5 Reasons You Don't Want to Be a Landlord of Multiple Properties

Being a hands-on landlord is not the dream gig it is made out to be. It can be hell, and it can be a lot less profitable than many real estate gurus make it out to be—especially when you factor in your time.

There are definitely many benefits to owning real estate and investing in income-producing rental property. There can be great cash flow, high returns, equity appreciation, pride of ownership, and protection against inflation. Yet, for all the reasons below, being a self-managing landlord can be more of a nightmare than a dream come true when multiple properties are involved.

Here are five reasons landlording can be a real drag.

1. Time Commitment

If you are going to self-manage your own rental property portfolio, you can go ahead and kiss your time goodbye. Forget occasionally going on vacation, taking the weekends off, booking dates that you can stick to, or getting plenty of sleep. Be ready for the phone to ring with incoming tenant and prospective-renter inquiries. You will have to be on call 24/7/365.

2. There Are Too Many Roles to Master

Being a property manager involves mastering a whole team of full-time roles, including:

Customer service representative
Marketer, designer, and copywriter
Leasing agent and tenant screening professional
Bookkeeper
Handyman
Property inspector
Property manager

3. Mental Drain

Being busy is one thing. Though in this job, you’ll also have to deal with a lot of stress. It doesn’t matter how good your properties are or how nice of a landlord you are. You will eventually have some tenants who are very demanding.

You’ll get tenants who bring their drama with them. Everyone has a story for why they can’t pay the rent—and it can be draining.

4. You Can’t Be Objective

When you are that close to selecting investments, supervising rehabs and improvements, accepting tenants, and managing your properties, emotions can come into play. When you allow your emotions to influence your decisions to buy, lease, renovate, manage, and sell, you run into risking financial results.

It’s often better to just stick to looking at the numbers, without even seeing the property. One thing I always work to avoid is falling in love with a property. This can severely cloud judgment.

5. It’s Risky

From the physical dangers of being on job sites and dealing with tenants, to collecting rents and dealing with angry tenants and dogs, to the financial liability involved in being too close to it all, signing on as a DIY landlord is risky.

The Alternatives

Fortunately, there are alternatives. There are ways to get all the benefits of investing in rental properties without having to be the on-call landlord yourself. These include: investing in funds, choosing turnkey rental property investments, private lending, outsourcing the management, and partnering up with others who will do all the work.

Summary

One of the biggest mistakes I made was starting out personally managing my own properties. It taught me a lot about everything. I’ve also found it to be way more profitable to have a professional team handle most of the day-to-day property management.

My advice? Be an investor, not a landlord.