Starlink. Starlink tends to be more expensive than what we're talking about here, but you should see what Starlink offer is available to you. Starlink is an ultra fast, low orbiting satellite Internet service. And without exception, every person I know who's gotten it has loved it. I know there are people that are so into it who travel a lot that they travel with a little portable Starlink unit. They're paying a lot of money for that, by the way. But fixed Starlink, like you're looking at that you need something to compare the Verizon LTE to. I would check it out and see if that is going to be an affordable, viable option for you for what would likely be much faster than the Verizon wireless version of home Internet and you wouldn't have the data cap. I want to thank you for joining us on this Friday edition of the Clark Howard Podcast and YouTube show. I hope that something has been interesting to you, something that you can put to work in your own life, something that you thought, well, you know, I should have done that already. And it becomes a little nudge for you to do it. And I want to thank you for trusting us, for providing you with information that my goal is for it to empower you so you can save for spending less. And never, never, never, not ever let somebody rip you off and have an outstanding weekend.
Date: January 23, 2026
Episode: Clark Answers His Critics on Clark Stinks / Owning Rental Property
Host: Clark Howard
Producer/Co-host: Krista
On this Friday episode, Clark Howard dives first into "Clark Stinks," a regular segment where listeners call out his incomplete, incorrect, or questionable advice. Clark responds candidly and invites further input, always aiming to improve his guidance. In the latter half, Clark discusses the current landscape for aspiring landlords, detailing the realities and pitfalls of owning rental properties in today's market. Listener questions round out the episode, with Clark giving actionable, practical advice on retirement planning, credit scores, and home internet options.
(00:36–14:14)
Critique 1: Roth IRA for Teen with Lawn Job
Critique 2: All Timeshares Aren’t Bad?
Critique 3: Consumer Reports & Safety Ratings
Critique 4: Small Landlords & Digital Payments
Critique 5: Home Insurance Shopping Fail in California
Critique 6: Electric Vehicle Insurance Clarification
Critique 7: Water & Utility Line Coverage
Critique 8: Stuck in Credit Freeze Hell
Memorable Listener Burns:
(15:53–22:08)
Tough Market for Small Landlords
Clark’s Rental Rule of Thumb
When/How Is It Doable?
Clark’s Own Moves
Memorable Moment
(22:08–27:56)
Clark maintains his signature self-deprecating, conversational, and candid style throughout the episode—enthusiastic about empowering listeners, not afraid to admit when he’s wrong, always striving for practical, real-world advice. Critiques are welcomed, with some humor and humility.
Core Takeaways:
For more money-saving tips and to submit your own questions or “Clark Stinks” comments, visit Clark.com.