Be a landlord? Bah Humbug!

[tryan]

Fun to read different rental experiences ... thanx for sharing.

Had all the headaches when I had 23 units. Including 4 dead tenants (no guns though ... 1 hung himself in the basement). Ran about an eviction a year (~4%) ... and I considered this acceptable. Have lots of stories : drugs, aids, runnings with the city/town. That's largely why I sold off to the 6 I still have. All SF units with long term tenants. Couldn't have fired any other way.

JG,

Back when I had a property manager, she had a simialr string of poor choices. I reasoned that her commision incentivised poor choices since she got 1 months rent for each placement (more vacancies = more commisions). So I told her that if the tenant did no fullfill the lease, she re-rents the unit for free. Furthermore if she did not accept these terms I would take the unit back (and rent it myself). Was surprised how the tenant quality improved.

Hope this helps.

 

[Jarhead*]

Nords: The above problems are addressed in full in my (soon to be published), book "Confessions of a Fly-Fishing and Golf Bum".

Special attention is given to "empty-nesters", when the term "Get a life", takes on a whole new meaning.

Jarhead

 

[Nords]

Didn't I see an ad for that in my local grocery store's wheat bread aisle?

 

[BearlyWorking]

I also had lots of problems with tenents when I started renting houses. Almost got out, but finally found a good system and everything has been smooth for about 5 years. Glad I did. I am FI mostly because of real estate, not savings.

Mike

 

[Mr._johngalt]

Fun to read different rental experiences ... thanx for sharing.

Had all the headaches when I had 23 units.  Including 4 dead tenants (no guns though ... 1 hung himself in the basement).  Ran about an eviction a year (~4%) ... and I considered this acceptable.  Have lots of stories :  drugs, aids, runnings with the city/town.  That's largely why I sold off to the 6 I still have.  All SF units with long term tenants.  Couldn't have fired any other way.

JG,

Back when I had a property manager,  she had a simialr string of poor choices.  I reasoned that her commision incentivised poor choices since she got 1 months rent for each placement (more vacancies = more commisions).  So I told her that if the tenant did no fullfill the lease, she re-rents the unit for free.  Furthermore if she did not accept these terms I would take the unit back (and rent it myself).  Was surprised how the tenant quality improved.

Hope this helps.

Thanks Tryan. I also pay one month's rent to my manager, but only if the
condo is rented for 12 months straight, which probably will not happen.
It seems she automatically adjusts the fee for rents lost. Plus, she is the
acknowledged "rental queen" in that area and is only a mile from the
condo. If I didn't have her I wouldn't know where to go (for management).
Still, the tenants have been pretty bad so far.

An aside. The other day I was digging around in some old records and found
photos of all the property I owned up until about age 32. Brought back a lot of memories, mostly good but I was young and full of P and V back then.

I obviously did not ER due to my LBYM/savings. In my case, it was mostly
real estate/owning my own business which put me over the top.
Interesting that I went into this without any thoughts of
retirement whatsoever. Serendipity?

JG

 

[mathjak107]

being a landlord is great...that is until its not great!...i owned a co-op in new york city for 18 years which i leased out..for 15 years the tenants i had were good,,but then darkness fell.....a tenents husband left her..well scattered lateness fell into missed payments...6 months of court and finally 8,000 in damages to the apartment she was gone...i wouldnt be a landlord again..ever

 

[ShokWaveRider]

We are currently Tennants, we look after the place (Which is furnished) as if it is our own. Every time we hint about moving, our landlady (who lives remotely and does not use a rental agent) convinces us to stay longer. I am/was and engineer so I install things for her and fix most everything that breaks (usally at my cost, the cost are so small, so far a toilet flapper, a washer belt, a faucet seal, and the odd light bulb, I feel too embarassed to ask for anything to be repaired) In return she gives us a MOST reasonable rent and flexible lease arrangement. I also pay her 2 months in advance and in return she asks for no security deposit or last months rental payment. Oh, and we also have the carpets cleaned every so often at our cost, as we do not wear shoes in the home. Unfortunately others do, so we need to have them cleaned once in a while. Sadly we do not have a garage, so sooner or later we will leave. This is our first rental since we retired after owning homes for 25 years.


Anyone got a place to rent in the NE Florida palm coast or Daytona area?

The point I found clear when I dealt with Rental Agents was that they were more concerned with the amount of rent as opposed to the quality of it. They were also unpleasent to deal with in my experience, at least from a renter's perspective. I am a negociator by trade and education and the agents that I tried to deal with did not want to neociate at all. My current landlady told me horror stories about agents who rent to anyone with a credit card or a check. While she also makes it quite clear that she would get $200 - $300 more per month from an agent, she also makes it even clearer that good tennants are worth their weight in gold, and hence deserve preferred rental rates. I am always on the look out for great rates. Now, the place we are in was well maintained in the first place, otherwise we would not have rented it.

We plan on renting in NE Florida for some time, but again we will be on the look out for something with a garage next time, even though this place has a great view of the water. Really we will be sad to leave this place both for the cost and location.

We got this rental from the Craig list.

SWR

 

[Mr._johngalt]

being a landlord is great...that is until its not great!...i owned a co-op in new york city for 18 years which i leased out..for 15 years the tenants i had were good,,but then darkness fell.....a tenents husband left her..well scattered lateness fell into missed payments...6 months of court and finally 8,000 in damages to the apartment she was gone...i wouldnt be a landlord again..ever

You did a good deed today. Your post reminded me of just how bad it could be
and made me feel a little better about my situation, After all, I did gross
about what I estimated for last year, and (so far as I know) the last
tenants did not walk off with all the furnishings. If I could afford it, I would just
leave it empty until we wanted to use it.

JG

 

[rmark]

I rented the same small house for 8 years, had a great landlord (he's still a friend of mine), I paid on time and the place was better than when I moved in.

Now the bad side - he had a heart attack and had to sell.

The new owner was the b-tch from hell who ripped off the deposits of my neighbors (I know as a first hand fact they didn't cause any damage, because I had helped the previous landlord with repairs to the property). We moved out as soon as practical, and I didn't clean a damn thing, as I knew it wasn't worth my trouble.

 

[rmark]

And this is why I invest using the Tiaa-Cref Real Estate account in our 403b plan.

 

[brewer12345]

Funny how these things go. I have no particular desire to be a landlord, but I would jump right intothe rental RE pool if the economics were attractive enough (like after a housing crash). I have been a tenant enough to know that the people I would most like to rent to (responsible individuals like me) can easily afford theirt own home.

 

[mathjak107]

I have been a tenant enough to know that the people I would most like to rent to (responsible individuals like me) can easily afford theirt own home.



this reminds me of will rogers..only buy stocks that will go up and dont buy those that dont ....sounds so easy dont it ha ha ha

 

[Mr._johngalt]

Thanks to all for your stories and advice. I have lots of stories too
but will restrain myself. Besides, none of mine are nearly as
bad as some y'all have posted.

Regarding "location".................I pulled up the website of my
rental manager's real estate company and accidently got all of their
listings in the county where our condo is located.
They were listed by price in descending order, and the first
house (most expensive) was $5,500,000. That was not too
surprising except it was on our street and a short walk from the condo (waterfront obviously). This means that we must own about the cheapest dwelling in the neighborhood. Really not a bad
position to be in.

JG

 

[rmark]

My mobile home was in a mobile home park for several years before we bought our property. A mobile home park company purchased the park from the private owners who had built it about 20 years ago. After a few months they came around with a check list of things the tenants needed to do - fix decks, skirts, haul off junk. Unfortunately they basically docked everyone - even me, with new deck and fence, flowers, always mowed - I was your dream tenant. From that point on our running comment was " skirt is down, they must be moving soon". Everyone who paid their bills on time left. Including us.