Is Anybody Here a Landlord?

[pdub]

For once a really serious question of fact from the king of doom and frivolity. I'd love some feedback - we have what looks to me to be an opportunity.

Is renting property worth the bother, or how much bother is it?

[68scott385]

I am the lord of my own land.

It has its peaks and valleys like anything else, mostly depends on who you rent to.

[SuperBuickGuy]

It's worth the bother if you're willing to spend the time checking references and credit reports.

oh yeah, and don't cheap out by either finding a Landlord/Tenant agreement on Google; or from the big box stores.

Get a specific to your State and situation agreement. Know what the agreement says. Talk to an attorney who specializes in LL/Tenant law in your state for pitfalls which are specific to your state.

or you can learn the hard way - there's lots of pro-tenant pro-bono law groups that create hell for the unprepared/uneducated landlord.... that's where I cut my teeth as a lawyer.

and feel free to ask me questions in PM....

[Deaf Bob]

In my family's experience..NO DAMN WAY!
Renters were on USDA white can, pre food stams help.. Threw it over the railing to the 8 ft basement... Took 8 pickup loads of garbage to the dump!
Other renters stole parts and broke into the locked shop
Still others shit on the floors and wiped it on the walls with toilet paper...
Told yet another renter not to use the electric fence for their pislets 6" off the dry grass... Mom said. "At night you can see the fence arcing to the grass". Dumb ass renter proclaims," But we dont use it at night... What happens? Sets a grass fire going and burns to the locked shop, the fire dept doused everything in the shop..

Others might have better experences!

[pdub]

Thanks SBG and DB -

This would be upscale. Probably a better clientele. I've slept on it and drank about it and it won't go away. I think we should have done it some years ago. Income without work. At an upfront cost. That's been our day today. It's sort of a good quandary, to consider that kind of thing realistically. We'd get a better house and rent this one because we sure can't sell it without a loss with the foundation issues.

My brain is full of it. Just wondering, it just makes too much sense. Heck, I'll never be able to retire anyhow, unless....we had some income.

[NewEnglandRaceFan]

dad rents a 2 bed and a studio out.. he has no problems, but he did like SBG said,
had a lawyer explain all the pit falls in laymen terms.
and does background checks and the biggie, references from the last place they where renting..
upscale don't mean crap.. remember people that owned homes trashed them before moving out or bank kicking them out. and some of those where 500k homes..

[Monk]

Years ago I built a new duplex for rent.
Listen to SBG.........great advice.

I 'gave' the tenants free pest service.......me.
I would visit the unit periodically to check things out........after 8 months
I tired of being a landlord and sold it.

If you're looking for income.........it's going to take at minimum of 8 years to pay off
property (mine was a 12 year loan). Be sure it's going to cash flow.......taxes, insurance etc.
Even after property is paid off you're going to have the up keep.

[STINEY]

I give the tenants an upfront assessment of the situation.

1. Its my wife's house. She doesn't like dealing with people, so you will be seeing me.

2. My wife is happy when the rent is paid on time and the house is taken care of. See, it was one of her life goals to build her house by a certain age, so it is important to her.

3. What makes my wife happy makes me happy. Yeah, I'm funny that way. See, if you tear the place up and don't pay, she will be very unhappy. That makes me very unhappy.

4. You paying the rent allows us to pay the bank. Bank getting paid means you have a place to sleep. Bank no get paid means we're both screwed. Lets just all play nice.

And of course we do the checks and agreement/deposit thing.

There is a certain amount of luck and intuition involved. Referrals aren't worth quite so much unless they are face-to-face. Some landlords with crappy renters will give you a good referral just to get rid of them. Face-to-face you can get a feel for the truth.

Wise move Peewee. Renting is about the best thing going today, investment-wise.

[Beagle]

I've been a tennant so it's unlikely that I would be a landlord... that and being generally misanthropic.

[pdub]

Thanks guys. Thanks so much!

A life-changer, do-it or not. Hmmmmm. And I'm only half of the Board of Decision Makers.

[Barry Donovan]

you can go at any formality to set it up pee wee..

but if you got a foundation labeled good because some inspector felt bad while you rake in free income on someones hiatal rupture...

there is curses and they do happen.

landlord /tenants is probably a number one church foundation keeper.

This town I am in is the worst I have ever seen. There is obese fairy taled kingdoms running so long on the building ownership, grandfathered, no work for years, thousands upon thousands of dollars, tenants come and gone... most altered forever with years shaved off their hard earned lives...

you could narrate the building owners extinction and get away with it.

me as a landlord would take the exact environment for what it is, stay up front with a real tenant and bill from there. Especially based upon the exact building, regardless of location..exact worth.

Do not go with the undergound locales choice of rent fees...small group of elite suicide. Not facts.

[Bamfster]

One of my old partners and I have been "flipping" houses for a few years since we pulled the pin. We came across a nice little house in a sort of inner city area up in Denver. Did the typical gut and remodel. A friend of his family was in dire straights and needed a place to live that was outside of the influence of project housing .... 2 impressionable teens, really good kids and ma and pa were doing it right.

The first 6 months after they moved in, things were smooth as glass. We set it up to where they payed the rent weekly, its what they wanted to help budget their money. THE RENT WAS ALWAYS ON TIME. After the newness wore off, typical adjustments and such needed done with all the work we had done ... nothing serious or that couldn't be put off till a reasonable time could be arranged to correct it.

Petty things like closet doors not closing proper, garbage disposal going Tango Union became the emergency of the century. Somewhere somehow they tried to pull out the landlord/tenant laws on us. It turned into a bad deal for everyone involved. When their lease was up, we decided to sell .... just be done with trying to be slum ..... errr landlords. Well they were somehow magically able to purchase now. We were more than happy to sell to them, but then they try lowballing us with all the cosmetic things they had been keeping track of.

Overall a horrible experience for us, not saying this is typical, just that I would never venture into the world of rentals again. We'll stick to flippin' them ....

[pdub]

I can say what brought all of this up. The house across the street, next door to Superman is suddenly, surprisingly up for sale. The one best house in the neighborhood. 3100 sq ft, upstairs, downstairs underground sort of, two garages.

We toured the house, and then brought the real estate agent over here to show her ours. I gave her the Truth tour and she had some real concerns. It's bad to know you're stuck, as good as this house is. The upside is we sure don't HAVE to move, we sure don't. This is a real nice place to be stuck in. Just thinking about how to put some money to work.

We were lied to when we bought this house. This house was perfectly staged, smelled of new paint, and all the cracks in the walls were patched cosmetically (temporarily). We were had, like a mouse in a trap. And everybody involved denied any knowledge of it a couple years later. Of course they did. Previous owners, real estate agent, nobody realized this house was sinking at such a rate. They had not a clue. Of course they didn't.

[tardis454]

I can say what brought all of this up. The house across the street, next door to Superman is suddenly, surprisingly up for sale. The one best house in the neighborhood. 3100 sq ft, upstairs, downstairs underground sort of, two garages.

We toured the house, and then brought the real estate agent over here to show her ours. I gave her the Truth tour and she had some real concerns. It's bad to know you're stuck, as good as this house is. The upside is we sure don't HAVE to move, we sure don't. This is a real nice place to be stuck in. Just thinking about how to put some money to work.

We were lied to when we bought this house. This house was perfectly staged, smelled of new paint, and all the cracks in the walls were patched cosmetically (temporarily). We were had, like a mouse in a trap. And everybody involved denied any knowledge of it a couple years later. Of course they did. Previous owners, real estate agent, nobody realized this house was sinking at such a rate. They had not a clue. Of course they didn't.

Sounds like you bought a flipped house? We did, the paint was fresh, carpets were clean, everything was staged to 'look' like it was a fine & dandy place to live. It took about a year of living here to find all the hidden assholes in this place, like... main sewer line with roots growing in it, bathroom tiles liquid nails'd to the wall, peeling paint from previous roof related water damage, busted water line underground, oh & the big one, one of the original owners hung himself in the garage! Yeah, the previous owners didn't disclose ANY of this in the disclosure forms. Instead they sent us a letter AFTER the sale telling us about the busted water line & the guy who hung himself which really freaked my wife out. Now she thinks there's a ghost in the garage knocking shit over, making a ruckus, & trying to open the door into the family room(a neighborhood cat got in) I showed the letter to my real estate agent & he got mad, said that's what the disclosure forms are for & I could sue them if I chose to. We took one for the team & I fixed everything I could. It's a decent house, it's not worth what I paid for it but it's almost paid off so I won't complain to much.

[pdub]

Sounds like you bought a flipped house?

No, they had lived here for years. I think they were the second owners, the house (and all others in this neighborhood) was built in the 80's.

They're older than we are, they got old and crippled up and had to move to a ranch house to avoid using stairs. That much I really do believe is the truth for sure.

We bought it, hook line and sinker, and swallowed the hook. There's never been a better setup, as far as marketing something that is just not what's presented.