Our rentals have been giving us a lot of grief lately. We have new tenants who are “complainers”. No matter what we do, they are not happy. They call or text us at 10pm to tell us about some trivial thing. We also have another house that was left abandoned with no notice at all. So now, we are trying to sort all of this out. I’ve written a little poem so you can see some of what we have to deal with. I know that it often seems from our blog like it’s easy parcheesi to be a landlord, but it takes a lot of guts to get into the business of providing a home for someone. Whether you like it or not, you get dragged into their drama. Let’s hope things get back on track soon. Until then, here is my lament 🙂
Landlord Lament
By Cassie Kauffman
Oh, whoa is the rollercoaster
Of landlordship these days
One minute all the stars align
The next you’re in a haze
Of complaints and gripes
For which you had no clue
A broken lock, a missing wire
A smell, a crack, a leak or two
“The crawl space is dirty”
What do you expect with a dirt floor?
“The house creaks a bit”
It’s old I’m surprised there’s not more.
“There’s a gross smell”
I don’t smell anything
“Well, it’s not right now but wait”
This house is nice and clean
“I know we signed a contract but…”
A lease is there for a reason
“Well, can we change it now?”
No, you’ll have to wait a year season
“I had to unexpectedly move out east”
The house is considered abandoned now
“You have the deposit to cover the rent”
That is plain wrong and not how it works, anyhow
“Here’s my application. I really like the house”
It looks as though you don’t have any money to put down
“It’s fine, trust us, won’t you just let us live here?
No, we have to make sure this deal is sound
“But my pet isn’t like other people’s”
I’m sure you’re very good with your dog or cat
“So can I avoid the pet deposit fee?”
No, we’ve been burned before so that’s that.
“I don’t think we’ll have the money this month”
I don’t know what to say, you need to pay
“We had an emergency, a job loss, a sorrow”
I am so sorry to hear, but you just can’t stay
In the end, the landlord must remember
That this is a business as well as a home
You must temper sympathy with smarts
Or each month a new lament will come
Oh boy.. could I vent on this topic. I have been a renter for some time now. I have had good landlords and bad landlords. The good landlords do not make you feel guilty every time something breaks, they don’t complain when you need something fixed, and they don’t gouge you when you check out and take every penny of your deposit when you leave (lint ball, $50 clean up fee). They have a grace period for rental payments knowing that not everyone gets paid on the 1st of the month. Late fees start after the 5th.
Lets face it, even with the best of care, STUFF BREAKS. House is 10 years old that we live in now, things are starting to break. Garbage disposal – 4 months to get it fixed. Garage Door Cable resulting in Garage Door not working, 1 1/2 months to get fixed. The exterior paint is chipping off, was going to repaint 3 years ago, hasn’t been done. Fence is literally rotting, fixed? Nope. Deck and stairs, completely unsafe.. fixed? Nope. It gets to the point where you as a renter think, well .. my landlord doesn’t care why should I??
A good renter, pays their rent on time. Lets the landlord know when something breaks, but works with them to get it fixed. They don’t complain about every little problem (hey the door squeaks, i’ll put some oil on it). They leave the place clean, with appropriate notice.
I think the problems can be a two way street. The key is finding a good tenant and good landlord “fit”. When you have that “fit” keep it as long as you can, because the alternative can be FAR WORSE, lol.
Renting. Hmmm. We know we will not live in PR forever so…do we rent or own? If we stay 5 more years we could rent a reasonably cared for (we think) place for $800 a month. That is 10,000 a year x 5 is 50,000. We can buy somewhere, do what we want to it when we want and take a 50,000 loss when we sell and be in the same place $-wise. The way the market is why rent (unless you know you are somewhere for only a year)?
TNK- All very true. These last tenants were not a good fit at ALL. They were cussing at us, threatening us, and generally gave off bad vibes. We were over there 4 days out of the first 5 when they moved in. We went against our better judgment because they pleaded with us that they really wanted the house so that they could move in directly from WA. We’ll never do that again. It was like getting married without even a first date. So we annulled it. It’s over, thank God. That was the worst 5 days of our life. Especially considering that the house was in great shape! We always say that we won’t rent it out unless we would live there. Every -small- issue that they brought up we said we’d look at and/or fix. We had a plan for even cleaning out the crawl space for them. But when they were never happy no matter what we said or did, we knew that we didn’t want them as tenants and I think they were just as happy to get out of the contract. It just sucks that we lost out on some other people who I think would have been so happy to have the place and would have actually been pleasant to work with. A lease is (usually!) a long-term relationship. There’s got to be give and take, compromise and the ability to work together amicably. If that’s not there, it will never work. If it does, it can last for years.
Katrina- Yah that’s a tough one. They say people should only rent if they are going to be somewhere for a short period of time or if they simply can’t buy (bad or no credit, no down payment etc). But you are in that in between period where you know you will leave, but you’re not sure when. I guess it might help to know how hard it will be to sell your current house to see whether it’s worth it. If you’re getting a mortgage (especially a 30 year mortgage) you’d practically paying rent anyway for the first 5 years. I remember with ours we were barely paying $100 a month toward the principal balance. So that could be another factor for you. I’m not sure if you’re buying with cash or mortgage though. Lots to consider. If you rent, make sure you like the landlord! Or you’ll both be miserable 🙂
You already know this, but it’s always worth repeating this play on the old saying but true: “rent (out) in haste, repent at leisure!”
Unless he knows the people personally (which is the case 1/2 the time in this small town); Larry runs both FBI criminal and credit checks. These are available through our local apartment owners association for $17 for credit with a local state background, $3 additional for the FBI (national) . Membership in association here is $100/year which includes free contracts and other landlordy documents, legal advice and support, seminars and a great magazine and website.
He also checks out the house they are moving from and/or calls forner landlord(s), often calls employer(s) to verify employment status and income, interviews both husband and wife and meets children and dogs if they are going to occupy unit, checks out the car they are driving (to see if it is clean and maintained), and most importantly, ruminates on the apps for a few days to see if his computer (brain) finds a match with the unit. Larry says most of the hard work on rentals is before the tenants move in.
After that it is usually just the usual rare maintenance issues or late payments. He has checked out apps for up to two months and 30 applications before finding the right guy, who lived in the house 3 years, got married in the back yard, never missed a rent payment (although his credit was dicey due to a recent divorce), and even bought one of our adjacent lots with his new bride and built a house! It was an extreme example of finding a tenant, but the payoff was extreme too. In contrast, the quicker tenant choices have been okay, but short term and more problematic. So we lose some rent upfront but gain later if we are more careful in the match process.
Don’t know if this is useful or practical information to you, but it is our experience. You do a super job on maintenance and refurbishing, and assuming your locations are also good, you would be able to find prime tenants (decent clean folks who pay the rents and appreciate how well you maintain things), even in this squirreliy economic market.
I like Britton’s attitude about going to the concert, and that is important too. Living your life to the max (in whatever way you define this, ours is enjoying healthy recreation, family, and friends) is way more important than rentals or a job; in fact it is the only thing that is important! I guarantee you that down the road the things you will remember will be the adventures, hugs and love that you have experienced in life. The money issues and investments will fade away very quickly.
Annie, I appreciate the feed back. Good information. I think getting involved in an apartment owners association might be a good idea for us too. We feel like a lot of what we learn is trial and error (except what Cassie reads in books) which means we do make mistakes every once in a while.
We need to do a lot more in terms of checking out our renters. We know now in hindsight the last deal we made it was the wrong choice. We didn’t meet in person, we made a deal and signed a lease without them even seeing the property (except pictures). They begged us and sent the money (first month, last month, security deposit & pet deposit). Naturally when they got there in person it wasn’t what they were expecting.
It turned into a nightmare for us. We went out on a limb, turned away people who were really interested in living there and wasted time which wastes money. For the education it provided, I suppose it was worth it. We learned a great deal thru the stress. That leaves a lasting impression…lol.
We have 2 empty houses right now, but both are ready to be occupied. We are focusing more on the ‘right fit’ and will take your advice. Thank you for the reply!
Great lyrics, where is the music?