Rentors

[444 Magnum]

I know from previous threads that many of you have had a positive experience with your rental properties and I'm sure many of you are ideal rentors as well. I've never had any and have avoided them for years.

My brother and I inherited one from my father and I've been in the liquidation process with it. The tenants were there for 8-9 years and my father never raised the rent. I contacted them and asked to do a walk through. The tenant's wife is a hoarder. Only two of them in a 1700 sq ft house and it was packed--closets, cabinets, shelves, floor, everything was 4' deep.

I told the tenant that my brother and I were going to sell the house and gave them an option to buy as well. I served them later that week (in person) with a lease cancellation notice and gave them 2 1/2 months to either purchase or vacate. I felt I was being more than fair.

Here's how they left the property. We filled up a 40 yard dumpster with the trash and the old tin building.

LSU fans...typical.

I gave the pool to the yard man.

They hit the roof backing up the U-Haul truck. No truck insurance. U-Haul was less than cooperative.

 

[Rudi]

What a mess. They'll probably whine when you keep their deposit.

 

[Rule3]

Around here with the rental move outs, they leave trash like that but then the garbage pickers go through it all looking for stuff, makes more of a mess.


Might find some "treasures" in there
People are pigs! (some)

 

[444 Magnum]

What a mess. They'll probably whine when you keep their deposit.

The deposit was only $900. The dumpster rental was $575 plus the dumping fee (I haven't seen that yet). I paid a man $200 to help me pick it all up. No treasures. A lot of wet, rotting clothing and junk.

The deposit doesn't begin to cover it. Lots more damage inside the house that I didn't show.

If I wasn't trying to close out the estate, I'd sue him and garnish his wages. It's not worth the time and effort at this point.

This just reinforces my lack of enthusiasm towards rentals as an investment.

 

[Eric300]

I rather house farm animals than people. They're cleaner.....

 

[Muss Muggins]

I serve rent and possession papers. That place is immaculate . . .

 

[1sailor]

I have had rentals before but never again. It's pretty bad when you pay for the garbage collection and they still just toss it into the back room. After Covid hit and the government stripped people of their property rights I realized just how fragile an arrangement renting is. I will never put myself in that position again. I know that there are a lot of good people out there who abide by the rules but it's just too risky.

 

[llowry61]

We just went through something similar with MIL - 83 years old had a good lady renting the house for quite a while. Well, long story short the lady got sick moved out and a stepson moved in stopped paying rent utilities etc. My wife was helping her with her mail while she was staying with us for the holidays and saw the notice from the county that they were adding the past due utilities to her taxes. She was embarrassed and finally told us she didn't know who was in the house and that she hadn't been paid for at least a year.

I drove by and there were old junk cars in the backyard and the entire place was a mess.

I have a friend who does real estate, so I contacted him, and we did a sale quick and dirty no notice to the squatter.

He placed the house in a corporation named the address of the house and had him evicted. Neat approach since the guy has no idea who to go after.

Real estate can be a good tax shelter, and you can make money my dad did it his whole life, but it is not the panacea many make it out to be.

I use the market to let my money work for me. It doesn't call at 2am telling you the pipes are frozen.

 

[rockquarry]

We just went through something similar with MIL - 83 years old had a good lady renting the house for quite a while. Well, long story short the lady got sick moved out and a stepson moved in stopped paying rent utilities etc. My wife was helping her with her mail while she was staying with us for the holidays and saw the notice from the county that they were adding the past due utilities to her taxes. She was embarrassed and finally told us she didn't know who was in the house and that she hadn't been paid for at least a year.

I drove by and there were old junk cars in the backyard and the entire place was a mess.

I have a friend who does real estate, so I contacted him, and we did a sale quick and dirty no notice to the squatter.

He placed the house in a corporation named the address of the house and had him evicted. Neat approach since the guy has no idea who to go after.

Real estate can be a good tax shelter, and you can make money my dad did it his whole life, but it is not the panacea many make it out to be.

I use the market to let my money work for me. It doesn't call at 2am telling you the pipes are frozen.

Landlords earn every dollar they make.

 

[375hh1973]

I rather house farm animals than people. They're cleaner.....

And in most cases a helluva lot smarter too

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

44 years in the Apartment business. 25 owning a 140-unit complex and part owner of another 75 units. The 70's recession was a nightmare on unpaid rents. Th 80's & early 90's were probably the best times with a 2 or 3% eviction rate. Sold in 2006 and were around 10-15% evictions! We also did "Executive Housing Rental Homes" (Brand new homes, rent to own, for bankrupted bosses) The eviction rate was the same as the apartments. Mostly a renter is a renter is a renter! We did have a few owner types between homes, they took care of it like they owned it!

In the summer I used my sons and nephew for cheap labor. They would clean up the trashed units, and sometimes help with repairs and painting. Boy did they get an education cleaning out the hookers' and strippers' units! Gave them something to brag about during the school year. (best way to teach your sons to stay away from those girls, let the boys clean up after them!)

In all those years, we had maybe 3 shotgun slayings (a twofer about drugs and someone followed home a store owner about 40 years later), 4 fires, and 9 or 10 normal deaths that we ended up finding. The good news is the Coroner takes away the bodies. The bad news is we had to do all the other clean up!!! If it is a crime, there is a huge police mess they never clean up. Try getting unpaid rent from the family!

Ivan

 

[lkabug]

I had rentals for 20+ years. Sold them to finance the kids 'college.
I did OK overall but the hassle over the years was unreal. Cleanup after a tenant moved out was always expensive. One tenant actually knocked out a large window to get furniture through on move ou. I'm not sure how they got it into the house. Needless to say they did not get their deposit back.

 

[Bald1]

Right out of high school I did maintenance work for a Realty Co that owned over 100 duplexes and another 50 apartments. I've seen it all. The worst was my own rental property. A single family home in a nice suburb that I lived in myself for 7 yrs. The couple were getting a divorce and did not want to renew the lease. I showed up after they moved out and it was a mess. Lease clearly stated they could not paint anything. But they painted everything. The worst part though was a skylight in family room was leaking and they never notified me. All the sheeting on that section of roof was rotten. 30 min and some roof cement could've fixed it. $10k latter I roofed the whole house. The part that really got me was the husband and wife were each calling me saying they were the one entitled to the security deposit. I told them both neither would be getting the $1200 but they'd both be getting a bill for damages exceeding $1200. Lease also said no pets. Clearly they had a cat. And the cat had bladder problems

 

[Farmer17]

My wife and I have several rent houses and have had a few headaches similar to above but when it's all said and done its been a very good business for us. We have a small amount of debt and the rental income will make a very comfortable retirement, but it helps that I own a construction business and that my wife is EXTREMELY thorough in checking their rental qualifications.

 

[Kevin J.]

I have owned residential and commercial real estate rentals over the years. If had it to do over I think I would opt to buy and lease farm land. Farmers are motivated to take care of the land so as to make a profit off their crops. They are also often neighbors who want to expand into adjoining property. Little maintenance and possible damages. Also no insurance (except minimal liability) and lower property taxes.

 

[StephenWhoDat]

I serve rent and possession papers. That place is immaculate . . .

Funny, I was also thinking that this place was not that bad at all! Most renters leave the place in way worse shape, especially ones who have been there for almost 10 years and now suddenly only have 2 months to leave... He's lucky they left the place this way.

 

[LVSteve]

That place isn't too bad. After my sister in law passed, I helped her husband move out of a condo. But apparently that meant only the stuff he wanted to keep. The way he left that place was an abomination, but he's a musician, and you know how that can be. I am almost certain an extended family member broke in that night looking for all kinds of odd family stuff. I pulled the plug on the whole mob except the husband shortly afterwards.

 

[StephenWhoDat]

LSU fans...typical.

Hey now! We aren't all garbage people! Also, perhaps they are Minnesota Vikings fans?

 

[444 Magnum]

To everyone who said it wasn't 'that bad'...

A 40 yard dumpster is typically 22 feet long, 7.5 feet wide, and 8 feet high, but the exact size may vary by manufacturer. The volume of a 40 yard dumpster is always 40 cubic yards, which is roughly the equivalent of 230–250 33-gallon trash bags.

It was full to the top. I did put the tin shed in there but it was only 10' sheets of tin and 2x4's. It didn't take up much room. I only had room for 5 pics so I didn't show everything. The tin shed was full. There was junk in back of and on the sides of both sheds, the screened porch was 2' deep, the attic was stuffed...it took 2 men 10 hours to remove trash and tin shed.

 

[444 Magnum]

Funny, I was also thinking that this place was not that bad at all! Most renters leave the place in way worse shape, especially ones who have been there for almost 10 years and now suddenly only have 2 months to leave... He's lucky they left the place this way.

They knew it was coming and I still gave them an additional 2 1/2 months. The lease only required 30 days. I think I've been more than generous.

If I had given them 6 months, I think the results would have been the same.

One lesson that I've known for years is not to put storage facilities on rental properties. They always get filled up.