Renting in Wisconsin

[Matthew Paszczak]

Curious as to the biggest issues landlords have come across dealing with Tenants Country wide? And any advice or tips for renting in Wisconsin? I’ve had a few discussions and have been told Wisconsin is one of the worst States for rentals.

Appreciate your time and feedback!

[Marcus Auerbach]

@Matthew Paszczak - it is called confirmation bias: when you look for the evidence you want to find to support the theory you already believe to be true.

Wisconsin is considered landlord friendly. This is why we get so many out of state investors from tenent firendly states like California or NY. Milwaukee has some rough parts in the inner city and of course if you decide to buy a cheap house there you will have lots of issues. But that's just a poor choice.

The biggest issues landlords have is their own behaviour. A professional managed rental portfolio has very few issues and deals with them quickly and effectivley. Failure to manage professionally will result in headaches. And it's not rocket science, there are many good books about PM. Just follow the model.

Case in point I have been in the game for over 10 years and never had to evict anyone. A few years ago we had a vacancy, I was super busy with two active rehab projects and working as an agent, so going through the usual process of marketing, showings, interviews, background checks and then 2nd interviews sounded exhausting. Got a random call from someone who wanted to rent, backgroundcheck was okay-ish, so I was lacy and signed the lease. I knew better, but I was lazy and took a chance. 

So here we are 3 years later, have been chasing water bills, often rent was late, autopay did not work, upleep on the property is not the best, lawn gets cut only every other week etc. Of course they were always telling me the issues were temporarily, but in hindsight it just got worse every year. 

They always have drama in their lives, I did not want to kick them out for Christmas, then they said they wanted to move to Atlanta in spring, so I was okay to wait for that, then Covid19 hit, they got laid off, had to reduce rent, eviction memorandum was issues. So last month I finally issues a 5 day and a 28 day notice.

We manage a sizeable portfolio of single family properties - for over ten years. This is the only issue I have ever had that has forced me to kick someone out. And it was totally my fault! We usually have a number of strong applications and we pick the best one. I know how to do this, I coach young investors! And I still screwed it up, I was just lazy and took a shortcut against my better knowledge. 

99% of our tenants are great; they take good care of the property, rent is on autopay, my guys do an annual inspection in fall, we fix things as soon as we know about them and we do preventative maintenance. We don't interact with 80% of our tenants throughout the year - they are just there, rent comes in, no issues.

So, a lot of the desaster tenant storys you hear, you can track back to poor property management. You will always have a few issues, thats normal, but a well managed portfolio will have very few issues and will deal with problems quickly.