The Successful Landlord Blog

I was at a tenant’s house today doing some repairs when she asked me if I would be willing to allow them to rent-to-own the house they are renting. While I think that these tenants are on the right track wanting to own a home, I think that they don’t understand what they’re getting into.

I read a book last year (at left) about investors doing this as an investment strategy. Basically, when I was finished reading it, I felt like the focus of their “strategy” is pretty much taking advantage of green home buyers. The authors of this book, in my opinion, specifically advocate practically swindling tenant-buyers, as they call them, by luring them into contracts where, statistically, something like 75% of tenant-buyers never go through with the deal thereby contractually handing the seller-landlord a sizable cash down payment for doing nothing more than entering into a contract.

That just would not sit properly with me. I’m not sure how the investors sleep at night after doing one of these deals. I guess that the Buddhist philosophy says it best. A good deal is one where all parties win.

It’s kind of like when investors buy foreclosures and then rent the house back to the person being foreclosed on. I guess that for the person being foreclosed upon, it may seem like a good deal at the time but I’ve also seen many disadvantaged people (old/poor/sick) renting from their buyer only to be mistreated because they have no hope of being able to move.

So, last Friday I got a lovely certified letter in the mail from the code enforcement department where one of our properties is located. Here are my favorite things about this situation.

1) The notice DOES NOT tell you what the problem is, just that there is a violation with an extremely brief specific description (i.e.- To Wit: Grey commercial vehicle in residential area.) How about a better description and a copy of the city ordinance? They probably just like to get phone calls inquiring what the problem is. Duh! Efficiency in city government? Hello?

2) When you DO call the code enforcement officer to find out what the problem is, he sounds like he’s ready for a fight. Very gruff and short so you have to sweeten him up by being extra polite.

3) In my opinion, if you’re going to pass a city ordinance, ENFORCE IT and do it CITY WIDE!! But no, they wait until somebody complains ( like a neighbor) to then take action. Upon informing the code enforcement officer that that vehicle had been parked there for about a year, he tells me “Well then it’s been in violation for a year.” WTF?!

In my opinion, it’s the owner of the house directly next door. He’s trying to sell it because he’s basically flipping it and probably needs to sell it right away as the housing market continues to tank. Granted, he bought it when there were some strange deadbeat tenants living there. Case in point, they were using a portable commode as a planter…..IN THE FRONT YARD! Did I call code enforcement when I was trying to rent my newly fixed-up place? No. Whatever, my tenant will move his truck and the sale next door will only increase my property value. Thanks! Next!