Rentals: livng the dream or a big nightmare

[Rob Kulp]

I own one rental property now, with plans to add more in the future.  So far it's been a little bumpy, but I'm learning.  I'd like to hear from those of you that own a bunch of rentals (my definition of a bunch would be over 10).  Are you glad you got into the rental business?  Wish you hadn't?  Were you able to quit your day job?  At what point did the scales tip from being able to manage them yourself to needing to hire people to help?

Let's hear the good, the bad, and the ugly...

Renters, feel free to chime in with stories of terrible landlords.

[Dean Letfus]

We had rentals in 3 cities, Atlanta, Phoenix and Memphis. Atlanta homes continually got trashed, like over and over again.
Phoenix we got ripped off and lied to by property managers, like over and over again.
Memphis on the other hand we own well over 10 doors and help owners manage several hundred doors.

Once we learned to avoid anything renting for less that $725 a month we have had a pretty amazing run, nearly 4 years in now.

My take on landlording in the USA is that anything less than 10 doors is not worth doing. YOur cash flows are too unpredictable and when you only have a couple of doors you are always seeing problems.

Once you get to 10 plus you start to treat it more like a business and stop worrying about smaller issues and the cashflow starts to even out a bit more.