Real Estate Investor · akron, OH · Member since 2008 · 11 posts · 0 votes
Is it my imagination or are there less tenants than there used to be. I was wondering if others where experiencing the same thing. I bought my first rental house in 1992 and it was so easy to rent that all I had to do was put a ad in the paper with a open house time and I would have twenty people come to the house. And they came there on time! Most of the time I did not even need a ad because when prepared the house for rent by painting etc... I would have many people stop by and ask if I was renting. Now the same house takes longer to rent and it is even in better condition than it was then. Now a ad might generate a couple of calls and one or two people looking at the property. That house is not the only one that is harder to rent, all my properties are generally harder to rent. It might be that it is easier to buy a home and less people are renting or something. That is just a theory I thought about
Real Estate Investor · Member since 2008 · 20 posts · 3 votes
18y
Interesting how different the market can be from one area to another. There seems to be a decent number of renters in my area. I think the inventory has an affect on how quickly find tenants. I dont know what it was like in 92. It also depends on if you are renting market rate, section 8 etc...
Attorney · Raleigh, NC · Member since 2008 · 4k+ posts · 1k+ votes
18y
Only problem I've gotten the past couple months is....it's cold. Tenants tend to not want to move when it's cold so de facto...leases aren't turning this time of year. Couple more weeks and it will pick up. Got 8 calls in 1 day last week off a 4 line newspaper ad. It's coming.
Certified Public Accountant · Chattanooga, TN · Member since 2008 · 279 posts · 151 votes
18y
I've had great luck with my vacancies the last year or so. It might just be this area of the country, but when several of my leases renewed last fall I was able to get about an 8% increase. I hadn't been able to get any increases before that.
Real Estate Investor · akron, OH · Member since 2008 · 11 posts · 0 votes
18y
It's funny but it is not just this time of year. It has been years now. every thing is slower when you are trying to rent a house around Akron Ohio and nearby communities. Maybe it is true that there are a lot more rental properties out there than before.
Being a landlord isn't as much fun as it used to be.
I used to fnd decent human beings to rent from me with very little down time. Often, the next tenant was already signed up before the old tenant was out.
The past couple of years the quality of applicants has been frightening. Where do those people come from? I took over 125 applicantions on a vacancy last summer. No income, no job, 38 accounts in collection, multiple evictions, drug convictions, pit-bulls, 6 roomates none with jobs..... nobody you can rent to in that lot.
This winter, the callers are practically non-existant and the majority of them are telling me they only want a place for about 6 months because they are planning on buying. I won't tke a tenant when I know for sure they are going to move in 2-4 months.
Real Estate Investor · akron, OH · Member since 2008 · 11 posts · 0 votes
18y
You know what PNW you hit it right on the head with the tenants wanting to buy their own houses. I seen banks loan to people six months after going bankrupt. Since the banks got in so much trouble I think that this trend has to reverse in the future.
Real Estate Investor · OH · Member since 2008 · 4k+ posts · 1k+ votes
18y
PNW,
I get about 30-40 calls every day. We've got lots of tenants a little farther south here in Ohio. I'll send you a few. Would you like a crack dealer? Hooker turning tricks to support her meth habit? Criminal just released from prison last week? 20 year old who had 4 misdemeanors "when she was younger"? Two 30 year olds shacking up with their 6 kids, both working at Burger King for less than a month? Just let me know which ones you want. I'll rent a bus and ship them your way!
Better yet, you can have them all, and I'll throw in a busload of low-life contingency lawyers.
Real Estate Investor · OH · Member since 2008 · 4k+ posts · 1k+ votes
18y
Nationwidepi,
Yes, the tenant pool is lousy at this point. That's why we screen the tenants and only take the ones that are qualified. Our expenses are not high and in fact are right in line with the average for properly run residential rentals. The fact that you don't understand this business doesn't change any of the facts associated with it.
Do you actually own any rentals or just sell them to newbies? From looking at your website, it looks like the latter.
Developer · Santa Clarita, CA · Member since 2008 · 15k+ posts · 10k+ votes
18y
Wrong again Mike. as I have answered this same question for you in other posts, I am a landlord, I just choose to have different investments than you. I do not care for low income, low value homes to rent to the scum you speak about on your blog. In fact, I also do larger commercial deals and I do not choose to spend any hours during the week painting houses.
Be careful casting dispersions before knowing who I am or what you are talking about. I understand your 50% rule of thumb completely, I just do not think it is accurate for all investments and I make a personal choice to use other calculations. End of conversation.
Real Estate Investor · OH · Member since 2008 · 4k+ posts · 1k+ votes
18y
So far, you've only said that you have 2 residential rentals? Do you actually operate other residential rentals? Do you operate your own commercial multi-unit residential buildings? If so, why not tell us what you do?
I am not casting "dispersions". I am asking you to explain YOUR claims for the benefit of everyone on the forum. That's what a forum is about and so far you are being very elusive.
I have said on numerous occassions that the 50% rule is simply a way of stating that the operating expenses in the United States for residential rentals run (average) 45% to 50% per year over time. As Beachbum said, nothing can predict exactly what the expenses will be for a given unit in a given year because there are too many unknowns. However, the 50% rule is a good rule of thumb over the long term when you're running a serious rental property business.
I have never claimed that the 50% rule is accurate for all investments. It is certainly not intended for strip malls, retail space, office space, raw land, etc, etc, etc.
Real Estate Investor · liberty township, OH · Member since 2008 · 149 posts · 6 votes
18y
hey mike is your glass half full or half empty here? :D you said the tenant pool is lousy. Are you meaning the tenants theirselves are lousy(meaning they dont pay) or do you mean the pool is lousy (meaning there isnt enough of them)?
Real Estate Investor · OH · Member since 2008 · 4k+ posts · 1k+ votes
18y
When I say the tenant pool is lousy, I mean that I can't accept the vast majority of the applicants that I screen. The primary reasons that I deny tenants are previous evictions and criminal history. As just one of an infinite number of examples, I had a guy call last night that wanted to look at one of my rentals. Since I was at home and my computer was on, I asked his name and then quickly checked his history. He had been evicted twice and had 3 full pages of criminal history including receiving stolen property, theft, domestic violence, etc, etc, etc.
Obviously, I wouldn't accept this person as a tenant. In my business, I find that about 90% of tenants at any one time are good tenants; another 9% have some issues, but not to the extent that I would evict them; and the final 1% we evict each month. That one percent includes all the inherited tenants we've gotten when we take over buildings. I estimate that we evict only about .3% to .5% of tenants I have screened.
Real Estate Investor · MA · Member since 2008 · 20 posts · 0 votes
18y
craig91167_
Keep in mind that in the 90's the newspaper was the way to go as far as advertising a rental property. Now, its the internet. Whether its craigslist (don't recommend) or your local newspapers website. No one reads the newspaper anymore.
Last month I put in an ad for a vehicle I was trying to sell it only cost me $20 to throw it in the classifieds of the town paper. Not only did I notice that it was the ONLY vehicle listed (use to be tons) but I didn't receive ONE call on it. Times have changed. Get your property all over the web!
It isn't just Mike who has lousy applicants, and it doesn't have all that much to do with lower income rentals.
I have very nice houses in a ski resort town, and the people who apply to rent from me are absolutely frightening.
Deadbeats don't care how much the rent is, because they don't intend to pay the rent, anyway. They might as well live in style, while not paying $2500 a month as to live in squaller why they don't pay $300 a month.
It takes the same amount of time to evict them, no matter what the rent is, so they get to live for free the same amount of time, no matter what the rent is. Except that if they can talk their way into a nice house, they can often stall that landlord off for several months before he files, because that is an inexperienced landlord, or he wouldn't have let them in, in the first place.
The deadbeats, losers, dopers, and liars are applying at all price points in the rental pool.