Is anyone else here a landlord?

[sbj405]

If so share your horror or happy stories. I'm just getting into it.

[KG]

1. grtting into being a renter or a landlord?

[sbj405]

3. landlord.

At least I hope. Now all I need is tenants. That seems to be the challenge. :-)

[graywarrior]

2. Worst job ever.

You are despised, spit on, lied to, avoided, chased down, humiliated...the list is endless...and that's being a tenant. Landlord is worse.

[NC_Nurse]

4. I am.

Always check out potential tenants - i.e. background and references and employer.

It's a good job if you have good tenants. If you get bad tenants, it sucks.

I'm pretty new at it myself, only been at it since 2001. I've learned a few things the hard way.

[sbj405]

5. Do you use a management company?

Or which site/company do you use to check credit? I used e-renter and thought the reports were pretty weak.

[NC_Nurse]

6. I don't do credit checks...

I talk with the person's current employer. If they are in good standing with their employer and have been working there a while. It's usually pretty obvious if the employer isn't thrilled with them.
I also search the state dept. of corrections. It's easy to do an offender search in NC. I do all my own management and work full time as a nurse. It can be tiring when my tenants want things or I'm showing a place.
I don't want to pay a manager. My husband helps me and I have a maintenance guy that does repairs that we can't handle.

[sbj405]

7. Yeah, I am planning to do it myself.

I met with one manager who basically told me he lists properties on craigslist and another free website. For that he'll take a month's rent listing fee, plus 8% of the rent. :eyes:

Of course, I am in the rare position of being in a college town, but not wanting to turn my place into an undergrad slum house.

[KG]

9. as a renter, i hate the credit check thing.

my credit isn't great, if it was i'd probably be a homeowner. but i haven't been late with a rent check since i can't remember when, 10+ years.

[NC_Nurse]

10. That was my conclusion.

Credit checks don't tell you much.

[sbj405]

11. Actually, from what I've read in landlording books/websties paying rent on time seems to be the

best indicator of a good tenant. I certainly recognize that they are people who might have shaky credit, but always pay the rent. But I also look at people's debt to income ratios. They might make good money, but if they owe a ton to a ton of people, I'm less confident that I'll get paid.

[NC_Nurse]

12. True.

I talk to their last landlord too. That way you can find out if they kept the place up too.

[China_cat]

14. See my other post down thread.

Those were WITH background checks, employment verification and references.

[hatredisnotavalue]

8. Don't do it....

Renters always feel that their monthly rent is like a tip. If they had a good month, they pay you, if they didn't, they don't. Get a property management group to handle the rent payment. Trust me. I am renting my mother's house out and all I do is cash the check every month.

[China_cat]

13. I managed a property for a friend

while they were stationed in Europe. Had to evict 2 tenants. First one came back and broke out all the windows and smeared shit on the walls. (Evicted for keeping snakes and a puma that were illegal in the first place to even own, plus he never paid his rent) Second one evicted stole the bathroom sink, dismantled the heat pump for the copper and screwed up the wiring.

Third renter was great.

[NC_Nurse]

16. Damn!

Third time's the charm, I guess!

I haven't had anything that bad yet...knock on wood!

[Lex]

15. 3 words: Property Management Company.

And the fee is tax deductible.

[AirmensMom]

17. I'm a renter.

Only while we're having our house built. It sucks! There are bad tenants and good tenants. We happen to be good ones (pay our rent on time every month, take care of the place, etc.). Our reward is to be treated like shit -- refrigerator that leaks on the floor, cracked windows still waiting since last June to be repaired, cracked flue liner (making the wood stove unsafe), landlord left out the part about us paying for the electricity and water for the barn that our neighbor rents ... and that's just part of it. Tenants aren't the only ones who lie. I'm so tired of our landlord that I hope I never have to see her again.

We've owned our own home since 1988, never made a late payment, and have an excellent credit rating. It really sucks that we're treated like irresponsible people just because we're renting instead of owning at this point in time. I hope we never have to rent again. I don't have the stomach for it.

Not exactly the kind of horror story you're looking for, but I just wanted to remind you that there are two sides. If you get a good tenant, treat him/her with respect. Don't just assume the place will be trashed, especially if they have already made extensive improvements at their expense. Oh, and if an appliance is older than you are, it's probably time to replace it.

[sbj405]

19. Well, I hope to not be that landlord.

The house has been my primary residence. I put a lot of money into it before deciding to move. All new appliances, recent renovations, etc.

Sorry your landlord is crummy. When will your house be done?

[AirmensMom]

20. You won't be.

But do be careful who you rent to. I sure would like to be renting a house with new appliances! :bounce:

The house is getting there -- drywall is up and they'll be taping it this week. The tile guy is ready to go on the floors. Might be done by May or June. Maybe we'll get a miracle and it'll be done in April. We've been renting since last June and it truly sucks. This place was unfit for anyone to live in when we got here. But it's so hard to find a rental house when you have pets, so we had to take what we could find. When we complained that it reeked of cat pee, the landlord said that's what we should expect when we rent a place that allows pets.:wtf: I thought I had died and gone to hell. I'm still not sure I didn't ... except that the new house will be wonderful.

My sister is a landlord and my mom rents from her. So I get to hear both sides.

[hippywife]

21. I had a landlady once who

was renting me a little post WWII bungalow that she used to live in and was planning on coming back to when she retired. There was more than once that she came in while I was out without giving me notice or any warning at all. I couldn't get her to understand that the law requires 24 hour notice.

[EFerrari]

18. I had a guy downstairs who was disabled and never paid his rent.

Then, I finally got him to move and he left his canes behind. Last seen walking briskly down 48th Avenue. lol

The kids there now are great. Only reasonably noisy sometimes and their rent comes in like clockwork. Students and surfers and I'd go on teevee for them. :)

[riderinthestorm]

22. As always there are good and bad renters

My worst renters have been Christians. The last "Christian" family I ever rented to, the father was a Baptist minister, the mother was a SAHM. I checked with their old church and their new church for references (they were waiting for their parsonage to be built which was why they were renting). They left 3 days early so they avoided the final walk through which is why I didn't catch them before they left. Their dogs wrecked the carpeting with their shit and they ate through at least 6 inches of drywall, they unscrewed and stole the mirrors in the bathroom, wrote "Sinners!!!" and other bible verses all over the walls in indelible permanent marker (FYI we are atheists which always pissed the shit out of them - of course they knew since they tried to "witness" to us during their first visit.) We had to replace the drywall since even Kilz wouldn't eradicate the words, they smashed the brand new $500 stove (and I mean baseball bat smashed), and left a bunch of garbage (yes garbage!) in the basement. I had to plague them for the rent all year (common among Christians are LOTS of excuses they believe should exempt them from paying on time as they are Christians!) plus too many other hassles to mention.

The other overt Christians were a pair of young women who kept more than 40 animals at the house (unbeknownst to us and against the lease which stipulated 1 dog, 1 cat only) including ferrets who destroyed the wiring in the walls in the entire house. Not a single outlet, light, appliance or anything worked when we finally got in there - it cost us more than $6000 to re-wire the place alone. And the stench was out of this world (again, they absconded before the final walk-through). We had a rat problem (their two escaped rats) for a full year before we finally got them all killed. I had to give discounts to the renters who followed this pair cause the rats were so pernicious, it was impossible to overlook while we did everything under the sun to kill them humanely (finally went to poison, ruthlessly and without mercy).

No way that their security deposit covered the many thousands of dollars of damage they did in a year.

I will never rent to Christians again. Take my advice and stay away from religious folk! I know it's hard but if they are so "pious" (cough) they have to say it out loud, do not ever rent to them! My best renters were a couple who we loved and actually made so many incredible and wonderful improvements to the house that we were always deducting the costs of the improvements from their rent (I learned as they were leaving that they were pagans) and an atheist couple (a vet and her archaeologist husband) with numerous pets who left the place spotless! My current renters are a just-retired Marine family who are ship-shape, anti-war, pay-on-time, without any religious leanings.

I've also used an agency and I don't think they are any better at screening applicants than me. We finally gave up agencies and for the past ten years, we done it ourselves.

Feel free to pm me if you have any questions. I've been doing this for more than 20 years with vacation cottages, our farmhouse at the farm, and more.

[LeftyMom]

23. I used to be a property manager.

Horror stories? Gee, that could take a while.

One of the worst was the renter who moved into an upstairs apartment with no patio and wall to wall carpet, swore she had no pets (she'd also lied by an order of magnitude about her income and the previous manager didn't catch it,) then after I caught her with her dog a few times ("he's just visiting") and served her notice to move all of the sudden he was a service dog and she filed a discrimination claim. Oh god, what a pain in the ass that was, it took me almost six months to get that woman and her horribly behaved poodle out.

I have plenty more horror stories, but that one was much more trouble than it should have been, partly because I had just got the job and we had to bring the ill and incoherent ex-manager (who had lost her job due to a very rapid decline into senility) to the negotiations, though we finally got to take her home when she wet herself. :grr:

[barb162]

26. Was there any damage to the place from the renter with the dog?

I've never understood kicking people out because of pets. I would just do a high security deposit and have a clause about being able to enter the apt to check for pet damage. Now kids...talk about damage to apts!

[LeftyMom]

28. It was a pet-free complex

Our insurance absolutely did not cover dogs on the property (if it did, rent would have had to go up quite a bit) so dogs were absolutely not allowed on the property. In any case, it was not a dog-friendly apartment, she lied to get it and the downstairs neighbor was disturbed by the noise from her very yappy dog (and her drunken fights with her husband, but that's another issue.)

The apartment only required extra carpet deodorizing when we got them out, the bigger issue was that since the complex wasn't landscaped with the bathroom needs of dogs in mind, the dog was making messes on paved walkways and it wasn't getting picked up by the tenant.

But as I said, while part of the issue was the deception on the application (both with the dog and with income) as well as the disruption caused by one noisy dog and two noisy people, ultimately the issue was that our insurance would not cover injury or damage by dogs, and we made it clear at application that dogs were not permitted in the premises even for short visits for that reason.

Generally though, cats are both more destructive and easier for tenants to hide. They're not a liability issue, just hell on carpet sometimes. Other properties in the property management group took cats. Ours didn't, but I'd have been fine with taking cats with an added deposit if the owner wanted to do that. Since most of the units lacked yards and there was no common grassy area, it just wasn't a good place to live with a dog even if the owner had wanted to upgrade the insurance and allow smaller dogs.

[barb162]

24. Yes, once and will probably never do it again

Try this one. While on vacation, the renters left without notice and STOLE the wall-to-wall carpeting and even the lightbulbs. About a month later, got a letter from their lawyer they were declaring bankruptcy.

I've heard worse stories from my friends who are landlords, like renters totally trashing places. At least the story above , things were stolen, but the walls weren't punched in, etc.

[LeftyMom]

25. I had one steal interior doors and a wall-mounted heater.

:wtf:

[barb162]

27. Outrageous!

Good thing they didn't steal the building furnace and bathtubs

[LeftyMom]

29. Im sure, given the time, they'd have tried.

Tweakers. :eyes:

[philosophie_en_rose]

30. Check out the Landlord Tenant Laws in your state.

And be sure to have a strong lease or rental agreement with your needs and all the timelines in mind.

Think of all the things that could go wrong (deadbeat renters, boiler blowup, breakins, property damage, pets, visitors, etc), and then brainstorm what you could/ should/ must do about it.

[Tikki]

31. Mr. Tikki and I have been...

landlords on the same property for 30 years. Six renters (couples, mostly) in all these years.
Most were retired and wanted a big yard they could garden.
The rent coming in has saved our butt financially a few times, that's for sure.

Save all your rental expense receipts....come tax time you'll want them handy.




The Tikkis