Learning From a Bad Land-Lord

[Ryan Plasencia]

Hey BP

About a year ago just after I graduated and just got a job as a 3D artist, I rented a house with a few of my friends. At that time I did not know what real-estate was. Now that I know more about real-estate and still learning all thanks to PB, I want to make sure I'm, not the landlord who does not care about there tenants and does not treat them with any respect; just as my landlord. I'm not here to talk bad about my landlord but to learn from him and not do what he is doing. 

Here is an example I have learned not to do is taking advantage of a tenant. We are young so finding a house was hard for us because we have no history. I'm the oldest out of all my friends and let's just say the AC is older than one of my roommates. The Landlord knowing we could not find a house he decided to raise the rent even more. We had to take it because we had no other choice. I understand we are young and it's risky renting to teenagers and I honestly don't know if I would, but knowing that if someone is desperate and can't find a place to live, I would not raise the rent; ill just be hurting them more. I would say no but try to help them find a place.

Here is a simple example that I bet happens to a lot of tenants, and many landlords go through with and that is actually getting new appliances.  Im not saying this makes him a bad landlord but more stingy with his money. I understand making things last long as possible but the fact that we are paying 400-500$ on electric a month because of an 18-year-old AC that is ready to go, that is just ridiculous. All I'm saying is the appliances don't have to be brand new just better where a tenant is not overpaying electric by 200$. Are landlord knows about this but he keeps bring an AC guy in to fix it but that only does so much. For this, I realized why make a tenant pay so much on electricity for old appliances, where they could use that money for something else like paying rent. 

I think the worst of it all is putting a tenant in danger and there was nothing we could do about it. I live in Florida and we have lots of hurricanes here. Well, there was this one hurricane called Dorian that was supposed to hit us with a category 4; thankfully it did not. At the time though we kept trying to contact him but it kept going to voice mail knowing the situation that was going on. I forget but a day or two later he got back to us with an email (2 days before we were supposed to get hit). The email basically applied that we are responsible for buying all necessary resources such as wood, tools, etc and putting up everything then we had to take it back down and plug all the drill holes once this hurricane passed. Me being who I am; stubborn in my ways I said " No I'm not doing this. This is not my house or my responsibility, this is the owner job."  Ok ok yes, I understand that he has to worry about himself and other tenants too and he can't do all this himself. The thing is I would have done it with no problem if he was will reimburse us for all the resources and labor, but he said "no". All I know is this was a huge hassle for me and my friend and I need to remember this. The anger, the disrespect, the fear... I don't want my tenants to go through this. It's scary and if I'm going to invest in Florida I will have to consider this and there is no way my tenants will feel what I went through. 

I can't say the real reason why he did this and maybe he didn't realize this or maybe he just doesn't care. I'm not going to hold this against him I just wanted to share a small glimpse of my story to hopefully open someone's eyes if they are doing this. I'm also doing this for myself to remember how I felt to be a tenant that was mistreated. This is one reason why I got into real-estate to hopefully make people feel like they are home, to feel safe and respected but in all in not to go through what I have. And yet I'm still going through this with only 3 more months left.

(I do apologize if I offended anyone, that is not what I was trying to do, I only wanted to share my thought and opinion and hear what everyone else thinks)