All Forum Posts by: Benjamin Haberman

@Benjamin Haberman investing in real estate is not all cash flow and rainbows. Old houses have great cash flow and in return you get high repair expenses. It is your job to keep everything working at your expense. If you underestimated repairs or didn't set aside sufficient reserves, that is not your tenants fault. You listed four complaints:

1. Water not working - this is 100% your responsibility to keep water working. 

2. Air conditioner not cooling - it is your responsibility to keep provided mechanical items working.

3. Secure the crawl space entries. - need to determine if this is this some type of security issue and if so it is your responsibility

4. Replacement window blinds at $1000. - Sounds like your choice to do this. If you provide functioning blinds as part of your property, then you need to maintain them. This varies by property, so the key is have a clear definition of who pays. I can get blinds for $20 a window, so not sure how you racked up a $1000 bill.

Do you have a family? I encourage you to ask yourself if your kids and wife didn't have water, air conditioning or secure entries to the property, how would that make you feel? You signed up to be a landlord, so you need to fulfill your responsibility.

It's your property and you are the one to decide what is and is not necessary to be addressed.

For ligate serious issues you respond immediately for all else you simply text back that you will take a look next time you are at the property. Do not ever make any special effort to address insignificant issues.

Your only problem going forward is ignoring her texts and determinimg what is a serious issue. Ignoring tenants is part of your job as a landlord. Text messages should be very easy to ignore. 

This is the clause in my lease that sets boundaries between my tenants and how/when/why they contact me.  And I use Google Voice.

(a) Maintenance requests may be made by phone or text from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday – Friday, or by email anytime. In the case of an emergency, call the Property Manager anytime. Emergencies include fire, flood, electrical shortage, and sewer backups.

I also only offer MTM leases.  That way, if someone is over the top and does not respect boundaries, I can terminate their lease.  Obviously, if there is a legitimate maintenance issue, it is your responsibility to address them.  If the minutiae is causing you a "death by a thousand cuts", you can diplomatically have a frank conversation with them:

"Mrs. Jones, I can't help but notice that you've called me many times over the last few months over maintenance issues.  While  some of those issues I appreciate you reaching out to me for me to address, several  others have been what I would not consider my role as the landlord to address.   I work hard to provide a habitable place for our tenants to call home, but I would hate to have someone living here who isn't happy with the property.  If that's the case, I'd be willing to let you out of your lease and we could go our separate ways.  I just thought I'd ask.  What are your thoughts?"