The Successful Landlord Blog

So the couple who signed the lease on my newest vacancy seemed pretty nice…. at first. Now I think they’re in the running for the #1 position on my Most Annoying Whiners list.

I have to admit that the old tenant who had to move out in the middle of the lease, left the place in very good condition. Everything was cleaned, mopped and touched-up nicely.

I guess I should have seen it coming when the new tenants, through their agent, started asking if I would include things like lawn care and garbage collection in the rent. You can guess that my answer, across the board, was a big fat “NO.”

Anyway, they performed their move-in/move-out inspection before signing the lease and everything was acceptable at the time. The following Saturday (in the morning, no less) I received a phone call from the wife of the tenant to tell me that she was scared out of her wits when a cockroach “jumped out at her” while she was cleaning inside a closet. Read the rest of this entry »

So the other day something occurred to me: It seems that where you advertise your vacant rental property can determine the “quality” of potential tenants.

I have found that with the past few vacancies, listing the property in the local Multiple Listing Service (MLS) seems to bring usually qualified, seemingly serious potential tenants with a decidedly lower “dirtbag” quotient.

It seems that when potential tenants show up with a Realtor in tow, they somehow had to convince said Realtor to work with them in the first place. Read the rest of this entry »

So, recently I had a tenant who had been paying his rent late consistently for the last 4 months. Last month, on the 3rd, which is the day before rent is considered late, I received an email from him saying that he will be paying the rent including all late fees on the 24th.

I immediately replied to his email asking if he will be sending next month’s rent as well since it will be due 5 days later. Of course, I received no reply.

In the middle of the month, I received another email from the tenant explaining that he has come into some difficulty with his job and that he thinks that it’s in everyone’s best interest for him to move out since he can no longer afford to pay the rent. He assured me that he would be out by the first of the month. Read the rest of this entry »