re: School me on becoming a landlord

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It starts with a well written lease. Did you get help with this? I always had a one on one meeting to sign the lease, and read the lease to the new renter.

My lease explicitly said adding a non-approved tenant was cause for termination of the lease. I had a couple of bad experiences with a tenant that started living at the property after the initial lease. My lease stated that I was not responsible for clogged plumbing issues. It also had wording about not being responsible for accidents.

I have had rentals for 25 years. Having a mindset the you are not going to get aggravated over things that go wrong helps. My wife could never do this, so it is not for everyone. She didn't get involved much due to this.

I didn't sweat the small stuff and that helped. The majority of my renters were ok. But a bad renter is definitely a headache. I had a stressful day job and went into it with the mindset that if I couldn't do this without stressing much, then I would stop.

Expect to have some maintenance issues. Treating maintenance issues as unexpected can cause frustration. Knowing the issues will come up and having the money and ability to respond quickly is a win/win. HVAC systems break. If you are handy and want to save a few bucks, then learn how to replace the capacitor. It seems like every unit I have owned has the capacitor go out during hot days.

I carried a decent amount of liability insurance for many of my years. This is on top of an umbrella policy that is tied to your auto insurance. The cost of liability insurance used to be cheap, but prices rose significantly a few years back, so an LLC is a better path.

I tried to be a good landlord. I was lenient on late fees until a tenant lost my trust. I didn't worry about not collecting a small fee and think it helped my relationship with most of my tenants. I ended up with a number of long-term tenants. I had numerous ones stay 10+ years. A long-term tenant is gold.

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I need to remember this. I should schedule a quarterly walk through

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Needs to be part of your lease.

I didn't do this quarterly, but had wording that I could enter the property with proper notification ahead of time. It stated that I would communicate intention to do so up to 7 days prior, using phone number they provided. My lease states renter was responsible for changing AC filters, and I occasionally went by to inspect. Lease also said that tenant changing door locks was cause for termination. A friend had a tenant change the locks and wouldn't let him in.

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Needs to be part of your lease.

I didn't do this quarterly, but had wording that I could enter the property with proper notification ahead of time.

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Lease states I can enter the property any time with given notice and repairs caused by renter are their expense (clogging the toilet by putting paper towels down it).

The HOA covers everything inside the walls like a main plumbing backup or roof issues so I’m hopeful I can fund most any repair with the security deposit as they shouldn’t be huge in theory.

I’m also separating all cash flow to build up a maintenance and/or vacancy reserve.

Everything this guy said plus have set standards for tenants. Credit scores, rent to income, etc.

Be financially able to spend money on large fixes like water heaters or AC because it will happen.

Our best tenant was a single mom who worked for the local HS. Stable income and OCD with cleanliness. For a good tenant like this we’ll charge under market to keep them as long as possible and avoid turnover costs.

Our worst was an old couple (we inherited when we bought a unit) that had plenty of money but thought since they were old they could just do what they wanted with rent, notice, etc. When they moved they left all of their furniture that we had to dispose of and told my wife she was “not a nice person” for not returning their deposit. They also cracked the tub and we had to have that fixed.