My Dad Gives Bad Advice. Help

[Tony Thompson]

Disclaimer: I am not racist, but my dad may be.

I am marketing my first rental and have had a few calls. My dad advises me not to rent to colored people because he says the property value will drop, it will alienate the neighbors, homeboys will take over the property, etc.

This really makes my blood boil because he has never been a landlord and his advice seems highly unprofessional. My dad and others have been very helpful in fixing the place up and I think they just want to give me their honest advice, but I can't take it.

Here's how I see it. I treat all prospects the same, gather application info, and screen them based off legal criteria. If they make it, I rent to them and collect the rent. Simple right?

I know some have been in my shoes, and I need to hear from you. Thanks.

[Michael Rossi]

Tony,

Nobody on this board knows your father better than you do. YOU should certainly know whether he's a racist or not. Furthermore, I agree with Tim that skewering him on a public forum is not good.

While your father's advice (as stated by you) was certainly misguided and illegal as given, I would at least give him the benefit of the doubt if he were my father.

His advice certainly should have been to screen EVERYONE thoroughly because you don't want druggies, gang-bangers, or scumbags OF ANY RACE in your property. Druggies, gangbangers, or scumbags OF ANY RACE will hurt property values, alienate the neighbors, and fill the property with criminals (exactly as your father said). While it's not politically correct to say so, thanks to decades of entitlements being forced on them, young black men have a TERRIBLY HIGH CRIME RATE. That's a FACT and possibly what your father was trying to convey to you. Doing a proper screening of all applicants will eliminate the riff-raff regardless of their race.

Here are the (politically incorrect) facts in my own rental business. During the past 7 years, I have had probably 8 or 9 black male tenants (all of these were inherited when I took over the properties). Every single one was a drug dealer and all were legally evicted. One additional middle-aged black male tenant (one that I screened and accepted) was evicted when he failed to pay the rent because he used to rent money to bail out his drug-dealing son. Every other black male I have screened could not pass my WRITTEN criminal background check, which basically consists of no felonies in the past 5 years; no drugs in the past 3 years; and no more than 2 misdemeanors in the past 3 years. It's a very sad state of affairs and why I'm constantly railing about the socialists and their entitlement programs. I have MANY black female tenants and have not seen any difference in their performance as tenants compared to tenants of any other race. I would love to have black male tenants, but simply can't find any in my area that will pass the criminal background check that I outlined above. It's a shame, but that's the way it is.

The point is that maybe your father is aware of the ugly statistics and is trying to tell you that. That doesn't necessarily make him a racist. The bottom line is to simply have WRITTEN screening criteria and screen every tenant the same.