OK, just so you know, this isn’t even an eviction. I had a tenant “allegedly” steal a vehicle from another tenant last year at knife point. I know, I get to deal with great people.
Worse yet, this was part of my pilot project to help young kids get off the street by putting them in some of my shared accommodation properties. Now just to add some perspective to this, I am not Mother Teresa, or even close!, part of this was to help fill rooms and some was indeed to try and help people who needed it.
Quick recap on the project, out of 11 tenants, I evicted or assisted nine of them to leave, the other two will never be allowed back. These were 18-24 year old kids who wanted financial assistance, housing assistance and typically had problems at home. The problem with the system I see is they were never made accountable.
They didn’t have to work for their money, they didn’t have to show up for job interviews, they didn’t have to get up in the morning. Also since they didn’t pay for anything and new housing would be found for them, they also weren’t responsible for anything. No smoking, sure, whenever Bill wasn’t around, no overnight visitors, sure whenever Bill wasn’t around. Anyway you get the idea.
Anyway, I will post more either late tonight or tomorrow as the story unfolds!!!
If you follow the Real Estate markets or own rental property it is incredibly easy to get depressed about the current market situation. As you scan the Real Estate headlines and find out sales have dropped 41% from the last year. Or as you can talk to Realtors, who will tell you about the huge amount of inventory currently for sale or you can even talk to your tenants about how they feel you need to lower rents because there are so many vacancies out there. The last trap was the one I fell into with my tenants help.
With this many options and this many negatives, it’s easy to get worried and it’s important to understand where your sources of information come from. My mistake began with talking to a tenant of mine, who was requesting a rent reduction due to the changing market. I am aware there are more vacancies and I know the market is a bit more competitive, I also know what a headache it can be to move. But they were good people so I caved in and ended up offering her a $75 reduction, which wasn’t good enough for her. So I agreed to switch to month to month while they explored their options, without doing any rent reduction!!.So now, here is how the trap unfolded.
When I collected the last monthly rent check, I listened to her story about how she felt bad for landlords like me, since there were so many vacancies out there and so many choices for renters, I may be vacant for quite a while. It was all rather depressing really.
To help elevate the potential depression, I also had another property that was just getting some renovations completed and was currently vacant, plus two more vacancies coming up. It all looked rather glum.
Next, came the reality versus what I had been told by the wrong source, or at least a source with a different agenda. Late one evening as I stressed about how long I would have empty properties, I finally had my ads all written and proceeded to post them online with less than stellar expectations. Much to my surprise by mid morning, I already had my first viewing booked for that day. Then another one came for the following day. Then two more for the other property, then a friend’s son came out of the woodwork interested in the third.
The response took me off guard as I was expecting a disappointing response, but it quickly became better and better. Now the key from my viewpoint is as follows, we like to keep our properties well maintained and updated and this is an example of this tactic paying off. Here we are not even a week later and I have all three properties lined up with new tenants. One will be vacant for less than 24 hours!
When chatting with the actual tenants looking for new places, the real view of the market emerged versus the one I was fed by the current tenant. Yes, there are a significant amount of rental properties out there, many at very low monthly rates. However, it appears there is a reason many of them are languishing on the market and steadily reducing rates and it has nothing to do with an over abundance of vacancies. Rather it has to do with tenants having options of where they want to live and they don’t want to live in dumps!
Resoundingly the tenants informed me that a majority of the “cost effective” properties were not places they would choose to live if they had options. During the economic boom earlier in the decade, people took what they could get, now the landlord and property owners that took advantage of tenants and just pocketed all the profits are feeling the results of their decisions.
So the real message behind this article? You really need to talk to the right people to get the real answers. The neighbour, or the tenant or the Realtor may have an opinion, but you have to do your own research to find out how valid their opinion really is and what is actually happening in the market.
It seems like wingnuts are flying off the shelf these days and I am receiving even more content for a potential book about tenant stories. Here is the email I received the other day in response to one of my weekly rental ads on Kijiji;
I want your condo for 2 days, i m planing on having a party. It’s going to be my Birthday Bash so yeup
let me know if you agree, also let me know how much for a day & i’ll let you know when i want it.
email me asap Please and thank you
So, what do you think, should I contact the person? Seem like a winning solution? Just to show how confounding this is,below is a section from my ad,
To ensure a great experience for our residents the property has the following rules in place;
no smoking in the home
no drugs
no overnight visitors
treat the other guests with respect
no parties
These rules help create a safe quiet environment and also discourage the types of roommates we are sure you do not want to share a place with.
I highlighted a couple spots the potential short term tenant appears to have glossed over! Bottom line, I think I will take a pass and not bother to reply, I know, I could be throwing away money, but sometimes you just have to take a chance and pass on an exceptional offer!
For long distance landlords, property management is essential to their business model and having great property managers can often make the difference between a satisfying experience and a nightmare. Managing remotely can be done, but it can make life a bit more taxing.
For landlords with property nearby, it can be quite a dilemma whether to give up the additional cashflow that you receive for managing your own properties versus freeing up your time by not having to deal with tenants. What a conundrum!
Fortunately, I’ve just been approached by another individual who has recently written a great article covering the pros and cons of property managers. If you are currently exploring whether hiring a property manager is right for you, this may be quite helpful, so be sure to take a read through.
To add to this I would love to get some feedback from anyone who is currently using property managers on the positives and negatives that you could share with the other readers.
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks preparing another of our rental properties for sale and I was handed another reminder of why tenants are not a landlord’s friend. I don’t want this to be taken the wrong way, I am not saying you cannot be friendly and I am not saying you need to create a hostile environment, but you do need to remember a landlord/tenant relationship is a business arrangement.
The Tale of Two Tenants
So, in this property one of the tenants had been with us for almost three years. During this time we had some hiccups, they had fallen behind a few times, managed to catch up, fallen behind again due to the economy and both being laid off, and then eventually caught up again. I even took them to the RTDRS to protect myself, but recommended a Cinderella or Stay order so they could be put on a payment plan rather than a straight eviction which I could easily have obtained. According to any definition, I went above and beyond to help them.
These particular tenants had a couple of dogs as we allowed pets in this property. We had run into some issues during their stay as we had a yard service come through and cut the lawns on a weekly/biweekly basis as there would be evidence of the dogs on the lawn (I will let you figure that out). In these cases, the lawn folks would do the front and leave the back, pretty simple really.
Anyway, now they are gone, they found an incredible opportunity to move to an acreage for less rent and off they went. It was all pretty quick, they gave me about two weeks notice and they actually didn’t even catch up on the money they were behind until after they were out and it involved applying the security deposit to make it balance. For the record, this is not how a landlord should ever use the damage deposit, but this is an example of being too friendly with tenants and should be taken as a lesson.
So once they were gone, I do the tour (no exit walk through as per our systems, once again when you don’t follow your systems, you lose money!) and find the place is looking rough. No, it’s not vandalized; it just wasn’t kept up that well. There is the little stuff, like the dust on the fan blades in the living room that looks like feathers on the edges it’s so thick, the ripped and torn screens on the windows and the patio possibly from the dogs looking out. There are the dust bunnies that are lying in the corners, hanging from the ceiling and on every cold air intake and fan. The sign that it has been months or possibly even years since a good cleaning was done behind furniture and it has only become apparent once furniture was removed from the property.
Then there are slightly more annoying things, like the three kitchen knobs broken off or missing, the myriad of wall anchors and dents in the walls that need patching, the missing and removed closet doors. Finally, there is the badly worn hardwood floor that needs refinishing due to possibly a rocking chair with a nail or staple that dug into the floor damaging it quite severely along with a myriad of scratch marks throughout the floor from animals and moving furniture. Oh and I mustn’t forget the large burn mark on the deck railing (the deck needs to be replaced anyway, but still).
I’ve already spent about fifteen hours patching and painting walls, I’ve brought a contractor in to get the entire front deck replaced, new windows are on order and I am preparing to get the entire floor refinished and as I am doing all of this, I have plenty of time to reflect. Especially as I paint, and it hit me the one day, this is not how a friend would leave your place. At least a friend you want to keep.
Tenants as a generality are just renting space, they get to move on and leave the wealthy landlord (whether he is wealthy or just scraping by, he owns property so renters like to assume he is wealthy) with the place when they move on. I’m not saying all tenants are like this, but I am reminding you of why you need to treat it like a business, and as a counter point let’s look at tenant number two!
The Other Tenant
So now, I am onto the tenants in the lower suite of the same property. These folks moved to Alberta a year ago from Ontario and owned their own home, but weren’t going to purchase here yet until they determined it was where they wanted to be.
During the time they were with us, they never missed a payment or fell behind. They called us a couple of times when there were any property problems and updated us right away so we were able to send out the necessary repair people or take appropriate actions to remedy the problems before they became serious. When their lease was coming up, they gave us two months notice they were moving as their job was located in the deep South and the property was in the NW. The commute was killing them, although they loved the suite, so moving made perfect sense.
When I arrived to do the exit walk through, the place was virtually spotless, not a burnt out light in the place, and the battery was even working in the smoke detector (not so true upstairs as they had removed the battery there!). The only problem was a couple of large anchors in the wall in one room where they had attached part of a desk. In comparison to the upstairs unit that was insignificant!
Comparison Time, What Was The Difference?
So what was the difference, or differences? Well the lower tenants had owned their own home and I have to assume took more responsibility for their place. The upper tenants had become “friends” (not the type I invite over for dinner or call to chat with, but possibly more the type who take advantage of you once or twice before you push them away) and possibly felt I could take care of their mess.
They were done with the space and simply wanted away, so they left. With the damage deposit applied as rent, I had no payments from them at a minimum of a thousand dollars of cleanup, wall repairs and painting. It’s true that I would have painted anyway after having a tenant in for that long, but it’s the tenant’s responsibility to leave the property in the same shape as they originally occupied it.
The Lesson
You really have to focus on your business as a landlord. When you let relationships get in the way of business, it can cost you money. Sure times have been tough the last couple of years for people, but if you let your tenants get to close, times can be tough for you too as you take responsibility for their actions, or lack of actions. There has to be a line between helping people out and ensuring you and yours are taken care of. Sometimes it’s a fine line, other times it can be very definitive, it depends on your emotional makeup to a degree, but remembering this is a business can hopefully help you ensure you are standing on the correct side of the fine line! It comes down to this, tenants are not your friends, they are your business partner in a rental property and you need to treat them as this.
Have any of you tried to help someone who was a tenant? Or do you feel a tenant took excessive advantage of you? Share some of your stories here to help remind others of where that line is. I look forward to hearing from you.
I had hoped to have my eviction package all complete by now, but time has managed to get away from me and the project keeps expanding. Currently I am just finishing page four of the outline up, I already have about a dozen pages written and I have ideas for about a dozen more! My original deadline of December 31st is long past, but I will keep working away.
I was just checking some of the stats earlier today and I have had over 300 hits on the blog all directly related to evictions in Alberta. Obviously people are looking for information, I might as well be the one to supply it! If I have helped you previously with an eviction, or you have suggestions about what to include, I would love to hear from you so I can help guide the next person in a similar situation.
My goal is for the completed work to have the whole process covered from whether you need to provide a 14 day eviction notice to the final steps to regaining possession of your property from a tenant.
This particular post could have also been titled “Google Knows All”, but it does revolve around tenants, so I thought I would share. Hopefully there are a couple lessons and some laughter for everyone in this.
Around mid December I received an email from a lady named Marla for my mixed residence shared accommodation property, it looked like this;
What is ur address? I am looking for a place
temporarily. I am a non smoker and very quiet..
Other than bad spelling it looked acceptable, perhaps she just texts a lot which accounts for the “ur”? I responded by provided the district (I don’t like to give out the address until I can confirm it is worth my time) and at the same time asked when she needed a place.
She replied back as early as the upcoming Friday and asked for the address and inquired if she could see it first. We passed a few more emails back and forth and then I received a call from a private number the next day from a lady asking the same questions. I asked if the lady was Marla and she said yes (should have been a sign that she didn’t mention it first!!) and we set up a 2:00 meeting on the Friday at the property.
As is my practice, I asked her to give me a call about an hour prior to the meeting in case something came up and to verify I wouldn’t get stood up. She immediately said no, she couldn’t. Ok, that should have been warning sign number two, but we had a couple vacancies, it wouldn’t be too far out of my way, so I said fine, no problem.
Now I had two lawyers meetings that Friday morning and late Thursday afternoon the second lawyer’s office called and informed me we would have to move the meeting to 2:00. This was a refinancing that had to be done before Christmas, so I had to accept the new time, but now I didn’t have a number to contact Marla, and she wasn’t going to call.
Fortunately I did have her email address, so all I could do was email her and hope she read it prior to leaving to meet me. Luckily enough she did receive it Friday morning and called me. I explained the situation and we rescheduled for Saturday at 1:00. Being the “nice guy” I am, I explained it’s for reasons like this I like people to call an hour prior. Since the Saturday stop was semi on my way home from other rent collection it would work.
Anyway Saturday rolls around, I complete my rent collection early, get to the property about 45 minutes ahead of schedule and start doing some work while I wait. This property has an onsite manager, but he had to work the Friday and the Saturday, otherwise he normally would have met and shown the property.
So it is a few minutes before 1:00 and Dave the manager suddenly appears, he ended up not having to work that day, so I said perfect, he could hang out and meet Marla and show her the place. So I packed up, headed home and then checked up with him about an hour later, Marla never showed up.
Here I had worried about her the previous time, made an exception and strayed from my system of calls an hour before and in the end it just wasted my time and Dave’s. This however is where it really starts to get interesting, or should I say fun?
I festered over it the remainder of the weekend and Monday morning I sent an email off to Marla that read like this;
I hope you can understand now why I ask people to call an hour prior to the viewing, it saves the hour plus of wasted time I had sitting at the property only for you to not show up. Just another reminder to me why I shouldn’t make exceptions.
Merry Christmas
Well my new best friend Marla took exception to this and later in the afternoon I received this back, just without any asterisks in it;
F**k you you Canadian scum. I don’t know you and don’t bother me again or my boyfriend and his buddies will punch your f**kin head in .
Oh my gosh, did I hit a nerve?!!! A threatening email, what should I do? At this point I had a couple of options; drop it in case the threat was real, or push buttons. Since I am a natural button pusher I went that route.
There is where the “Google knows all” comes into play. I simply plugged her email address into Google and did a search and lo and behold I had pages and pages of links with her email address in it. **For you landlords, this is a great way to find out more about your potential tenants as well, think of it as a unique screening technique to acquire additional information about your tenant.
From the web search, I was able to ascertain the following. She had a history of placing ads in the Rossland, Kelowna, Trail, Selkirk and Nelson areas offering to housesit. She offered excellent references and would also pet sit. As I looked through more of the ads, she also rented out furnished rooms in properties, hmmm.
Now I am only assuming this, but from what I could see she was getting free places to stay, then subletting rooms out and making some quick cash, nice little scam. Flipping through more of the ads she had posted, she was now offering to housesit in Calgary, Canmore and Vancouver in separate ads over the holidays, so I am sure she was just between places when she found me and was waiting for an “opportunity” to open up.
It only became better the more I looked as I also found her putting ads out as a qualified legal assistant experienced with family law, personal law and litigation and as a medical records assistant with plenty of experience. and as a housekeeper, also with plenty of experience. The kicker was when I found one of her ads renting a place out in BC with her BC phone number. This led to me sending out the following email back to her;
I thought with your background you would have been slightly more eloquent? The problem with the internet is that is makes a wonderful shield for threats and bravado when in reality it just makes the threatener feel better about themselves. Maybe you need to go back to all your old haunts like Rossland and Nelson and continue with your house sitting program. After all with your excellent references you should have no problem finding a place outside of Calgary to housesit over the holidays.
Don’t threaten to send your boyfriend after me, if you have one, I don’t live at the property which is why I originally asked you to call in advance. If you want your boyfriend to come find me, call an hour in advance! With your previous litigation experience ( or could it pertain to personal injury law? Definitely not family law?) you should be well aware this email you sent me wouldn’t help your case. Anyway, I am done with you, unless you want to push it, so remember the internet offers only partial anonymity. If you do want to push it you can reach me at 250-308-XXXX, ooops sorry, that’s your old number.
Merry Christmas
My wife particularly liked how I ended by my emails to her with Merry Christmas. Oh and I did include her phone number without the XXXX’s as well.
Strangely enough that was the last I heard from her? So a couple lessons to be learned from this. 1) Don’t stray from your systems, in my case if I would have stuck to my guns and demanded the call an hour before I would have recovered some of my time and never had to deal with this. 2) Google Knows All, if you don’t want your information on the internet, don’t use it, otherwise be careful what you say or do, Google your name someday to see what comes up, you may be surprised. It can also be a useful tool for checking out potential tenants.
The positive part of all this is one more chapter in a potential book, so thanks for that Marla and thanks for providing what I hope was an entertaining post. If you have some fun tenant stories I would love to hear them!
I receive a considerable amount of emails and searches on our blog regarding evictions every week and quite often, it is the same or very similar questions. Here is a list of my top five eviction questions to help you out.
1) Alberta Eviction Question One – Can a tenant be evicted in the winter in Alberta?
a. It’s cold outside, the weather can be frightful, but yes if a tenant doesn’t pay their rent or causes a serious breach of the rental agreement they can be evicted. The tenant and the landlord have a contract that both sides have to uphold and is regulated under the Residential Tenancies Act of Alberta.
2) Alberta Eviction Question Two – Can a landlord cut-off utilities to make a tenant leave?
a. Absolutely not, if the landlord shuts off heat, water or any other utility that he is responsible for paying they can be fined and find themselves in a very bad spot. The secondary question that comes with this is no, you cannot take the front door away for repair either, nor can you change the locks on the tenant without going through the proper procedures.
3) Alberta Eviction Question Three – How expensive is it to evict a tenant?
a. If you go through the Residential Tenancy Dispute Resolution Service (RTDRS) there is a $75 filing fee to have a hearing. If the hearing officer decides in your favour, the tenant is responsible for paying you the $75. Unfortunately collecting the outstanding $75 can be much harder than winning the hearing. If you win the hearing and the tenant still does not vacate it can cost you another $400 to hire a bailiff and have the tenant removed.
b. There are also full service eviction companies that will charge you from $600 to $1,000 and up for the service and depending on how much additional work is required the fee will continue to increase.
4) Alberta Eviction Question Four – Do I need a bailiff to evict a tenant?
a. For most evictions, you can complete the entire process yourself through the RTDRS and may not require a bailiff. The only time during the eviction process that you absolutely require the bailiff is if the tenants receive an order from eviction and do not vacate the premises. At this point, you require a bailiff to serve the tenant(s) with the writ of possession which gives you your property back and allow you to legally change the locks and allow the police to charge the tenants with trespassing if they return.
5) Alberta Eviction Question Five – What is the fastest way to evict a tenant?
a. Each circumstance is different, but generally, the quickest method is to file immediately with the RTDRS and get a hearing date. This will be the quickest sure fire method to evict a tenant. You can provide a 14 day eviction notice to a tenant, and then if it appears they will not be vacating you can file at RTDRS, but it will add an additional week or more to the process.
b. In the case of a tenant causing serious damage to the property or threatening the landlord or other tenants, you can provide them with a 24 hour eviction notice. Once again, if they do not vacate you still have to file with the RTDRS and go through the process.
Hopefully these provide you with some answers that help you move forward, either as a landlord or as a tenant. As a bonus, here is one additional eviction question. Alberta Eviction Bonus Question – How long does an eviction take?
If you follow the systems we recommend (including properly screening tenants), a landlord can have their property back and the tenants evicted in approximately 15 days. Depending on the circumstances, the hearing officer may allow the tenant to stay on and make additional payments to catch up outstanding rent on a set schedule. If they miss any of the payments on this set schedule, you can take your property back within a few days.
If you are a landlord and found this site while you were searching for eviction help please take a minute to register so you can receive any further updates we have regarding evictions, landlording, and what is happening in the Alberta economy and Real Estate market. Click here to Register to receive updates.
I’m still working on a walkthrough to help landlords with evictions and updates on it will also be sent out as it nears completion. It will include hints and advice to help streamline the process and to make it most effective for landlords, so if you want to be in the loop be sure to register. Register to receive updates.
Finally if you have some eviction stories, insights or questions to leave me a comment and I will answer back as quickly as possible! HEre is some more additional eviction information for you;
Hi! I am very interested in renting from you. How long wouldI be able to stay? And what are the monthly rates?
You can respond to “sleaze.queen@h******.com” by replying to this email.
So what do you think? Should I rent to her? People, take a minute to think about how your email address represents you! Hopefully it’s just a prank email, but unfortunately it probably isn’t. On the positive, my book of landlord/tenants stories grows a page a day lately!
For those looking for a picture for the post, sorry, everything I found wasn’t appropriate!! This is the best I could come up with.
Do you realize the number one search string that brings people to this site is hinged around the word eviction? Ironically for the last three or four months my entire life has revolved around evicting problem tenants who believe they have the right to disrespect my properties, don’t find it necessary to live by societies, never mind my rules and who are trying to take advantage of my trying to initially help them.
Along the way, I have also run into a steady stream of other landlords and investors with similar problems. I haven’t been able to help all of them, but I have been able to help the majority ease their fears and concerns about the process. After some prompting over a bottle of wine (or more) about opportunities out there, a thought came into play.
I guess it’s finally time to take advantage of my experiences and turn them into a tool to help other landlords. I’m currently in the process of putting a package together that will walk people through the eviction process in Alberta, it will explain the steps, the costs, the potential pitfalls and your various options. Anyone out there interested in this? There will be a cost associated with it, but considering the costs that can run up with a bad tenant it will be very affordable.
I’ll potentially be looking for a couple of people to review it and I should have a draft available by the end of November. Let me know if you would like to be one of those people, if I get a flurry of people it will end up being a random draw of some type (with preference going to people with excellent grammar!). With any luck, it should be available for purchase and as a giveaway to lucky readers sometime in December, unless of course I get stuck in more evictions!
If you wish to be updated and you were brought here by the search engine, or have friends who don’t read this blog, but have eviction problems, simply register on the site and you will be notified when it is ready! Register by clicking here. If you can also take a minute and please answer the polls below it would be appreciated because they will help me with some questions I have!
The story of SWAT boy carrys on, and it just keeps getting better, fortunately I am trying to take the positive lessons from this. First I screwed up. Everyone take note, don’t fill out eviction forms when you are frustrated and in a rush. You make mistakes.
It’s embarrassing to mention, but I pulled some doosies on this one, I spelt the tenants name wrong, left out a letter in his name, and didn’t change the date on the form. Unfortunately the tenant noticed this. He had contacted Landlord and Tenant Services to find out his rights (or what responsibilities he could avoid more realistically), and I am not sure if they walked him through the eviction form or he discovered it himself. He contacted me Monday to inform me he was writing a letter of objection against the eviction and if I wanted him out I would have to take him to court. I was pretty upset, but he got me, my error.
Step two, I stopped by the house and picked up the objection letter Tuesday. I had to wake him as he was on the couch with a couple of empty beer cans visible (it was after 12, barely!), so much for the detox sticking. He was a bit off, so I can only assume there were more than two beers involved, he eventually told me the letter was on the table, nope not there, looked around confused and pointed to a side table and then walked over, grabbed it and gave me his hand written letter.
I grabbed it and started to walk away, no sense wasting my time there, I already had my plan in place. This irritated him to no
Little bit angry!
end. He started getting quite upset and asked why I wasn’t going to stay and read it. I told him it wasn’t necessary. Guess I hit the right button.
I quickly read through it and this is where he pointed out the name, the date and the address being wrong (the address was actually correct as I used the titled address, but he doesn’t need to know that). It also said that he wasn’t smoking it was someone else (did I mention ditch responsibility) and that I said it was ok to drink in the house. After reading it I simply said fine and started to walk away.
Once again the mood swing went out of control as he started to get mad and yelling at me about messing this affecting people’s lives. I just kept walking out and he then started to swear at and about me as I continued to leave. I’m a little confused, if I am the worst landlord ever and this is such a horrible place why is he fighting so hard to stay?
Anyway, according to Landlord and Tenant his letter of objection makes my eviction null and void which now means I can just go directly down to the Residential Tenancy Dispute Resolution Service and file for a court hearing for next week. I just finished my paperwork before starting this post. Twenty pages in total and three copies of it are required for filing.
This isn’t my biggest file I have taken in, but definitely interesting. I will keep you posted!
Because SWAT showed up you moron and that counts as the final strike! The full SWAT story is available here, Has Police Tactical Visited Your Rental Property Lately? So by the title, you can guess I had an interesting day Sunday. I had to stop to collect some rent for November 1st and the yahoo who triggered the police tactical event a week ago finally had some money for me. So I stopped in.
I don’t get it, as much as I like to think I am a smart person, these people, and yes, I have now resorted to calling many of my shared accommodation tenants “these people” just don’t think as I do. He brought up the eviction right away and mentioned the date h was supposed to be out was the 4th, but then proceeded to tell me how he had the money for me so he should be able to stay, and then showed me how clean the place was. He also brought up how he had checked Craig’s list and could get a place just like that if he wanted.
He had also obviously put some suck up time and energy into improving the cleanliness of the property. He even cleaned inside the microwave and the floors and made sure to point it out to me! Nice work, so I thanked him and told him he still had to go. Has anyone else ever seen a lead balloon? I became witness to one right then and there!
To say he was unhappy with me might have been an understatement. He complained about how much work it was going to be for him to move again, he told me how he was comfortable there, how he liked the size of the room. Then he complained about having to call his brother and get his brother to help him move as he had a vehicle and it was going to be a hassle for his brother. I just stared at him.
When he finally realized I wasn’t changing my mind and the only thing moving was him, that was when the comments about how I was one of the worst landlords ever. How I was a certain piece of male anatomy for not keeping a clean responsible tenant (I may have neglected to mention this clean responsible tenant only a couple weeks out of detox, who I had carried during this time as he wasn’t working and couldn’t pay, also smelled of booze while talking to me). It deteriorated a bit more from there, so I started to leave.
I almost made it to the door when one last crack about me not helping people and being a p*^%& made me stop and walk partially back in. As I looked at him, I realized it was just a lose lose situation and anything I said or did was only going to elevate things, so I just turned and walked out to the sound of more yelling and a slamming door from his room.
As I was driving around to my other stops that afternoon, I replayed it all back in my head and after first reminding myself about how many people I have helped, how many tenants I have provide great homes for and how many times I had been ripped off by the majority of these tenants, I just became more irritable. Being a landlord really is a thankless job. You try and provide a safe comfortable place, yet you are a money grubbing land baron in their eyes.
Now the current type of tenant I was dealing with could not ever be deemed a fine upstanding citizen in anyone’s eyes, and I have had some incredible guys stay in these properties as well as our regular rentals, but it just wears a person out. The bad people always leave a much more indeligible mark on our memories versus the wonderful people we have dealt with and unfortunately the bad memories leave a far heavier impact than the good ones. The more I thought about this fellow the more I realized he wasn’t taking any responsibility for anything. I was a jerk (or worse) not him, the police over reacted (still doesn’t quite add up) not him, the other fellow made him drink he didn’t do it himself, he didn’t think it would hurt if he smoked in the house on occasion, and the list goes on. What was he responsible for? Making the place clean and wonderful, but none of the bad things that occurred, they were all someone else’s fault.
This seems to be the biggest fault of so many people these days. They just won’t own up to their responsibilities. I understand no one is perfect, I am far from it, but when I screw up I take responsibility, when people depend on me I take responsibility, when I screw up, I take the blame. If you have to go around hiding from responsibility, pushing blame at others and avoiding being a grown up, you will never amount to anything, or if you do, it won’t last. You will be a fleeting success and as you come crashing down, you will come down hard.
During these tougher economic times, I am seeing more and more examples of this, more and more individuals pushing responsibility away and saying it is someone else’ problem. Whether they believe the government should take care of them or the landlord has to carry the cost of supporting them, whatever the case, they just feel it is not their responsibility and pass the buck.
It should be an interesting day Wednesday, since it’s not his fault my tenant is getting evicted, perhaps it won’t be his fault that he trashes my property. However it plays out, I will keep everyone posted!
Just so you know, you the readers are my best source of topics and posts. So if you have a question about Real Estate, being a landlord or wondering what the hell I do, send me an email or post a comment. That is where today’s Landlord Tip came from.
A reader emailed me and asked if it was better to show his property before prospective tenants viewed other properties or after. The context was whether it’s better to be the 6:00 appointment after work or the 8:00 after they have viewed three or four other places.
I have two components to this answer. The first one is, I love to have tenants see my property and allow me to set the bar higher than the average rental property out there. Due to our standards we strive to have rental properties that are in the top 25% of the properties out there. If you are going to do something do it right. By being in the top 25% we know a) we stand out from the crowd, b) people automatically prefer our properties to 75% of the places out there and c) we can charge a premium for a better product!
By talking to prospective tenants you get a pretty good picture of what they have already seen (you are talking to your tenants about other places aren’t you?). Typically in our area if they have looked at three properties there are two they have deemed unsuitable already. 50% of the properties for rent these days are for rent because the tenants have more choices and are able to move out of places that landlords don’t maintain. So if 50% are essentially crap, I’m only competing with one other, so it’s perfect they see mine first.
The other component is, if they view mine last, they know what property they like best. I can control the situation better by getting the application filled out on the spot and pointing out the best features of my property to reinforce how great it is. If I was the first property they saw, they would either have had to fill out the application with you already, or taken it with them to fax back. This takes a bit of the control away from you if they have to fax it back, or you have to follow up with them to see what is going on. Plus it takes more time!
One other thought to throw in. If your property has huge windows, great views and really shines when the sun is out, make sure the sun is out when you show it. If that is the biggest selling point it doesn’t make sense to show the property at 8:00 when the sun is down.
If however the property may be a bit lower than your standards, by all means who it at night where the lighting is worse. Just remember you want to strive to be in the top tier to be really successful, this means great properties, not substandard.
I will ask this in a separate post, but did anyone listen to the audio stream on the previous post? Would love to get some feedback about it!
I told you I had made some upgrades, so here is a new option, if you want to listen to this bonus tip, it’s available just above, so click on the arrow above (or triangle whatever you think it is) to get hear the new audio version!
I like to throw in a couple bonuses in these tips and that includes bonuses for the tenants. You have gone through the work, you have screened the tenants and you finally have your new tenant picked out. It would be nice if your work is done, but there are a few more steps you can take do to make you a memorable landlord.
Many landlords I know provide gift baskets to the tenants that include everything they might need to get started. A few snacks, some of the small sample size laundry detergents and other household items. It can make a wonderful first impression. Our little trick is to leave a couple of nice bath towels in the closet with a note welcoming them to their new home. You can pick up on the towels months in advance and stock up when they are on sale!
How about tenant handbooks? These can be presented to the tenants when they move in and you do the walk through checklist with them. Then you can leave their copy of the checklist in the front sleeve of the binder. Inside the binder, you can include all the house and area information that you already prepared for the info sheets, but in more detail.
We include location of water shut off valves, furnace filter size for units with furnaces, manuals for all appliances and any specialty items like digital thermostats. Of course, make sure you have copies of most of this info for your own records! We also like to grab some of the menus that come in the junk mail and throw them in the binder as well. It’s always a challenge when you first move to an area to find some of the local delivery places and this can really help new tenants.
Of course, we have our contact information in the book, but it’s also good practice to have the information somewhere where they can quickly access it in an emergency. We have a small piece of paper that has emergency numbers on it, along with some of our most trusted contractors so they can call them directly if need be, that we laminate and Velcro into their cupboard door close to the kitchen phone jack.
It’s also important that you put the emergency numbers in the correct order on this sheet. 911 goes on the top, police numbers and fire numbers and then other emergency numbers with yours at the very bottom. If there is a true emergency such as a fire, the idea is they call 911 first and tell you later.
Hopefully this is another batch of enjoyable information for everyone, if you have suggestions you would like to add or comments please feel free to add them.
I just found this great video that explains how some of the rental scams are being run. This is some great information for any landlords who run ads on the internet (which better be anyone who reads this blog!).
Enjoy and did I mention I am figuring out new things with this latest update?
Loading ...
