Re: why need to be a landlord???? - Landlord Forum thread 321650

Re: why need to be a landlord???? by Anonymous on July 22, 2014 @14:58

Tenants do NONE of the above in my rental properties.

My tenants pay rent
My tenants don't trash my houses. They are usually not as well taken care of as I'd like, but they are not trashed.
My houses likely have lead paint since they were all built earlier than 1950, but it's not been an issue.
My tenants don't grow mold.
My tenants don't make drugs.
My tenants don't slip and fall.
My tenants don't have dogs.
My tenants don't file bankruptcy.
I don't provide water, electric and gas to my tenants. Those utilities are in their name and it's their responsibility to pay those bills.

Some of this--like the slip and fall issue---is luck. That most of this don't happen is because of very careful screening and strict following (for myself) of my own rules of how to operate.

We make money. That's why we do it. And we keep doing it so that my husband can retire from his job in a few years and we can have a good income that will enable us to keep our current standard of living. It's also safer than the stock market. We have about as much money in the stock market as we do in the six rental properties we own and even if the real estate market went bust, we'd still own assets that might be worth less for a short time but it would never be completely without worth. That's not necessarily true of our stocks.

Another benefit to our being landlords is that we benefit our local economy. We have renovated (or are currently renovating) all the houses we bought as rentals. We keep one contractor completely busy and employed for us full-time and two others busy part-time. We have several other people we keep busy on a part-time basis doing roofing, gutter cleaning, painting, mowing, weeding, etc. A local insurance agent, real state attorney, real estate agent, home inspector, and an accountant benefit because we choose to be landlords. We live in an area with high unemployment and lower than average incomes so all these people are being helped by us owning rental properties. Not to mention the boast we give to the bottom line of the local Lowes and Home Depot stores and the local lumber yard and the craftsmen we hire for special projects (like the one who's building a built-in bed for one of the furnished rentals). Our local bank even benefits because we have a small mortgage from them on one of the houses (4 of 6 are owned outright and the other 2 have small mortgages that paid for the renovations).

We don't need to be landlords. We choose to do it because of the financial benefits. And, those benefits are not just to us, but also a benefit to other people in the local community.

That's why we choose to be landlords.

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Re: why need to be a landlord???? by Anonymous on July 22, 2014 @15:33	[ Reply ]

Ahhhhh, would that we all owned rent property in the land of Never Never.

Re: why need to be a landlord???? by jannie (IL) on July 22, 2014 @15:55	[ Reply ]

Agree with you. You do make money -- however sometimes one rental will cost more in time and repairs -money . We've been Long Distance LL got out of it... then fell back into being LL locally. When we've had good tenants and there are no large repairs on the house needed... we think wow this is so... easy. Then when you get a "problem" you want to scream. But on the whole it's been rewarding financially and sometimes much more interesting than we would like. :)