Buying a Rental is pretty easy, Keeping it is another story
Many questions on here is in regards to buying property. The first thing people think of when deciding to become a Landlord is buying the property. Once they buy the property then what? Oh my gosh, there's a lot of work to be done to the property. Then, Oh my gosh, how do I find a tenant? Then Oh my Gosh, now what?
So you need to have plan that goes way beyond buying that rental.
It's easy to purchase a rental, but can you keep it? That is the question.
My husband was the handyman (well we had a work crew, but hubby was the ultimate handyman, perfectionist to an annoying fault...even to this day everything has to be perfect)
I on the other hand, was the Zoo Keeper, oops I mean I took care of the nasty stuff, like tenant complaints, accounting, court scenes, making the tenants comply to their lease agreement. I was the bad guy, and my husband was the good guy. But....without each other, we wouldn't have succeeded. We wouldn't have been able to Keep our rentals.
He was good at what he did and still does. This enabled us to KEEP OUR BUSINESS.
I am good at what I do. This enabled us to KEEP OUR BUSINESS
Where we good when we first began? ARE YOU KIDDING ME! Dumb and Dumber!!!!
But with embarrassment and lots of goofs it forced ME to study, and finally I became good!
So...for you young whipper snappers out there, there's more to buying a rental property. If you want to Keep it, you've got to learn what it takes. Sometimes you need a Good guy and a Bad Guy, even if you have to be both at one time!
Just a little tip from this old gal....Nancy Neville
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@Account Closed I love your stories. You should sit down and compile them all into a book. You would have a good time writing that and I think the community would love to read all those stories!
I think the headaches mostly come from uneducated, lower income tenants. Why are lower income tenants mostly a headache? It's all part of the cycle of poverty and if you have ever dealt with these kinds of tenants you will understand.
Kids grow up having their family being evicted a time or two and suddenly, that's just "normal". You can't pay your rent, you get evicted, you move on with life. They don't understand the idea that suddenly, 50% or more of the places you would like to live are now unavailable to you because you're a pariah to landlords because you have that eviction on your record. The other 50% of landlords that will rent to you probably don't care enough about their properties or you as a tenant. (Slumlords!)
They rent places with things broken saying "yeah, that will get fixed" and it never does. So the kids listen to the parents complain about how landlords never fix anything even if they pay the rent. That talk and belief gets instilled into their heads at an early age. Now those kids grow up to become renters and they've got the mindset that if the place gets bad enough with the landlord not fixing things, they'll just move, and if they don't have the money they just don't pay rent. If they get evicted they'll just find somewhere else (albeit not high quality). It's Tenant vs. Landlord. So the cycle continues.
I'm sure there are other things tenants "learn" from their parents too -- how to get on the government system of food stamps, food hand-outs, rental assistance, emergency assistance, energy assistance, etc. There are a lot of programs to help people in America because America is the land of opportunity. However, people tend to use these programs as a crutch instead of hand-up. When I was young, my family used food stamps and energy assistance for a while. (Anyone remember the recession of the 1980s?) But it was always under the belief that this was only "temporary" and we just had to work hard to get away from that. So I don't fault these assistance programs; they are a good way to help people in need.
My overall message is that I agree with Nancy -- you have to KEEP your rentals if you're going to succeed as a buy and hold landlord. That doesn't mean "set it and forget it" but "gain it and maintain it". If you don't want headache properties, don't buy in neighborhoods with "bugs, thugs, and drugs" but instead buy in neighborhoods with people who take care of the properties, pay their rent on time and in full, and are generally good to get along with.