SFH rental and yardwork?

[Scott A Smith]

Apologies if this is in the wrong place -

If you have a SFH property with a grass yard - who does the maintenance? Do you ask the tenant to maintain the grass, shrubs, mulching, etc, or do you contract that out to a landscaping company and include that cost in your rent, or do you do it yourself?

The reason I ask is that when my wife and I decide to do our first property, if it isn't a MFH, I'd like to know - we're current renters since we've moved around a bunch since we met for jobs and whatnot and buying never made sense for our budget yet. Our current SFH rental is the only rental property for our landlady and she has us doing the yard maintenance and bugs us about it (primarily bc her brother owns a landscaping company - so she's insanely particular when it's not usually an issue compared to our neighbors and NEVER gets out of control -other than weeds in the backyard mulched area, which is an annual headache - and the willow tree branch droppings which happen every winter and spring - also a major headache). For as cheap as the rent is I don't really complain, but I think it'd be a heck of a lot easier to just include it in the rent and outsource that to a reputable landscaping company.

[Steve S.]

When buying units I look for either little to no maintenance yards or price it out to turn the yard into a zero maintenance yard.

The one unit I do have that has a very large front and back yard it's in the tenancy agreement the tenant must maintain the grass by cutting the grass at least once a week (in the growing season & I provide the mower) If the lawn isn't kept up, I will provided a written warning and if it still isn't kept in order I will outsource the work and they have to pay the bill. So far I have had no issues.  

That yard for that unit really is one of the selling features for the house so I always say to tenants that if they're looking for a house with a yard then they must either expect that they're going to do the yard work themselves or pay to have it done... so far no issues.