/diy/ - Do It Yourself

do it, but find a good contractor, plumber and lawyer.

then you're set.

>>360866
>not doing it yourself
begone heathen

Just make sure you understand the law. Theres a lot of little things that can come back to bite you. Otherwise its a great idea. Even better if youre a good handyman.

>>360882

>doing contracting, plumbing, and law yourself

The first two are basically illegal, the third is just unwise.

>>360885
Doing your own plumbing/contracting is not illegal if you are qualified yourself.

In fact, in some counties you don't even need to be qualified; you just have to own the property and you can do whatever the fuck you want with it.

I'm a landlord/property manager. Have been for almost 20 years.
Don't do it. It's horrible work, and you'll usually be dealing with the worst humanscum possible.
Some cities, Every State, and the Federal Government all have seperate codes for Landlord Tenant Law and Fair Housing. It's a nightmare, where you as a Landlord have ZERO rights

And YES, the ONLY way to make money at the job is to do as many of the repairs and maintenance YOURSELF as possible.
Real Estate Taxes, Property Taxes, Insurance are things that will eat away your profit margins; adding a handyman on top of that...
Oh, and NEVER, EVER, purchase a investment property on a mortgage. If you cannot pay 75% of the value of the house you want to rent out in CASH, you shouldn't even consider being a landlord.
IF, you have a property, and you buy with a mortgage, and then for some reason you get foreclosed, the tenants CAN and WILL SUE YOU!
So, you end up with a foreclosure on your record, your credit trashed and a judgement for a couple thousand dollars.

In fact, I now have to go to one of my houses because the tenants BROKE the furnace, I had a 3 hour drive to even get parts for that type of furnace, then go to that house and have them complaining TO ME about how they don't have heat.

>>360942
>ONLY way to make money at the job is to do as many of the repairs and maintenance YOURSELF as possible

Some of the major repairs you may have to hire out, if you don't have the skills, tools, time to do them yourself, but you will make NO money if you don't do all the crappy jobs yourself.

>>360852
>hurr durr I'll just buy houses and rent them, infinitie moneys!

Go talk to some landlords and you'll find out what a headache being a landlord is. Tennants who won't pay and take months and months to evict, tennants who do countless thousands in damages and won't pay for it, tennants who badger you constantly to fix things and/or upgrade things.. the list goes on and on.

>>360852
Yes.

My best advice is to not do that. Instead, take your money and invest it in metals like copper, gold, silver, platinum, and palladium.

It'll be so much less hassle.

>>361008
>tennants who badger you constantly to fix things and/or upgrade things
As an ex-tenant, I don't see how it's my fault if the landlord buys a cheap crappy washing machine that breaks 5 times a week or cheap lightbulbs that burn out in a few weeks and so on and so forth.

If you want an easier time of it, it's best to rent a high-quality apartment with high-quality fixture to the better sort of tenant (do a million background checks if you have to) and charge $$$$$$$ for the privilege.

Of course, if you had the money to do that, you wouldn't be on 4chan...

>>360942
I've been a on site landlord for over 3 years. I've broken even every year so far on my taxes.
I screen my tenants(who if they are really interested in the unit will pay for their own background check.)
This has weeded out so many people you would not believe. Do I get less hits? Yes. But whats left is people who can pay their rent on time.
Its easy so long as you don't automatically think you'll make bank. I live on one side as well so that cuts down on costs and I'm always there if something breaks. I don't understand slum lords.

my parents are in the real estate business. they basically tell me that commercial real estate >>> residential real estate. but i'm pretty sure you cannot afford commercial real estate.

Former renter, current landlord here. I rented a ton of places over the years. Last place was a duplex and when the owner retired and move to Florida I offered to buy the place. I live in one unit and rent the other. Few years back I bought another duplex next door. Let me tell you having an on site landlord puts the fear of GOD into some people.

This is a college town so turnover is pretty high with all the graduations and shit. I'll take all types if I think you're good for it. Every time a unit goes up for rent I get about 2 dozen applicants in the first week. First, I meet with every got damn one until I find a few renters I like. Next I do background checks and call references. If they are in school I ask them what their grades and majors are. I ask them to show me a grade transcript too.

I tell people strait up no drugs, no parties, cops better not show up for anything, no people not on the lease staying over and a ton of other shit. Its all in the lease and legal where I live. Yeah yeah, sure sure, they all say. Oh, and by the way, I live in unit B next door. I've had people get up and leave right then and there. Not even a well, I have to think about it an call you back, just no thanks, bye. In the early years I caught people smoking pot, smoking meth, tripping on LSD on the roof (funny story there), beating the shit our of their kids/dogs, prostituting themselves out of the unit, you name it.

I even had a guy that ran a car detailing business in the front driveway. The units are old and have a combine water meter so I have to pay for water. He thought he was going to save a mint on water and stick me with the bill. I got his ass in the end. Long story short you gotta have a damn good lease and know what you can and can't do.

Now I'm a better judge of character and have a solid lease agreement. I have 3 units to rent and a day job so I can handle it if I have long vacancies. My rules to follow.

Buy Mediterranean and Baltic right off the bat. It's cheap to put hotels on them and is a fairly steady flow of cash. I usually do well if I aim for Marvin Gardens, Ventnor and Atlantic after that. It's a decent strategy to just purchase everything you land on at the start.

Not a fan of the railroads/utilities, but I'll usually nab them for trades. People hurr over having them as a set even though they almost never get landed on.

Do intense background checks on applicants. If they have committed any sort of crime before they will continue that activity and drive out your other tenants. If they have been evicted before then they will not pay rent.

It is better to have an empty unit than a bad tenant. Always err on the side of rejecting bad applicants. If an applicant looks OK but brings over a friend who looks like a scumbag, don't rent to him no matter what he says about that friend just looking with him.

Do not rent to people who are getting their first month's rent from a charity. Do not rent to homeless people under any circumstances. Do not rent to black people under any circumstances. You won't believe me, and you'll make that mistake. Then you'll make exceptions and keep making that mistake. That's OK, just remember that I told you so.

Most scam artists don't want to get the police involved. Stay within the bounds of the law most of the time, but there are exceptions. If you want a renter gone urgently, changing the locks is an option. They'll whine and threaten to call the cops, but they're bluffing. Install cameras to make the place look unfriendly to criminals - it's impossible to filter them all out with background checks, but if you can get them to filter themselves out then you won't have to deal with them.

The rules:

Iron clad fucking lease. If it fits on a single legal sized document its not good enough. Seriously, cover EVERYTHING. Even parking spaces. Even if they can have a water bed. Even if they can have lit candles. And don't just get a copy form the local real estate management place.

Know your renters. Call references. Call former landlords. Ask them questions. Why'd you leave your old place. What is your job? How much do you get paid? Etc. Feel them out. If you get a bad feeling, let them pass. Better to lose a months rent in finding someone than have the place trashed or have non-payment of rent.

Know the god damn laws. Anyone thats says landlords have no rights is an ignorant tard. I'm in California and I don't have a problem evicting people. Sure, it takes time but I win in the end and I always get whats owed. Half the time landlords get fucked before they don't know what THEIR responsibilities are and get caught out, not the tenants fucking something up. I got a jerk landlord back when I still rented because he thought he had 4 months to return my security deposit and he was a cheap fuck. Its 6 weeks here. My $800 deposit, with a little time in court, became $1,200 plus court fees.

Have a large buffer of liquid assets to use for emergencies. What if you can't rent the place for 6-8 months? What if the HVAC dies? What if a pipe bursts and floods the place? What if the roof needs to be replaced? Or the septic tank fails? That shit can get expensive fast. Have it covered.

Do regular inspections. Every 3 months at least. One landlord I had did them every time he picked up the rent check. It was in the lease and he always sent a written notice a week in advance reminding me to have the money on hand and for a walkthrough. He always asked if there was any problems, if I needed a new HVAC filter, how the water heater was working, that kind of shit. Best landlord ever and by god did I keep the place cleaner than any place I have ever lived in.

>>361328
>>361336

sounds like 99% of the people will be homeless then.

>>361338

Regarding >361336, hes got his thinking cap on. Jaded as hell but hes not stupid. >361328 is just a racist fuck and is breaking the law in some cases. That said, it may well be true in his area.

The thing about people who rent is, generally, they can't afford better. What blows my mind is their are some places in this country were land is so cheap a weeks pay would buy it for you and people STILL rent there. That says something about them. They also have no skin in the game. They don't have to pay for most of the shit that goes wrong so they just use it and abuse it. That is why you have to comb through all the shit tenants to find the goods ones.

There are places that rant to these people, they are called slums. If you want to be a slum lord, go ahead, take anybody. You will make money at it, no doubt, but its not worth the hassle in my book. Buy an upscale place, rent it for a lot of money, that right there weeds out 3/4th of the problem tenants right there. Not being a moron, doing background checks and being responsible takes care of most of the rest.

dont do business in california

No. Dogs.

No Dogs.
Not one, not just this once, not 'just for me'. No Dogs.

Children Might be as destructive but they are rarely dedicated and thorough enough to tear up Every door or chew out All of seals of the dishwasher. Plus it is easy to exclude dogs, trickier to exclude children.

Get some real legal advice and have a quality lease written up for you. This will pay itself back in all of the dead-beats you can kick out and fees you can keep later.

Have pictures of everything, receipts for everything. Remember to scan/copy receipts for your files because thermal printers fade almost overnight (it seems)

And in most cases, don't install carpeting. You will get tired of replacing it. And you will often need to replace it.. Speaking of replacing things, be ready to repaint and re-tile (especially mid-to-cheap stickon tiles) every single time.

>>361365
Cats are far worse than dogs when it comes to indoor living. Some are okay, but some, even neutered males and spayed females will habitually spray their surroundings. In which case it can be fucking terrible and permanent.

Good call on carpeting.

>>361346
The purpose of a business is to make money. Black people won't pay rent after they move in, so after the costs of evicting them you'd be better off financially by not renting to them in the first place. Wanting to make money as a business owner is not racist.

>>361377

Yeah, cause thats all black people. No dude, its just black people where you live. Where I live its the fucking whites that do this. Population is 60% white, 35% Hispanic. All our brown neighbors, even the illegal ones, pay their rent on time. Its always the white trash or the daddies little girl that snorted her rent check thats getting kicked out around here. Sure the Mexicans have a million kids and almost as many cars part out front but they keep quiet and are nice when you talk to them.

That your experience in your area? No? Then clearly shit be different when you live someplace else. So shut the fuck up about how all of this or is always that. Fucking ignorant fuck.

>>361381
>So shut the fuck up about how all of this or is always that.
You did just that in your own post:
>Its always the white trash or the daddies little girl that snorted her rent check thats getting kicked out around here.
Your next argument is that context matters because you said "where I live." That's nice, but your main disagreement with the poster isn't that he wasn't being clear enough about how things are in his city.
Just man up and say racist if that's what you're getting at.

>>361387
Did you really miss his "Where I live"?
Dude.

>>361390

He's being racist and a hypocrit, and also classist

>it's always TEH WHITE PEOPLE. TEH POOR WHITE PEOPLE AND THE SPOILED RICH WHITE PEOPLE. WHY WONT THE WHITE PEOPLE SOTP OPRESSING MY DARK SKIN!:?// BROWN PEOPLE NEVER DO NUTHIN.

Someone needs to check their privilege, it's probably by that giant stick in their ass.

>>360852
Now OP i will tell you ideally in an ideal world this would be the best setup around. Rent out a place, renter pays, he leaves, get new guy, he pays rent, make mucho dinero.
But i shit you not be prepared to make more problems for yourself than any money you'll be making, i speak from experience OP Listen to my words.
>be 11-14 in mothers house
>she decides to rent basement(this is on the legal edge where i am...but meh)
>First is a nigres who never fucking cleans, clogs up the toilets, and has her multiple bf over who somehow overcome the stench to fuck her bi-nightly
>We had to go down there and actually clean her fucking place, 7 trash bags filled with stuff in one sitting
>the plumbing bill was always high
>we even found paper towels in the tubing(everyone knows you don't use paper towels)
>she finally left on her own accord

>Next there was this indian/Guyanese something guy
>He comes with his mother who is suppose to go back to Florida after she finds a place for her son
>3 weeks in she is still there
>One day mom goes down to check the gas
>3 people I SHIT YOU NOT 3 people living in a space meant for 1 (grandmother moved in under the cover of night, not fucking kidding)
>Once we got them to move out we had to clean the place
>they had this monstrosity of diy king sized bed where the boards where nailed together (4 twin sized beds daisy chained together)
>Was a pain in the ass to take apart and dispose of
We then got a renter who wasn't that bad, paid his rent etc. only problem was he fucked his girlfriend 24/7 who roared like a fucking escaped tiger while he blasted jazz music to drown out the noise, but w/e he moved out after about a year

Now the worse one i ever encountered needs its own fucking post because it is long and i need to put in as much detail as possible.

>>360852
Mortgage a fee simple condo unit. Rent it out and have it pay for itself, the maintenance fee, and a little profit. Refinance finish the mortgage as quick as possible. Once done lease the condo out and mortgage another unit and start over. While doing this you would have to have a job that can finance your mortgage safely in the banks eyes.

>>361496
----------------------Cont.---------------------------------
Now remember i am still young at the time (19 now)
>We get these black people trying to move in
And i agree with the anon before me NEVER EVER rent to black people
>We asked what they did for money
>Women works at Burger King
>Man works at Funeral home
>But they seemed to be able to pay so rent to them
>Weeks go by everything is alright
>2 months in realize electric bill is mega high like 250$ increase
>Also notice strange behavior from tenets
>went through our mail box
>Pretended to be homeowner when home security people were around (sometimes mail would never arrive from cable company)

>>361517
----------------------------------cont.-------------------------

>One day need to go out to Library to return a book, tell mom i am going to library.
>coming back from library walking on the sidewalk suddenly realize THE GUY FOLLOWED ME
>Freaking the fuck out hoping this was just coincidence
>"Yo little dude whatcha been reading?"
Notice i am nowhere near the library and just walking home, so this fucker was listening through the walls to all of our conversations
>inform parents that everything we say is being listened to
>one day mom is talking on the phone and walks from one room to another, hears scuffling downstairs
>This happens every time one of us is talking
>We are sick of these people now who have the lights on all day and night, creeping the fuck out of everyone, and overall being a hindrance
>Give them a months notice to get out
>Don't hear anything down there for 3 days quite no lights, noise, or movement/coming and going, must be gone
>Go down there to clean whatever those fuckers left for us to clean
>Door opens sudden ninja attack
>YO NIGGAS CAN'T MAKE US LEAVE
>Assults my mom and i hit this fucker with filled detergent bottle
>Police are called and because it was closer to fight rather than one sided assault can't do anything w/o getting locked up myself
>Find out this guy was arrested multiple times, but it was a expunged from his record
>Then we see the state they were living in for 3 months(We didn't check anything because we were they creeped us out to much)
>Toilet wasn't working(Was clogged on purpose)
>Water damage along every single wall

>>361518
------------------------cont.------------------------------------

>Black Mildew stains that went up the entire length of the wall
>You could feel it in your lungs, and you started coughing automatically
>These people were living like that for 3 months and never left the fucking place(by then they both lost their jobs)
>And i will never forget the image of this fat bitch sitting on the couch surrounded by filth and mildew, oh god the mildew fucking spores were growing on the soda cans MAN
>Finally moved out
The plumbing never affected us because the two system were separate, I guess they thought they were holding us hostage by seeing who would hold out the longest, Chirst when i had to go down there and clean it up, I needed a fucking respirator. Bleach and ammonia was used my friends...everywhere

And with that good night anons, i am glad i can save others from this pain

>>360942
fuck you i fucking hate landlord scum like yourself always trying to rip off the tenants. I fuck with the landlords just because of all the bullshit they give me.

>>361365
haha i sneak my dog in i don't give a fuck i pay for the shit ima do what i want

>>361524
Until the landlord does a walkthrough and tosses your dumb ass out.

Understand one thing, if the landlord is within the law, if he's got that shit down on the lease, his word is law and he is god.

>>361325

Well done sir. well done.

Ok, so I don't want to get into the racist/statistics thing, but:

Do not, under any circumstances, rent to Section 8 tenants.

Lady I know rented properties (waay back in the day) and gets some section 8 applicants (this is essentially the government paying rent for a family because the projects are full or whatever). So she thinks, great, no matter how much of a fuckup these people are, the rent will always be paid on time. Which it was. However:

The tenants were still responsible for paying their own utilities. Water, sewer, electric, etc. Now rather than pay <$10 a month for sewage fees, they disconnected the toilet from the drain. That's right, they shat from the toilet directly into the crawlspace under the house. When the Lady found out she ended up having to call a hazmat/bio group to clean out the massive pile of human feces under the house.

She's also had to have a court garnish another tenant's wages, as he refused to pay her back. He claimed to have no job, so she wasn't getting any money. Eventually trailed him one day to find out he was a car salesman, and his boss didn't want him to lose any salary. Eventually she got the money.

tl:dr holy crap don't rent to people ever.
Maybe use a rental agency? Then everything is their fault.

>>361496
>>361517
>>361518
>>361519

everything sounds horrible and all, but it was y'alls fault for trying to make a buck off of renting your basement.

I would recommend renting out through an agency. I have a horror.

>Friend went to travel through europe for 6 months
>Rented out his house to these three people
>No background check or anything
>Police always at the house
>Altercation one night and a man was king hit in the garage, bullet holes in roof
>Oh god this is a nightmare
>Try to evict them, they call the police
>2 month legal struggle to get rid of them
>They trash the house, smash the toilet, fill the pond with newpapers, pour engine oil on all the plants. Hole in walls, the place is a mess.

Keep yourself legally protected, talk to your solicitor about this. Be selective as fuck.

>>361381
You're obviously a nigger in denial

>>360908
OP never said he was qualified. Probably would have if he was.

I would be very interested if you can find me a western country that doesn't have laws involving safety/building codes and renting.

Or was your post just a "durr I can do anything because I'm tenacious and have the power of imagination" post made by a 20 year old who hasn't had life knock their teeth in with a 2X4 yet.

>>361540
I'm as racist as the next guy about groups or denominations of people. Maybe even more so

but when you own one house and you're renting it to one family you can't afford to be racist. You have to see if THIS PERSON is a deadbeat. You can't just rent to a white guy and hope your anecdotal statistics work out in your favor.

You have to interview people and actually follow up and check their references and call their jobs and see if they really work there. Call their previous landlord and ask them what's up. If you can't be bothered pay a private investigator the $300 to do it for you and don't complain about it, suck it the fuck up

and if you're a dumbshit, and you should damn well KNOW if you are a dumbshit, and you INSIST on writing your own lease, get A LAWYER TO VERIFY THAT THE TERMS YOU WROTE ARE LEGALLY BINDING.

You can't just throw shit in there and expect it to stick. If you say your tenants can't have people in the house when they're not in it, for example, and you try to evict on that basis, you are in for a WORLD OF PAIN

>>361565

Motherfucking wisdom.

>>361532
I've worked as a contractor for quite some time. Landlord/tenant relations (besides good friends in fortunate situations) are almost always horrible. Be prepared to dump way more money into the place while the tenant is staying there than you'd ever while you are because they're self entitled and don't care about your dollar, they think they've earned it.

Also, my boss at said contractors job used to rent out many properties. He said it was one of those 'break even if lucky' sort of things. He only did it to manage the mortgages, and wouldn't have bought properties for the sole purpose of renting them out. Whatever money you make goes to repairs and maintenance.

When a tenant moved out, which was about every year (except in one case a tenant renewed a 6mo lease for 3 years), he had to do a complete rehaul on the place. He'd repair & repaint the walls. He'd wax the floors & repair the tile/change the carpets. The list goes on and on. He even had a few instances like (>>361532) mentioned, and one where like 15 people were found living in a 2 person apartment and he eventually ended up suing. Even though he did all this himself, chances are slim he made out with much of a profit to pay towards the mortgage. It only pays for the maintenance, and in most cases I've seen it's more manageable otherwise because under a lease you have no choice and must do the repair asap no matter the cost (i.e. waiting 3 weeks for a cheaper part on an A/C in mild weather wouldn't be allowed, all appliances in lease require an EXACT replacement asap - and believe me they piss and moan unless they get an upgrade).

tl;dr - forget that small handful of cash in OP pic. It will go to fixing the tenants bullshit and more often than not unnecessary maintenance. All of the stories ITT are quite commonplace, although I do meet a decent leaser/landlord combo on occasion.

>>361565 here, adding a little

My landlord bought this place for a LOT of money. I checked up on her when I moved in. She sunk 475k into this 1 floor, 3br place and bought a bunch of shitty facilities like an ungrounded kitchen stove (could have killed someone if I didn't fix it myself), a leaking washing machine, etc. The back wall of the house is all rotten inside and the cabinets are bad where that wall is. I can just close the cabinets and ignore it until I move out but good lord I would not want to own this house

when that wall comes out the roof is going to have to get fixed too. No WAY is the landlord going to come out ahead even after getting lucky with her tenant.

The shit I have to put up with to have a garage in silicon valley I tell you what it's only barely worth it. But I have to /diy/

>>361522
Not sure if trolling, but I'll take a gander that you're not and say that it's a two way street. I've worked as an HVAC repairman for four-some years and the flack and complaints I get from tenants far outweighs anything I've seen the landlords do/not do (that's saying a lot... some landlords can be pretty shady/cheap). Most tenants are entitled bastards, and only the dumbest landlords ever dream of making a profit.

>>361365
Also this guy is right about the dogs. I've seen some shit holes made far worse by cats, but the damage I've seen by dogs is like a war zone. The smaller breeds are bad enough, but I've seen places where in only a few months time a larger breed left unchecked tore every door and wall to shreds and scratched every window all to hell. Looks like Arnold and Sylvester had it out. If you have a backyard it'll need just as much of an overhaul as the inside. That's not even mentioning the toll the hair and dirt from the dog has on the A/C which is often overlooked, a large reason for the non-refundable deposit, and can be severe. My outfit charged in the vicinity of $350 to clean the a-coil when it got clogged with dirt/hair and stopped working, but I know that's a bargain compared to most (I've heard some places charging upwards of a grand for the same work).

>>361607

define "profit". if the rent covers the mortgage, taxes, and maintenance, or just falls a bit short. the landlord is making an immense profit if he can survive on some other income.

>>361609
the house is depreciating in value while the land appreciates

don't believe the shit you hear about houses "only going up". We all know how that went down

eventually some seriously major shit is going to have to get done to renovate the house and you're in the red again

>>361616
Around here a lot of the landlords I talk to are either deeply underwater with their mortgage (they owe more on the house now than it's current worth) or are renting for less than their mortgage payment which means they have absolutely no chance of making their mortgage payment with it even without a shred of repairs/maintenance.

If OP is still here, and it looks like he got scared off, I hope he learned a lesson or two. If you're looking to invest, there are easier and more profitable methods.

There are two kind of people that own property: landlords that own a shitton of properties and renting/maintaining them is their full time job and people that own 1-3 properties and are doing it as a long term investment.

You are not the first type. If you were, you would not be asking these questions.

The second type basically rents the place to pay for the mortgage and other expenses with the intent of selling the property later for a profit. The RENT is not your profit, the SALE of the home after the mortgage is paid off is. Its a type of real estate INVESTMENT, not a means of generating regular income. Once you understand the ins and outs of that, you'll have a better idea of what you're getting into.

>>361625
remember though that if you make a lot you might be able to get big tax breaks for the loss and for the repairs

I paid almost 33 thousand dollars in taxes last year :( that's a lot of room for home repair writeoffs

talk to a professional accountant to see if you can work some federal magic

>>361533
I will admit it is our fault for renting out the place, but please look past that and understand these are the type of people who rent.
This type of hassle is not far off from any of you who decide to become a landlord.

>>361700
A contrast is something that happened to me and my family once. We paid our landlord on time, every month, and it turns out he wasn't paying his bills - using our money to fuck around - and we ended up getting foreclosed and having to move out in a week while our apartment ended up being turned into an office. Shit sucked.

Sage for unrelated to OP.

>>361734
Depends on your state. Here the lease survives the loan. ANY new owner of the property HAS to honor the lease already in place. Honoring can mean buying you out but they HAVE to either let you stay under the same conditions or buy you out of the contract. They do not have to renew your lease, however.

>>361734
Note for the future: sage only truly applies to the email field. Anything else is just used to further drive the point home if you're actually saging, or just being a dick.

>>361750
Fair enough. I can never remember exactly where it's supposed to go.

>>361734
Something like that happened to a friend, he paid 8 months of rent to get a discount.

The rent included all the bills, except for the 220 volts, if you wanted that you could pay $30 bucks and use it unlimited too. A guy didnt want to pay the $30 and call the electric company so they would install that, when the electrical company arrived they find out that all the 220 on the building was being stolen, the landlord didnt pay for the 220 service. So the electrical company cut the electricity on all the building, You can imagine the hell that was for the landlord and the people living there.

The landlord ends paying something between 500k and a million of fines. at first he was using a big generator to supply electricity to the building but it was shut it down by the electrical company.

Before a shitstorm happens, this was in Mexico where the electrical company is part of the federal goverment, so they always have the upper hand, the tenant was in all his right to ask for the 220 service without even telling his landlord, and you are not suppose to produce electricity without the company permission. they are very flexible and dont give a fuck if you put 1 or 2 solar panels in your house or use a generator in da woods, actually most of the time they dont give a fuck about people producing their own electricity, but once you own them money, they are going to be sure that you cant use it until you pay.

What kind of repairs are the landlord obligated to make?

For example, if I have some retard tenant who likes smashing windows, surely I'm not required to repair them over and over for no charge.

>>361752
When I first moved outta my folks place, I moved in with two other college-aged guys from work. It was the first place of our own for all of us. We had a 12 month lease, and 6 months in we got a letter saying that the owner had died and they (I assume his kids) were selling off the place so we had a month to move. We were all like what the hell, but we were ignorant and almost left of our own accord with nothing. We ended up figuring out that they were totally fucking us in the ass plain as day, and went in to meet with the company handling the property - even made the lady handling it cry but I really didn't feel bad after what they'd tried to pull. We told her it was incredibly scummy what they tried to pull on us, and that we were fully intent on staying for the remainder of the lease. We ended up staying for 2 more months without paying (luckily too, cause the third roommate had already moved out without saying so and spent his rent money expecting to not have to pay anything), one month for free for leaving early, and we had already paid last months. We were fully entitled to that free month, and in hindsight could've likely milked them for a cash settlement as well. If we had just moved out without speaking up, and I had found out later, I might've done something crazy like smashing their office or summin.

I moved back in with the folks after that, and a few months later THEIR rental got foreclosed on and we had to move again as they were month-to-month.

This shit makes me dizzy, I can't even imagine throwing an electric company with the feds behind it into the mix.

>>361767
You should have that covered in the lease. Also, generally the tenant is obligated to pay for/repair any damage beyond normal wear and tear to the property beyond a week or two grace period at the beginning of the lease. That's why they put the security deposit down, and you just have to hope that covers the damage because they likely won't fix/pay for anything when they move.

The repairs/replacements you're required to make are things/appliances included in the lease like if a light socket burns out, or the fridge/stove/dryer/washer/microwave/AC stop working. That's why I'd HIGHLY recommend anyone looking to lease out property include as little as possible. Some tenants are reasonable about replacements, when I was moved out we tolerated like 2 weeks with no A/C without much complaint. Others are real pricks and I've seen them threaten to get lawyers involved to get new appliances due to high utility bills. If anything included in the lease isn't replaced in good time with a blatantly equal or BETTER one, I'd bet my life savings they'd moan and groan about it. Trust me on this, I'm the brave soul that's gotta go in there and either fix it while they bitch and moan about how they need a nice shiny new one immediately, or tell them it'll be (insert any amount of time longer than one second here) before we can get a new one out there and they're at my throat. It's especially scary for me when it's obvious the damage was done by the tenant. Luckily I'm a good liar and cover it up until I have time to speak to the landlord privately, but if they catch a hint of an idea that I've realized they go 100% defensive mode and would threaten my children if I had any. I'm only subcontracted by the landlord, and a majority of them still treat me like I'm big brother out to get them whenever I'm there.

>>361780
The only ones that aren't terrible to deal with are either in high end properties (even though they're still entitled as fuck), or the ones that are doing shady shit... like one place we went to (with the landlord) they had changed the lock on a backroom and made a noticeably fake attempt at opening it which 'failed'. My guess is a grow, but it coulda been anything. Point is, they were overly pleasant to all of us and were doing something shady.

I rented 3 apartments in my past. In each apartment I spent my own money making significant improvements in bathrooms and kitchens. I paid rent on time, everytime. I only called my landlord once during all that time because the refrigerator stopped working and it was contractually his responsibility to fix it according to the lease.

Before moving out I meticulously cleaned the apartment and fixed all damages.

I did this because I was raised to respect other people until proven otherwise.

I am white.

>>361767

Using the window for an example it generally works like this: If its the tenants fault they have to pay for it. If its an act of god (earthquake, high winds, falling tree branch, etc) you do. If the cost is high enough your insurance will cover it, depending on what your agreement is. If they claim is was a vandal or a break in attempt or whatever its a gray area and may depend on your local codes. BTW, GET INSURANCE on the place. Last thing you need as a landlord it to cover the cost of a new roof when a storm rolls through or whatever.

If its a health or safety thing (plumbing, HVAC, major appliances, natural gas, etc) you have to fix it ASAP regardless of who pays for it. If that means fixing it today and getting the money from the renter over time so be it. Lets say *they* break a gas line. No matter what, it has to be fixed NOW. That generally means you shelling out the dough up front and getting it back later from the tenant.

The major thing though is providing a living space. So if its a door that sticks or a noisy fan you can wait on those. That said, if the place is rendered unlivable for over a day, like the roof being torn off in a storm, you have to provide housing for them. Thats right, they go to a hotel and you pay the bill until the home is livable again. So yeah, have a savings accout for this kind of shit.

>>361805
I'd just like to mention that it would REALLY pay to be up to date on local codes. I looked it up when my A/C went out, and technically unless otherwise stated in the lease all they're required to provide is a ceiling fan. That's locally, where heating isn't much of an issue, elsewhere it may be different.

>>361805

I had a landlord, who didn't do SHIT around the place, try to get away without doing that. Turns out the place had a black mold and termite infestation in one of the units so they tented the whole building. They said it would be 4 days to a week cause they did it over the weekend and didn't work sat/sun. He was like, welp, I'll call you, just don't be here for a few days. I said like hell, I'll be at the Holiday Inn and you're paying for the stay. He laughed at me so I called the cops. This was a pretty small town so you basically call them for everything. Sheriff came out, listened to our stories and laughed right in his face and called him a deadbeat and a moron. Made my year. The Holiday Inn was pretty nice too. Only place in town with a pool.

>>361808

This is true. When I was in Cali most places in the valleys required AC or swamp coolers and they had to work. Where I live now they give two shits about AC cause it never tops like 85. But if your heat goes out during winter your landlord better have the repair guy over PDQ or you can report his ass. It regularly gets below freezing in the winters our here and every year you hear of old people dieing in their homes from the cold for one stupid reason or another. God knows how the homeless deal with it, guess a fair number of them die to its just no one gives a shit about it.

So, would it be smarter to lease appliances separately from the rest? Is that possible to do?

This thread has put a damper on my thinking being a landlord would be a good passive income, but it seems like if I can weed out bad tenants, put up cameras all over, and some of the other shit suggested here it should be feasible to make a living.

>>361814

read the whole thread again. unless you are a big time landlord, you cannot make a living. it is great if the rent covers tax, mortgage, and maintenance. theoretically, you get to sell the property after it is paid for, and then you retire to the easy life. but for now, you need a real source of income beyond the rentals.

>>361822
Well, that was what I was thinking, have a property to pay the mortgage etc and then sell it. I'm not interested in a get rich quick scheme, just something of a steady investment.

>>361824
Be careful about depending on it to make the mortgage. Optimistically you can break even. Expect renters to damage the home, so you'll need people to fix it regularly, and then the renters might skip out, and you'll get the occasional bastard trying to live in it for free and he'll get away with 6 months before you can get him out finally.

>>361826
Now, if I have a guy who refuses to pay, can I not just change the locks on him? Does he really have legal recourse for being kicked out when he has not paid? Is there any way to get the money up front?

>>361838
You have to be really careful to go by the book and go through the correct legal processes, be prepared to spend time in court/with lawyers when things go wrong (not IF, WHEN).
It's typical to ask for first and last months rent up front, as well as a reasonable security deposit. When I was renting they were asking $950/mo and asked for the same for the deposit, so we paid $2,850 on move in. Be ready to pay the deposit back though, as that's just what it is - a security measure against excessive damage to the property.

There is no such thing as separate leases for appliances... well, there IS, but they are nearly unheard of because of how ridiculous they are. Many places do have a stove and fridge at least, and the place I lived had a washer, dryer, fridge, stove and microwave. All the landlords I've met have advised to not include ANYTHING lol. Anything that is in the lease you're guaranteed to have to fix while they're living there. Anything that's preexisting is a gray area that will likely end up your responsibility anyways.

As previously mentioned, go invest in some rare metals or something unless you're ready to make the immense investment of time and money.

>>361838
depends on local laws.in California no way can you change the locks. That just gives them even more time in court screwing you

How can there possibly be so many places to rent if it's such a shit proposition for the landlord?

>>361905
I just looked up my local laws because I'm quite curious now.

The law here allows a landlord to terminate a lease for any reason, even for model tenants, with one rental period notice.

Would that mean I would not have to fight a tenant who refused to pay for six months? With one month notice would I be able to just dump his stuff out and change the locks if he refused to leave?

>>361838
Every place I know of you need to use the court to evict someone and then a sheriff needs to serve the papers in person. There's a whole circus of shit too.

I dunno. I have three rentals and they all do reasonably well. I've had the odd problem tenant, but for the most part, it has been profitable. I calculate about 8 to 10% ROI, which these days is pretty good. They are all mobile homes on their own lot and all I pay is strata fees, insurance and taxes which are about $500. So, I net about $2000 a month and that is cash flow. I am looking at it as a retirement pension plan cause I won't have any other pension income.

>>361974
Oh yeah, forgot to mention...mobiles are nice to rent out cause they are really easy to work on, they are hard to really trash badly and if they do completely trash it, collect the insurance and park a new one on the lot.

I inherited a house with a mortgage and have been living there, but it's a lot larger than I really need, so I was thinking of renting it out and moving into a smaller house.

Is it worth my time to rent it to pay off the mortgage and then sell it or move back in when I have a family?

I was also thinking of adding a solar space and water heating system, this one:
http://builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/DHWplusSpace/Main.htm

Yes? No?

>>362055
ufff, a hard one, if you find a nice family or guys to rent it is ok, but check the thread, you need to have some cash around if anything breaks, check the laws in your area to see what responsabilites you have.

>>362055
get roommates. be a roommate that is never their that way you can go inside the house when ever you want. or rent it out and get insurance on the place and include it into their rent. be a douche bag and add a fee onto having to get insurance as well. charge more rent when any tenant complains about anything. if your place isnt up to code and they complain. charge more rent until they move. but beware you can only raise the rent a certain percentage every year before it becomes illegal. just kidding. i dont promote douchebagisim. it brings bad karma. im so nice i cant take advantage of douche bags or thier family. but fair warning. most other people can

>>362060
It's four bedroom, but only one and a half bath. I had thought about roommates, but wouldn't I need to add another bathroom?

>>360882
don't confuse gratitude with responsibility , that is an invocation of your guilt silly fuck

>>362065
if a shared bathroom then that equal reduced rent plus bonus to the person who has to clean up the pee and turds of the dirt tenants. that falls under maintanence i guess. or sheet rock and sound deadening fiber board is not that expensive if you bought a house. you can sacrifice some room and add extra bathrooms and split the place into three apartments or four and make even more money. dont forget to live on the property and raise the rent if anybody complains about you spying on the tenants though. you can get a general contractor to act as the landlord and owner even so you can act like if you have nothing to do with anything. and you can spy like fuck on your tenants and have plausible deniability in court. but everybody in the neighborhood will know what you are up to though. wink wink

>>362084
if through spying on your tenant you figured out that say for instance the person in girl in the picture did drugs and you managed to make sure she had drugs in her system when you rape her and if you happen to have to go to court you could just say oh she was on drugs and dosent know what she is talking about you will get away with it if you are a white enough police officer or a white enough citizen of the united states. its a consitancy. pro tip it only works if you arent coaught on video tape actually with your dick in her. well if you are caught with your dick in her you will still get away with it as long as it isnt televised. it is a consistant. also you will not get in trouble for having sex with a 13 year old if you follow the rules setting the government employees above regular people. but you have to bve white enough. its a irrefutable constant that can only not be proved in court were the government sticks up for the government who fucks people over. haha poor poor lolis

I'm not really a landlord myself. My dad bought a house near the college I went to, and I basically watched the place while paying utilities and fees. We were making some money for awhile, but right now, it's me, my cousin (he pays rent), my sister (she doesn't which sucks) and a random. No problems this year. Last year had a different cousin who like went on crazy mood swings. Had some drug users once in awhile, but not bad over all. But as it stands, not having my sister pay, is gonna get bad soon, since we aren't bringing in enough rent to cover the condo fees.

>>362098 sister not paying rent plus a cousin probably getting a good deal on rent and you paying utilities of four people which is probably less then what your cousin pays. whats the problem?

>>361809
That's a typical story I hear of landlords that actually expect to turn a profit. They do all their own work or hire some homeless guy that's good with his hands, and do their best to skip out on the rest. Those types will ALWAYS pull that shit where they try earnestly to pass you off like it isn't your right and they won't pay to put you up elsewhere. Doesn't surprise me, I'm sure they do succeed in doing so to many so they keep up with it. Those are the landlords you REALLY don't want, just as low as the lowest of tenants. Luckily because of past employment I have quite an eye for the type, and will walk out of a meet/walk through at the faintest sign of one.

>>362100
My mistake, I meant now we aren't making enough rent to cover the mortgage, mostly because of the bad decision of not renting my sister's room during the summer, and having trouble finding summer tenants. Things are alot better that I took over the basement, now I have my own private shower and bathroom, only problem is that I can't lock my door because they have to go through the basement to the laundry room. but nothing has gone missing.

>>362084
As ridiculous as that came across, it actually made sense to me. Tenants hide EVERYTHING from their landlord, their basically big brother to them. Other tenants aren't as much of a threat to them, and if they seem 'cool' they won't hide much.

>>362093
Ahhh 4chan, never change.

>>362100
When I was moved out I paid 1/3 rent and all the electricity. It fuckin' broke me, as the electricity alone ran up to over $350 (with my share of rent being $350) with the A/C in the summer. The twats I was living with were paying the water and internet bills, which ran less than $40 and around $150 respectively. Utility can be just as much, if not more than rent - especially with that many tenants.

After the mortgage is paid, wouldn't the rent you get be all profit? Other than the maitence and such, wouldn't it be a nice little extra chunk of change in your pocket after every month? I'm thinking about doing this for a couple of apartments in NYC or the burbs.f

>>362103
In the end I end up paying about the same price as if I was renting in the area, the only difference is I get more freedom since I am part owner. Right now it's good, but we need to lock down more tenants, and maybe start forcing my sister to pay, but I have to convice her, and my dad for her to pay rent. She recently even got out of splitting the utilities with me because she has no money (though she just got a student loan.) so now I take the other half from the house account, which drains that even more. Though at least my dad is making her pay for the back internet payments she owes me.

I learned that with normal tenants, the best way of getting utilities paid, is just upping the rent, and saying that it includes them now. Of course you get the odd asshole that hassels "Oh I don't use the phone, I want cheaper rent." I say too bad these days though.

Honestly, the worst tenant I ever had was my other cousin, just the mood swings and fighting, at least with strangers, they don't get as aggressive usually.

>>362110
Oh god, the 'I dun use that' game gets old FAST and escalates even faster. I don't play that anymore.

Though, like you pointed out, the worst thing is an unsavory character. I'd rather hash it out over rent/utilities any day than deal with another unsocial crazy fucker with mood swings. Xanex is a helluva drug folks.

>>361942
150 dollars to file paper work and 30 dollars to have the sherrif show up. you can get a person escorted out of your place in 3 to 7 days

>>362107

In the long run its hit or miss. One month you make $100 profit and the next the washer breaks and you have to drop $300 on a new one. If you have good tenants and do maintenance well, over the course of a year you might turn a profit. We're are not talking "trip to Fiji" profit here, more like "single car payment on a pre-owned sedan". If you are smart all profits go into a savings account that you use to pay for any odd expenses that pop up. Again, unless you own a dozen properties or more you simply wont be making enough money in the long run to consider it an income. The real money is the sale of those properties many years down the line.

>>362123
>The real money is the sale of those properties many years down the line.
which of course can be wiped out by a retail bubble or inflation

>>362123
you forgot to mention that used washers cost 50 dollars. that means you get 250 dollars profit if the washer breaks. get rich quick time is money

Watch the papers (or look online) for public notices of public home auctions. Show up for a few months to get a feel for how things are before starting to bid. You can try your luck at short sale also.

Lawn fertilizer is fast, works in a few weeks do this first. For property I wanted to flip fast I've actually applied before I officially owned the property. Grass seed takes about a month to come in. I hardly ever use sod, people can tell its sodded, sod often goes down hill after you lay it in for a year or so. I will occasionally use it on small patches but that's it.

The good deals are often the things you have to go out of your way to find.

Distressed property is often a big gamble. Look out for water damage. In my experience redoing all the drywall in an area is best done by a crew of Mexicans. Patching small areas is find to do on your own. Exterior paint is well worth a good paint gun. Pergo and tile is rather easy to install but if you can get away with cleaning a carpet do so, installing the stuff on your own is a big no go. Avoid redoing bathrooms and kitchens like the pleague youll spend more money and time on them than you will get out of it in the end; besides home owners often want to think they are getting a deal and will like the idea of redoing a kitchen or bathroom on there own especially if they think they saved money on the house because of it.

>>362128

Lawns exterior paint foundations and driveways are a big deal. You can apply a grout to a foundation to cover up any cracks or even if there are none it makes it look way better well worth the effort. If the driveway is cracked bad you can have a company add a layer of black top and make it look new. Paint, fix shingles but don't redo the roof, even if the new shingles are a different color than the old, again this is a money pit area that will not be appreciated by your selling price. Lets see, what else; smells. Get a gallon of fabreeze and an electric squirt bottle and use it plentifully pet owners and smokers destroy houses worse than anything so get the stink out. On a good weather day leave all the doors and windows open, perhaps use some fans and spray the shit out of it.

If there is no garage consider adding a car port, they are cheap and on the right house can add quite a bit of value. But its still not something you should always do.

The whole concept here is to make it look like you spent more money than you did. Don't sit on a house too long, if you get an offer that only puts you 6k ahead take it and move on.

>>361229
I can understand appliances listed as being provided for you being covered by the landlord in case it breaks, but fucking lightbulbs? man you must be cheap

Look into government grants/loans/programs for stuff like 'historic mainstreet revitalization' or rural reinvestment whatever... etc.. Once you know what grants and programs are available you can tailor what kind of properties and uses of said properties would qualify for assistance.. you may as well take advantage of such programs. (There are local, as well as federal ones to take advantage of.) That would be my suggestion. My second suggestion is that managing and caring for properties as a landlord sucks the sweat off a dead man's ballsack. If I was going to do it.. I would buy using low interest loans from gov programs, use any grants for improving properties available and hire a property management company to run them and take care of them.. just use rental income to pay the loan payments and the management company (and taxes) and then later on sell them... hopefully for more than I bought them from... or if they become paid off then you might start making some money depending what sort of upkeep costs you start running into.

>>361977
How much does it typically cost for a normal mobile + lot ? At what point do you start turning a profit?
I'm pretty intrigued now and this sounds better than renting houses for the long term investment of eventually owning the house

>>362170

Depends on where you live. In my area a .25 acre lot will cost you 50k in town, maybe 15k farther out. Some places in the US you can get a lot that size for a few grand in town. The home can also very depending on where you live and the size and shit. I see people giving away mobiles for free on CL all the time that aren't too fucked up.

Friend of mine did a stint in the Army. On leave from Iraq with a fat check in his pocket he and a buddy went around the Huston, TX area and bought up land and used mobiles, put the two together and hooked up utilities and sold them. He walked away with 100k profit. This was during 2005 though, before the bubble popped. Said it cost him about 15k a place and he sold them for 20-23k.

>>362170

I bought the three properties in a location that has a fair amount of distressed properties. Rentals are in high demand here.

One of the units was one I lived in while I built a home

Cost for me was lot value of about 85k, plus the value of the mobile.

Two of the three were in pretty bad shape, but respectively they cost $0, $25k and $35k. Call them A, B and C.

To get Unit A ready for the rental market, I put in $8k and get $750/month. After costs, I net $7200pa, or 7.7%.

Unit B was a mess, but a bigger, nicer unit. I needed to put in $21k. So, Lot ($85k), plus mobile ($25k), plus renos (21k). I rent it for $850pm and net $8400pa or 6.4%.

Unit C is a very nice unit which cost me $35k, no renos req'd (it was my own) and I get $950pm. Net return is 8%.

$25200pa net income is not bad, plus I have the added bonus of about $450k in real estate equity that I can borrow against and buy more rental properties.

I look at it as a job. I am still working full time, have no debts and this will keep me busy when I retire in a couple of years. There are always little jobs to do, and I really like to keep the places looking nice and functioning well. I also treat my tenants like gold. They are now very good, but I don't allow myself to become complacent. I do regular checks and inspect the premises.

I never want to be kind of awful landlord discussed in this thread and I believe strongly that if you do your background checks, treat the tenants with respect, be firm, be cautiously optimistic it is very possible to do this.

>>362372
Keep in mind though, that by "net" I don't include cost of financing (Not an issue for me, sorry...richfag) or income taxes.

But, at finance rates of around 3 to 5%, it still makes financial sense, albeit, a little less so.

a few tips. no dogs. no kids. section 8 is good because rent will be paid (plus a little extra usually). check references. be respectful to everyone at every showing and always give applications out. it doesn't matter if you know that you don't want to rent to someone, or if you have already made up your mind because you are prejudiced or whatever, they don't have to know.

also- do your own cheap repairs, like replacing ceiling tiles, carpets, linoleum, painting and other basic labor. leave the stuff that requires a licence to the professionals. unless you are confident.

use a p.o. box for rent collection.

constantly play devil's advocate. imagine you are renting the place and imagine how you could screw the landlord. then turn that intelligence into wisdom.

ideally you rent to a single working adult. renting to roommates can cause all kinds of trouble- avoid it.

if you own a multi family, you can often aford to have a vacanacy or two. so wait until you have a few places availeagkl im sick of typing sorry.

i make money for free you can too
1. go to bank
2. ask for box of half dollars (500 bucks)
3. sort out silver.
4. profit


also sell forumla coupons on ebay lol.
also i have lyme lol.

>>362188
I know a guy in real estate, specifically mobiles. He used to do it all, but lately he's found himself doing sort of the opposite of what your buddy did. He buys up a mobile with land, fixes up the mobile, sells the mobile separately and rents the lot. That way he only has to worry about them ruining the land (dumping oil or something) and has next to no or no liability as far as repair/maintenance in the lease. Otherwise, to rent the mobile too he wouldn't make off with much after all the repairs/maintenance that he'd have to deal with during the lease. He's not much of a DIYer, tho.

Personally, I could see renting out mobiles in a 55+ community as a viable option. Mainly because I'd prefer to have them either new, or with all new guts to avoid the hassle of much maintenance - and as long as they're upholding the 55+ rule I can't see them trashing it too bad. I've done quite a bit of work in them in many different communities. I can't recall any in the 55+ bracket that were even cluttered in the least, whereas the ones with families allowed were almost always trashed with a ton of repairs being needed (holes in walls, doors, floors, mold - would require a complete overhaul upon termination of lease).

>>361324
Why didn't that guy pay his own water bill? :s

>>361377
>Wanting to make money as a business owner is not racist.
Classifying all black people as slums who won't pay the rent is.

>>361532
>The tenants were still responsible for paying their own utilities. Water, sewer, electric, etc. Now rather than pay <$10 a month for sewage fees, they disconnected the toilet from the drain. That's right, they shat from the toilet directly into the crawlspace under the house. When the Lady found out she ended up having to call a hazmat/bio group to clean out the massive pile of human feces under the house.
What the actual fuck LOL

Landlords are parasites. Rent is extortion.

>>361788
The fact that you're white is irrelevant

>>361788

Slave mentality. Shit, I'm not saying you should trash your apartment, but being proud of the fact that you didn't make any trouble for people exploiting you is pathetic.

>>362802

In many areas its cheaper to rent than it is to own. That goes doubly not that so many peoples property values have gone to shit. Just like you have bad tenats and good tenents you can have good/bad landlords. I'm lucky at the moment in that my rent is cheap and my landlord is alright. Saying that all landlords are ripping you off is just as bad as saying all women or gold diggers or all black people are trash.

I rent a duplex near a beach on summer

Be prepared man, do not EVER think you're renting to normal people, always think you're renting to RETARDS, no matter if black, hispanic, white, mid-class, upper-class, young, older, they're all RETARDS.

Everything that can be fucked up, will be fucked up.

Though it may be a bit different, because summer houses are rented fully equiped (and people tend to go full retard more on a 2-week rent than on a 6 month rent).

>>362827

Your landlord/female-black analogy is terrible.

All landlords are exploiting you. Your rent is "cheap" but it's still there. It's the amount you have to pay. You have no choice. You can't live outside. If you live in a tent the police will harass and arrest you.

All landlords exploit because they demand rent and you don't have a meaningful choice in the matter.

>>362844
Well sure they do demand rent, but as the market stands it's much more likely (unless your a beta fuck) that you'll exploit them. It's what many refer to as a 'renters market,' at least around here. No one is buying. Those with mortgages likely owe more on the house than it's worth and will have trouble finding someone to rent to when asking a decent rent. You can easily talk their prices down to far lower than what they're asking, and anyone who's not inherently stupid that I know has done so.

Don't get me wrong, I know many landlords do exploit their tenants. I actually hate capitalism in general and find that a majority of the fault lies within the system, as skewed as that may sound to anyone who isn't an economist.

>>362844

Are you one of those anarchy, fuck the police, everything should be free retards? Why the fuck would someone let me live in THEIR HOUSE without any compensation for it? You think everyone should be your god damn PARENTS? Get a god damn job, stop smoking so much pot and pay your dues. You can't crash on the couch and watch Gilligan's Island all your life. Jesus.

That said, if I owned the place I'm living in now I would be playing around $1200 a month in mortgage, taxes and insurance. As it stands I play $950 a month rent, 23 bucks renters insurance and I get a renters credit on my taxes. If I had made the mistake of buying when the market was up I would probably be paying closers to 1500 a month. I also get water free and don't have to worry about maintenance. Other than light bulbs and HVAC filters all other maintenance is covered.

>>362791
We should just give free houses and land and food and money and cars and airplanes and gold bars to EVERYONE!

>>362844
yeah that's true and I'mma let you finish but I also get piles of free money from a megacorporation for dicking around with computers and playing with electronics all day

fucking capitalism, how does it work

At some point it won't be possible to charge rent for a domicile you do not live at.
Because at some point, our system is going to fail and our police will not receive pay. At that point and only at that point will you be only able to control that which you can actually control. If the police were not involved there's no way I'd pay my land lord. Without the support of the police I don't see how he would make it through my front door without being shot.

>>362971
Capitalism doesn't work, hence our current fiscal cliff and our previous recessions and depressions.
The profit motive does not work in the long term, the truth is being played out in our current economic standing.

>>362979
capitalism work, socialism work, is retarded goverment the one that make it fail. Just because it doesnt work in your country it doesnt mean it doesnt work at all.

>>362990
People keep forgetting people are the country, state, nation etc

>>360866
>do it, but find a good contractor, plumber and lawyer.
>then you're set.


Sage advice. But how can something be profitable when you have all those expenses. Not to mention finding tenants that aren't assholes.

>>360942
Sounds like hell man. Why do you do it? Why not just cash out and pay your debts (if you have any) in the coming years?

i am saving money to buy a flat in a big city. Once i have half of the needed money i will go to bank and buy it on mortage and rent it so i don't have to spend money on utilities and even get money to cover for about half of the monthly mortgage payment. As i live in foreign country and company gave me free apartment with all bills payed i have no need to live in it

>>362978
>If the police were not involved there's no way I'd pay my land lord. Without the support of the police I don't see how he would make it through my front door without being shot.
You're a shitty entitled person. If that's how you feel, why should I not murder you because I want your shoes?

>>362978

At some point you will learn that being an internet tough guy means jack in the real world. Long before the "system" existed people have been renting homes. Back when Old English was a new language and the idea of controlling land father than you could see was pretty far fetched people rented. There are places in this work where there is no "system" (Somalia for example) yet people still rent homes there just like anywhere else.

If the system DOES break down it will be temporary. You better hope it is at least, cause theres nothing keeping your landlord from cutting his losses and setting fire to "your" place while your still inside it just to get his pound of flesh. I would. You take whats mine and i'll eithe rget it back or make sure none can have it. Then when your tubby, neckbeard, doomsday prepper ass waddles out into the sunlight you'll get shot in the gut and die in the street like a roadkill squirrel. Theres always someone tougher, or smarter or more ruthless than you just around the corner. The idea that you can stand alone, no matter how long you've been a member of the NRA or more many MREs you have in the basement, is pretty ignorant. Everyones gotta sleep. Don't worry, it'll never happen.

Why is it any more likely now that the system with break down then it was at any other point in our history? We've had revolutions, civil wars, nuclear Holocaust scares, enemy invasions, massive blackouts, natural disasters, you name it. Hell, the Canadians occupied the capital and freaking burned the White House down back in the war of 1812 and we basically kept on business as usual.

>>363009
sorry then, is the retarded people who make it fail,

>>361328
>Do not rent to black people under any circumstances

Enjoy getting sued by those black people for discrimination, asshole.

>>363051
>setting fire to "your" place while your still inside

What a "GREAT" idea to set his own building on fire. I don't think he will have the time & money to rebuild the place.

>>363115
bwhahaah... like they can prove anything

fuck you.

>>363115

Easy way around obvious discrimination complaints is to do a credit check and say their credit score was too low. Very few blacks have a decent credit score anyways.

This is what most of the nicer apartments already do.

>>363041
If you feel that good about my shoes, go ahead. You have to do what you feel is right.

>>362110
when my utilities go up it gives me incentive to enjoy life. fuck being energy efficient! if i have to pay for the managers electricity for their new refrigerated air conditioner i might as well use one as well.

>>362110
when you up the rent to much because you are feeling rich then you start missing out on months of rent. sure you might be able to get some sucker to move in and pay for your families bills and car payment but then the tenant finds another cheaper/bigger place and moves out and then you are left with a vacant apartment that might take a few months to rent out to another sucker.

>>362990
CAPITALIZED SAGE COUNTERSTRIKE!

The drive for profits, which is the staple of Capitalism, means that anyone within the system that wants to merely survive much less succeed has to put profit above ALL ELSE. This includes the environment, their laborers (whose labor is a majority contributor to the profits in the first place), their competition and their customers. That is in no way a complete list, but you get the gist - which is that capitalism says fuck you to anything that isn't profits. It IS a broken system, and no educated individual would claim otherwise. Neither would any appropriately educated individual disagree that there exists a better alternative. Hence where we are today in the clusterfuck that is our society.

SOCIALISM is the one that has been muddled up by government, and the only reason it lacks backing in the U.S. is because no one has come up with a way around that unavoidable aspect of it. Capitalism needs no help to fuck EVERYONE in the ass, and is destroying the earth.

l2economics bro.

>>363012
Therein lies the essence of the threads conversation. It's unlikely to meet the expenses of a mortgage with the income of rent, and even more unlikely to actually turn a profit. Above that you have all the previously mentioned expenses. I've worked for 4-some years as a residential service tech, and only ever seen someone make ends meet in the business with a vast amount of properties and doing every shred of the work they can themselves. IMO there's better ways to invest your time and money, at least until the market takes a long awaited upturn.

>>360852
Don't rent to junkies,gang bangers,drug deals or rednecks they will fuck up your place and might not pay the rent

>>363249
Capitalism isn't destroying the earth. Your mere existence destroys the Earth. Your selfish use of electronics, electricity, defecation, urination, and transportation...all of these things are destroying the earth.

In short, your argument is invalid. Capitalism will eventually make it cost effective to travel to other worlds to harvest their minerals as well, as our mineral sources are consumed. If we did not exploit the land, we would live in mud huts with 40 year lifespans. We would still do damage...it would just be more minimal.

capatilisim = the choice to make money by making profits from undercutting the compitition. or to charge as much as you want

>>363252
you can cover the mortgage with the income of rent. but you can cover the mortgage and your sisters rent plus her bills and your rent and bills plus your phone and the cost of your spouse as well just by renting one place to somebody. unless you rent to somebody rich who dosent care about managing their money

>>363252
just paying the mortgage alone is profit you Einstein

Man this real estate shit ain't hard. You just gotta do the maths. This is Australia BTW:

I get $420 a week, $21,840 a year in rent. My expenses are:

6% to the agent for managing it ($1,310.40). They kick out tenants, take them to court, collect the rent, organise maintenance. I get the cash deposited in my account every month with out doing shit.

I factor 4.5% of rent for maintenance ($982.8 a year). I've only spent $200 so far this financial year, it won't break $500, so $982.80 is conservative.

Council rates, title fees and water conenction cost $880, $600 and $700 a year. I pay $1373.28 a year to insure the building (fire, flood, natural distater) and tenant costs (repairs, 6 weeks rent if I cant find a tenant).

Do the maths, that's $5846.48 a year in expenses - giving me $15,993.52 (before interest and tax).

The property cost me $335k, which I had to save up 20% for. I have an interest only loan on $260k @ 5.54% which means I have to pay $14,353.65 a year in interest. That's net profit of $1,639.87 a year which I don't have to do anything for.

Sure that's only $30 a week in my pocket for now. However in 10 years time, the rent will go up, the property value will go up, but the operating expenses (everything except interest) will only go up in at the same level.

I'm never paying off the loan (because the interest is tax deductible) so each year that goes by, inflation eats away at the burden of paying it.

So in 10 years I've got maybe a $500k property, not costing me a dime, plus I've had that $30 a week to cover my fuel costs for my car.

Every property purchased with the goal of it becoming a profitable rental company will for the life of the owner be doing good for the society, up until the owner dies, or transfers it over to a management company, from that moment forward the only future that house has is to become the owned property of a bank or corporation, decades, maybe even centuries will pass before that property falls back into the hands of someone who actually cares for the property beyond it's profitability.

Well when you start looking for tenants an ad like this won't help you with averting a sausage fest.

Ads like these won't help you in averting a sausagefest.

>>363401
poor poor person! how will you ever live not making any profit! oh wait in actuality you are getting over $20,000 a year

>>363469
>poor poor person!

My whole point is that succeeding in Capitalism isn't that hard. Get a job, save your cash, then invest it.

>>362844

You can go to other landlords. Rent is about price per quality living space in a non-Marxist lense. "Does this unit give me what I want for a price I want?" is the key question renters should be asking. In a funny way, renters really just rent based on time-preference, very well translated into stock talk.

>>363475
i was being sarcastic. most people dont know what the concept of saving money is

>>360942

What this guy says. I have done handyman work for years and won't even give a landlord the time of day anymore.

I know they are almost all upside down on their properties and they don't have the money to do proper repairs.

The longer they let the properties sit without doing the proper work the longer they sit.

There are very few successful landlords out there. The ones that are making any money at all do all the work themselves.

>>361324

And then you run into the problem of legalization. Where I live marijuana is legal in your own home so you wouldn't have much say about pot smoking. This also goes for a number of other states as well.

I used to manage a property for a friend. I'd never do the landlord thing myself personally after the experience.

If you do though here are some hard learned facts. There has been a lot of butthurt in this thread over renting to black people. Sorry if it offends you but the odds are if you rent to blacks you will get screwed and have your property torn up. And if they own pit bulls expect to have something in the neighborhood die.

Is it illegal to not rent to blacks? God damn right it is! But you know what the whole landlord tenant thing is like two dogs at the dog park figuring out who is gonna hump the other dog first.

What really used to piss me off to no end was where I live they would have these obvious undercover investigators wasting my time to make sure I was playing their little game. Fuck that! It isn't like they are going to reimberse me for my time. If entire groups of people didn't act like assholes in general they wouldn't need the federal government to pass laws to protect them. And another thing. No butch lesbians!!!! Daily drama, butch fights on the lawn, dope, more drama and when you start talking about them moving on they scream MY RIGHTS! MY RIGHTS! I HAVE RIGHTS! As if their rights include not paying rent for 4 months with one lame excuse after the other. I wanted to kick them out after a month but the owner was gullible.

One poster suggested monthly inspections. Well maybe but it seems a bit much. Me personally it makes more sense to take before and after pictures. Places are going to deteriorate when they are occupied. No two ways around it. Normal wear and tear does not include overhauling your engine in the living room. Pictures will be gold in court. I have never seen a landlord that hasn't been in court at least once.

If you can't do the basic repairs yourself forget it. A qualified tradesperson isn't in the budget.

cont...

Don't rent to friends. Do not ever think of the tenant as your friend. He is a tenant. Nothing more nothing less. Find good ones and treat them right but never go the extra mile as in the long run it won't make economic sense.

Section 8: One of the only successful landlords I ever met did nothing except rent to section 8. She bought the absolute crappiest shit hole trailers and did just enough to get them to pass inspection. She wasn't much better than a zookeeper. She got her money regardless at the first of the month and according to here at least where we lived if the place gets trashed the government fixes the damages. She had never met a single one of her tenants. We are talking bums and sex offenders here so who really cares how run down the places were? It seems like a crappy way to make a living but she got paid for basically doing nothing.

You can not have a heart being a land lord. I knew one who when you got to know him was a pretty good guy. But he told me the main reason he was able to leverage millions of dollars in real estate was abiding by the principal that the rent is due on the first, interest starts on the third and eviction begins on the fifth. Completely heartless yes. But when you are out there in the real world you soon learn that is how things work.

>>364283

And one last thing. You know how I used to get around the whole protected class horse shit? I would tell people I don't rent to assholes. It would stop them in their tracks.

A couple I don't know if they were feds or not really started to get into it quoting laws, throwing butt hurt around, etc,etc.

I just let them know I don't appreciate people calling me up, giving me lectures, wasting my time with rudeness and ignorance and they can go jump off a tall building.

>>364283
Get pictures of the tenants in the property with their rental agreement. Fucking cast iron, yo'. If they ask questions, just say it's for your records. Keep a file on each property with pictures of all the tenants, before after and during their rental periods and costs etc. Build your own statistics.

Do a six-monthly inspection. If it's a six month lease, do a three-month inspection. Tell the tenants it's so you can check if any crucial repairs need doing, to ensure they have a good experience. Also, it gives you a chance to check they aren't running a smack den out of the kitchen.

>>364303
oh, and just an aside: Prevent is ALWAYS cheaper than the cure. Leaky roof? Fix that shit ASAP. damp? Fix that shit ASAP. you get the idea. it might cost you ?100-?500 you don't have at the time, but it's a whole lot better than the ?5000-?10,000 you could pay in the future for a full re-roof etc.

>>364307

This is why I quit working for landlords. I try to explain to them what the issue is and what it will cost to do it correct and they say oh well durr hurr just slap some paint on it.

In my experience they rarely want to do it right and will end up blaming me when the whole thing falls down around their ears.

Most of the landlords where I live have no business owning a property. I always hate it when they tell me over the phone..."Oh its just a small job" Red Flag!

I saw one this year where the ENTIRE living room ceiling was ready to collapse. And there was a tenant living in there that had the place loaded with furniture. Bitch had the nerve to tell me this small job bullshit. How the fuck you gonna work on that? Especially after she has told you its a 'small' job? Slap some paint on it?

>>364463
Nahh, they obviously wanted papier mache on that job. More secure, see?

Fuck landlords. Always deal with management companies; they get their shit sorted.

Just gonna bump because so many landlords said don't rent to niggers. I want to keep this thread up just for that.

>>361336
From the tenant's point of view, the lease agreement covering EVERYTHING is very necessary as well.

I moved into a place with some friends and after the fact, the landlord started giving "suggestions" on how we should do various things. Just random shit like closing windows, writing on them (window markers of course), lighting incense...

It just got to the point that we stopped answering the door/phone if he dropped by unannounced, because he always had something to bitch about which, if he wanted to control it, should have been in the lease agreement.

>>361519
>Bleach and ammonia was used my friends...everywhere
Umm, shouldn't you have used that originally to remove the tenants? I am reasonably sure it is a deadly combination.

When I've ever rented from a person who owns a few properties, not like the large companies that own apartment complexes, I've always had my father (who is a real estate/environmental attorney) read the lease to make sure it doesn't have anything crazy in it.

He then marks it up and suggests changes in favor of me, takes it back to the landlord, and tells them that he fixed it so that both parties are maximally protected. And they almost always believe him.

I have a condo now so I don't have to worry about that stuff so much anymore.

>>366827
Hahaha, no way this is real.

>>367831

It is if you print it off, cut it out and put it in the window of a mcdonalds when nobody is looking.

>>361303
This very much and it's true in europe too. Still, you have to deal with incredibile amount of stupidy, which effects are usually more costly then in residential sector.
Easy modo - rent rooms to students.

i remember my parents back in the day rented one room for a student. My mother found out that he was pissing in the flower pots. Why in the fucking hell would someone do that ?

This thread makes me feel like I should get a 50% discount on rent for being a single white guy who take care of his shit.

>>361325
Initially I thought "Huh, real estate in Greece actually doesn't sound like a bad idea..."

>>367855
Sounds like Nightmare Mode to me. Students are old enough to do real damage while being young enough to have no real impulse control and no sense of future consequences.

>>360852
Don't accept section-8/HCVP .. that will solve 90% of the problems.

>>368262
Seriously though? Pay rent on time, don't complain, don't call unless absolutely necessary, treat the place as your own, do small repairs and replacements yourself... the bad ones ruin it for all of us, so they still treat you like shit usually.

>>368593
Thats why you outfit the rooms like a 19th century mental asylum and charge them way over cost for any damage or missing inventory. The students cant complain because rent prices for decently furnished places are outrageous, and they're too poor and inexperienced to know any better.