more boring house stuff

[resonant]

Anybody got any experience with renting out houses? I could use tips, pitfalls, horror stories, etc.

Comments

[riverlight]

Do you mean as a landlord or as a tenant?

[wickedwords]

We rented out a house in May. We created a google voice mail account and set up the message so that it pre-screened the applicants: date place would be available, willing to set up appointments with qualified renters. To qualify, we wanted proof of income showing that our rent was no more than 1/3 of their gross paycheck, a favorable credit history, and references from prior landlords. We posted an add with craigslist, followed up on the google voice mail, then spent a couple of hours doing an open house for the people that still wanted to see it (I think 8 people said interested, 2 showed). One of the couples then signed the application and paid the security screen fee; we used a company to do the credit and background check. Our renter provided a note from HR saying he made the right amount of money, and we called his prior landlord and got a great reference. So it was crazy at the time, but pretty smooth when I look back on it. We've only done the one, and I'm hoping I don't have to go through it for awhile.

[resonant]

As a landlord -- should have specified that. We've just learned that one of the spouse's former co-workers would be interested in renting our Corntown house, and that the neighbor next to the property is licensed as a rental property manager, so potentially we could have one source of stress taken off our plates.

[riverlight]

I've never worked with a property manager, but I guess in general my advice would be (and this is so common sense it's probably unnecessary) to make sure you actually trust this property manager to represent you well! (I say this both as a landlord and as a tenant who's currently dealing with a sort of ineffectual property manager.)

Otherwise, I'd say look at a couple of different leases; there's a pretty standard language that's used, but you can also find fairly different versions, and it's worth seeing what some of the contingencies are that other people include in their leases. One thing thing I've found to be key, at least with the insurance folks, is limiting my liability as a landlord—making sure that the tenant can't get at any potential hazards, on the one hand (like wood-burning stoves or roof access) and making sure that I get proof of renter's insurance from them, on the other.

[sara]

My dad used to rent properties out that he'd fixed up. His strong advice has long been that it's better for you to sell a property, if you're not going to be living near enough to supervise its use. When he moved up here from LA, he sold everything he'd been managing.

Part of my job includes managing the apartment attached to Place of Business. I had a pretty horrible time there last year cleaning out a hoarding situation, which had arisen even though I was in the place pretty regularly (the tenant was very good at hiding her issues and psychological manipulation). Cleanup of that ate my entire life last late summer and fall, it was incredibly draining and took a lot of time and many dump trips to deal with. After that, I wrote an annual inspection into the rental contract at the time of contract renewal.

So I suppose what my advice would be is that landlording is usually a moderate pain in the ass and sometimes a massive life-eating pain in the ass, and unless you're going to be doing it in the same way you'd do a regular job (which was how Dad was doing it), I would really recommend against getting into it at all. Nobody ever washes a rental car, and it's not any better for rental houses.

(I am not even getting into the worst landlord horror story, because that involves my mother-in-law.)

[sara]

Oh, and the super-problematic tenant? Was everyone's friend, so the social fallout from the whole situation was INCREDIBLY toxic.

IJS. Given the choice, I would never go there again as long as I live.

[carolyn_claire]

This. It can be very stress creating and draining and can even be a little heart-rending when someone treats a property you care about like a commercial rental property, which is all it is to them, really. People can be incredibly thoughtless, even people who you know and feel you can trust. When they feel stressed, which everyone does, sometimes, your property will be last on the list of things in their life they'll care about taking care of. They may feel guilty about it, but they'll rationalize it somehow, and you can end up with damaged property AND relationships. Plan for it to go badly in some way, for damage of some sort to happen (anything from structural to legal), and decide how you'll deal with that and whether the income now/depreciation later trade-off is worth it. In a poor market, depending on your financial situation, it may be, but if you can afford to wait and sell then I'd say try to do that first.

[sara]

*nods* There's a very real chance that after a tenancy you will need to put more into the property in repairs, before you can put it on the market, than you will have made from renting it out -- compare the cost of new paint and carpets (which it would almost certainly need after a year or two of tenant occupancy) to what you will be getting in income over the course of the proposed lease, and that's assuming nobody sticks a fork in the disposal or stuffs a bunch of wet-wipes down the toilet or whatever.

[carolyn_claire]

...or an insect infestation *shudder*, or cigarette burns and odors (NO ONE honors a "no smoking" clause), or pet damage (ditto "no pet" clauses), or water damage from a neglected pipe drip, or a water line freeze, or a small (or large) fire... The list is unending, and there is no tenant on earth who won't let you in for some part of it, because it isn't their property. That's one of the benefits of renting over owning, for the renter, that they don't have to care, that it isn't their problem. There is no deposit on earth large enough to cover the things that can happen, and good luck getting reibursed in court, if you can even find them once they move out (if you can even GET them to move out). Seriously, renting out your property and letting other people sit your kids in their homes are both the best and worst ways to find out what people are REALLY like, and you usually end up wishing you didn't know.

(When cleaning up after one couple who left without warning, one of whom was a long-time family friend, I found a used butt-plug in the pile of junk along the wall next to where their bed had been. And there was the guy who was friends with some young men who rented one of our units who brought his PC over to use when he hung out with them; the boys we rented to found horrific child porn on it when they snooped on it one day, and the police came to take it and him away. And one lovely elderly man who'd rented from us for years died in his unit; not his fault, of course, but that happens, too.)

[sara]

Yeah, if you're going to do it as a job, it's an actual full-time job, managing a few rental units. I've thought about doing it, on down the road when I'm ready to be out of the nonprofit sector, but I'm pretty handy and also the sort of asshole who'll be puttering around the place at odd hours. *GRIN* It is very hard to landlord a place you're emotional about, which is essentially what I've ended up doing with the unit at work.

Gah. I found *squashed dead rats and lizards* in the unit at work. And SO MUCH GARBAGE. I could not even believe it. I bleached all the floors once the tenant left. And of course it took a million years to get the tenant out (I thought we were going to have to start eviction proceedings, which would have been even more damage to the building, I'm sure). Although no kiddie porn or buttplugs, thank God.

Current tenants are a very nice couple, but then, they first viewed the unit during the end of the previous occupant's tenancy and understand where I'm coming from when I explain that from now on I am going to be a compulsive jerk about inspections and stuff, because I was laid back and look where it got me.

[carolyn_claire]

Yeah, when you think you can take it easier because you know the people, it just bites you in the ass. Even when you're right on top of them, as we are, they still get up to stuff you can't even believe they'd do, because the thought processes of renters and owners are just different. Renters will never, ever be as invested as you are and will feel justified in behaving in ways that, however appalling you think they are, they will assert are none of your business because they have leases and, therefore, rights. Which they do, and the law usually works in their favor, especially if they know how to work it. Sometimes the worst tenants are the most savvy because they've been there and done it before and they know what they can get away with. (Of course, I've just had a pro cleaning crew clean the unit my younger daughter moved back into and lived in with her bf for a year and a half, then didn't clean when she moved out, so. It seems the whole world thinks I was born to clean up after them. Silly world! I don't even clean up after myself.) (Which makes me wonder why I ever expect other people to, now that I think of it.)

[norah]

Try to rent for 1.5x your mortgage payment, if the market allows, to totally break even.

[copracat]

Get a good property manager. My property manager (in Australia) specialises in property management unlike a lot of agents who are mostly about selling property with a sideline in rentals.

[monanotlisa]

It's pretty much a clear deal though: Renters pay a premium precisely for that lack of responsibility; it is the only (I repeat: the only) perk of not owning but renting.

Being who I am on top o' my Germanosity I have -- with the exception of scratches on the floor in one spot due to my swivel-chair -- never done any damage to any place. But on average, I think you are spot on -- the investment is literally a very different one.

[laurajv]

My friend T. started renting out his duplex when he moved out of state, and after having a friend live in the smaller apartment rent-free in exchange for managing for years, he switched to a real property manager and says it is so, so much better.

[brynwulf]

We rented our house in Denver for two years before selling it after we moved. We also rented our basement while living there for three years. We handled everything ourselves and I was very happy doing it. We'd used a property management co. a few years before for another house and I felt like I was still having to do the important things and it wasn't worth a portion of my rent.

If I had to give one piece of advice, it would be to vet your tenants like whoa. Aside from filling out an application, check their credit and references, including past landlords. These people are responsible for not destroying your house. Good luck!!

[carolyn_claire]

There's a difference, though, in not having to worry about things like roof repair or heater maintenance or lawn mowing and choosing not to take care of the living space, keeping it clean and free of pests and pointing out needed maintenance to the owner in time to have it repaired before damage can happen. It's great to not have to put time or money or effort into certain things but wrong not to put effort into others, even when renting. Those renters who treat a place as though it were disposable are the ones I'm primarily talking about.

And even you, a conscientious renter, are aware of damage you've caused to the floor that might upset the owner if it's a property they care about. It's certainly something they'll have to put effort into correcting, and might be something they wouldn't have allowed to happen had they been living there themselves and might expect you to have prevented as well. Not every renter is deliberately or thoughtlessly destructive, I'm not saying that; we've had a couple of good ones. But none of them have had the investment in our property that we do, which surprised and even hurt me in the beginning. Don't people care about the place where they live? How could they not?

Thinking back on my own renting days, back in college, I realize that, when I was renting, I really didn't care that much, either. Before I owned a home, I even thought of landlords as adversaries with no empathy and unreasonable expectations, at times. That was selfishness, of course, and immaturity, but I don't know that I would ever have changed my thinking about it much until I owned property. Then, once you do, you tend to forget to some extent about that renting mindset and are surprised and upset by the way renters behave. It's your home! How could they! But they don't see themselves as guests in your home, and they aren't. They feel it's enough their home, thanks to the lease, that they can treat it as they choose, but not enough their home that they should put any effort into it they don't want to. There's no real way to deal with that, as a landlord, except to understand it and be ready to deal with it. It can be worth doing, but it can be quite fraught, too.

[askye]

There are lots of owners who don't care about their living space or what it looks like and some of them are potential landlords.

Mom had a neighbor across the street trying to rent her house and she couldn't and for some reason she invited Mom in (they were on speaking outside terms but not friends or anything) and Mom was shocked - wood floors with rotten places in every room where the woman's elderly dog had peed on the floor. She'd never had them fixed or replaced and it smelled of pet urine. Piles of clothes and trash (the owner's clothes and trash). And she'd never cleaned up her koi pond (although without koi) like she'd been promising - it was a mosquito breeding algae filled cesspit.

The people who live next door to me, although I've never been in their home, I know they own it. And the outside - mattress and box spring that sat leaning against their shed all winter. The screen door is missing the screen on the top portion, there are shingles missing and holes on their porch roof. They had to cut down a tree and left the wood there from last fall until a few weeks ago. They have a for sale sign up now so I guess that's why they are cleaning up their place.

That's how she lived and that's how she was going to rent her place.

On the flip side my Dad has had the same renter for over a decade. Always pays his rent on time, Dad never hears from the Property Management company about the tenant.

And I rent, have never owned and even though I don't own a place, it's still mine and I maintain it (well except for a few times when I was battling depression and living was just too much). When the toilet seat broke, I went out and replaced it myself instead of waiting for the landlady. When the screw in the housing for the lint catcher in the dryer came off and caused my clothes to catch on it and twist - I went and got the right screws and replaced it quicker than I could contact her. And somehow there's a rip in the vinyl flooring, it's small and the landlady has been in here and hasn't noticed it, but I'm going to fix it.

[julad]

I had my place rented out for a few months before I moved in (I bought it with a tenancy in place that I had to honour). They were good tenants but I was surprised at the amount of effort it took to manage the tenancy. There was insurance and all the other paperwork and costs, there were repairs when things broke, there was storm damage that had to get sorted out, there was a lot of stuffing around with quotes and services and arranging times that suited the tenant, and miscommunications between the tenants and the tradespeople and aaaargh. And all the broken and half-working things that you might rather just put up with, they might want to actually work (!!). So don't underestimate the time and energy commitment.