I dropped the ball!

[Chris Harrington]

You know if you let a problem fester you can count on it getting worse!

Just evicted a tenant in a 6 plex we own.  He has been there for years and pretty much paid his rent on time.  Didn't cause any issues and no complaints from other tenants. I did have to threaten an eviction a year or so ago and he came through and got caught up and was pretty much on time each month after that.  

Recently though we learned he didn't have the electric on in his apt and it had been like this since April.  My manager called the local electric co and confirmed.  I sent my manager in and the apartment was a disaster!  Knee deep in crap, filthy and for all intents and purposes, ruined.  We filed immediately and the sheriff came today - carted truck loads to the curb.  Have a dumpster coming tomorrow to dispose of otherwise the city will hit me up for the junk on the boulevard.  

This was a gorgeous apartment when we rehabbed it and rented it to him and now we are looking at probably $5k to restore!  

Its all my fault -we regularly inspect our properties but this building is sort of outside our normal area; it sits in a great neighborhood but we just don't go by it that often.  Well no more but its a pretty expensive reminder to always, always inspect your units on a regular basis.

Chris

[Marcia Maynard]

Originally posted by @Joe Calderon:

 Why don't you hire a property manager and bump it up to 64 units, effectively increasing your cash flow?

Because I have a passion for landlording, including the property management role! At some point, I may outsource the property management portion when I can no longer effectively do the work myself, but then I would still need to oversee what the property manager is doing. With the right balance and systems in place, the property management work is easy. We can get distracted by what life throws at us and occasionally we will drop the ball, but we can pick up the ball and stay in play. At this point I'm not ready to hand the ball to someone else. :-)