Thinking I wasn't a good landlord

[Susan Reehill]

Hi All! I'm new to BP, the podcast, and my BP Pro Membership. I'm so, so grateful to be here! While I search for my first deal, I wanted to say hi and tell you about "the one that got away".  

My first home purchase was 2009, I bought a brand new home that had been sitting for about one year during the crash. Orig list: $320k, I offered and they accepted $203k with closing costs. 

4 bd, 2.5 ba, 1730 sq.ft. 

1418 S 95th St, Tacoma, if you want to look it up. 

Fast forward 7 years later (2016). I wanted to live closer to downtown Tacoma and be able to bike / run / walk everywhere!  

I bought my current home in 2016 for $255k, conventional loan with 20% down. I was working the Dave Ramsey lifestyle at that time! 

I moved and put my first home up for sale yet didn't have an offer I was happy with so rented it out. Not knowing anything about how to be a landlord, I took the first person who applied and said "okay, I'll rent to you". I had a big heart and she had a big sob story ... ha!  

You can tell where this is going, right? 

Seven months later, I give her cash for keys to gtf out of my home! 

Her and her family did more damage to my home in seven months than my son and I had done in seven years.

After booting the horrid tenants out, I put my home up for sale again (2017). I got $282k and still have some of that money in the bank for my next "first home hack" or multi-family. 

The biggest lesson I learned was that I was NOT a bad landlord, I just had bad tenants. 

It's hard to see how my previous home has now doubled in value, yet I can't live in the past.

What's the biggest lesson you learned on your first home sale, purchase or landlording adventure? I'd love to hear your story! 

[Brian Hughes]

learn from other people's mistakes (and successes) is pretty high on the list :)    I was lucky with my first house hack (triplex) as both in-place tenants were decent people despite the building being in a "bad" area of seattle at the time. 

I definitely had a few close calls with sob story applicants though which I eventually did say no to but felt like a horrible person doing it the first few times,   until I started to see the patterns.     The best was a woman who had been in a car crash, had a back injury, was being kicked out (illegally of course) by her current landlord and the insurance company,  had a new baby,   was being unfairly harrassed by some govt agency  (forget which one) and whose adult son needed to stay with her but he couldn't be available to meet for viewing the apartment or signing the lease,  amongst a bunch of other things I don't really remember.   By then I was at least smart enough to stick to my script ("you and your son need to apply in writing,  I need proof of income,  prior rental history,  civil/background check and criminal background check;  and please understand I WILL verify this information  (this was before seattle outlawed half of this)  -  we went back and forth for several days after the initial showing with her claiming I had agreed to rent to her, then offering to pay cash in advance and such.   Eventually she claimed she was going to report me for some kind of discrimination but it never happened.