(I'm clearly not up to speed on all rental laws and big thanks to @SteveO and @jon.a for clarifying some of the legalities regarding these situations. I posted to try to educate others but have become the educated in the process.)
*** Little bit of a rant with a moral to the story below ***
Ok you have the building itself and you have the people that you rent to. That's mostly what you have to deal with when renting out for cashflow. There's more of course but basically that's it.
If I could offer one piece of advice that might save anyone some real misery, new or not so new to the game of landlording, it's this:
Choose your tenants like you'd choose your husband or wife. Don't compromise.
If someone is desperate for a place to rent like immediately and they have some kind of story that indicates any kind of potential headache for you then absolutely 100% pass on them. I don't care how much you are losing in vacancy, find someone else. Trust your gut feel.
In other words, only go with a slam dunk. Income, credit, personality, and story must all be a slam dunk.
Why am I posting this? Because I just broke my own long standing rule recently and I knew I shouldn't have, but I did it anyway. And I am regretting it.
A woman comes to look at an apartment I have and she loves it. She loves how clean it is and the fact that most everything in it is new and freshly painted so she immediately wants it. Loves the place.
She seemed ok to me at first but there was something about her that gave me a little weird feeling in my gut. Something about her demeanor just seemed a little off. I ignored it. I wish I didn't.
I was in a hurry to get the place rented after going through a grueling period of renovations, repairs, and multiple vacancies. Those costs really add up fast!
She said she was going through an ugly divorce and she needed to get out of her house. She assured me there would be no drama spilling over but she needed a place like yesterday. Of course me being a good guy, I decide it would be nice to help this poor woman who clearly needs it.
Well you can probably guess the rest: she turns out to be an obnoxious nutcase, refuses to cooperate at all, complained that the place was filthy (!), accused me of all kinds of crazy things which arent' true, she's making the other tenants uncomfortable in the building, she wants to change all the terms in the lease after we agreed to them and signed weeks ago, and then of course we'll see what happens come rent collection time in a couple weeks....
She gives me the creeps when I talk to her now because it's obvious now that she's mental and irrational.
Aye. I sense an eviction coming.
Good tenants are like superstar employees. The bad ones not so much. Things run sooooo much smoother and easier when you have all superstars. So much that you might take it a little for granted. Please learn from me on this one. Dont' take it for granted. Rent to superstars only.
I thought I was really helping this lady but no good deed goes unpunished. Truth.
Edited: Originally wrote "dead" instead of "deed". Wishful thinking (freudian slip) I guess lol
2nd edit: I changed my description of the tenant a little bit
*** Little bit of a rant with a moral to the story below ***
Ok you have the building itself and you have the people that you rent to. That's mostly what you have to deal with when renting out for cashflow. There's more of course but basically that's it.
If I could offer one piece of advice that might save anyone some real misery, new or not so new to the game of landlording, it's this:
Choose your tenants like you'd choose your husband or wife. Don't compromise.
If someone is desperate for a place to rent like immediately and they have some kind of story that indicates any kind of potential headache for you then absolutely 100% pass on them. I don't care how much you are losing in vacancy, find someone else. Trust your gut feel.
In other words, only go with a slam dunk. Income, credit, personality, and story must all be a slam dunk.
Why am I posting this? Because I just broke my own long standing rule recently and I knew I shouldn't have, but I did it anyway. And I am regretting it.
A woman comes to look at an apartment I have and she loves it. She loves how clean it is and the fact that most everything in it is new and freshly painted so she immediately wants it. Loves the place.
She seemed ok to me at first but there was something about her that gave me a little weird feeling in my gut. Something about her demeanor just seemed a little off. I ignored it. I wish I didn't.
I was in a hurry to get the place rented after going through a grueling period of renovations, repairs, and multiple vacancies. Those costs really add up fast!
She said she was going through an ugly divorce and she needed to get out of her house. She assured me there would be no drama spilling over but she needed a place like yesterday. Of course me being a good guy, I decide it would be nice to help this poor woman who clearly needs it.
Well you can probably guess the rest: she turns out to be an obnoxious nutcase, refuses to cooperate at all, complained that the place was filthy (!), accused me of all kinds of crazy things which arent' true, she's making the other tenants uncomfortable in the building, she wants to change all the terms in the lease after we agreed to them and signed weeks ago, and then of course we'll see what happens come rent collection time in a couple weeks....
She gives me the creeps when I talk to her now because it's obvious now that she's mental and irrational.
Aye. I sense an eviction coming.
Good tenants are like superstar employees. The bad ones not so much. Things run sooooo much smoother and easier when you have all superstars. So much that you might take it a little for granted. Please learn from me on this one. Dont' take it for granted. Rent to superstars only.
I thought I was really helping this lady but no good deed goes unpunished. Truth.
Edited: Originally wrote "dead" instead of "deed". Wishful thinking (freudian slip) I guess lol
2nd edit: I changed my description of the tenant a little bit
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