
What I Learned About Life by Becoming a Landlord - oli5679
http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/a25120/landlord/
======
ryanmarsh
Being a landlord, hiring people, working directly with the general public
(retail, food service) are eye opening experiences.

I watched my father be the kind of land lord anyone would hope to have just to
watch some people destroy his property and treat him with hostility.

Now I know why your landlord treats you like he expects the worst from you.

I hired people for work they cared about (non profit), treated them well, the
earned prestige and leadership experience they couldn't have had in their
previous jobs just to watch them turn on me and spread lies and toxicity and
try to destroy the organization because I praised someone else's work too.

Now I know why companies treat people like they expect the worst from them.

I worked at a Taco Bell and Starbucks. People yelled at us and treated us like
scum for the offense of working for minimum wage.

Apparently people who make more than minimum wage automatically have more
intrinsic human value? I'll never know. But I know I'll excuse a lot with
retail and food workers because my life is roughly 30x times better than
theirs.

~~~
manyxcxi
I don't know about people actually believing they have more intrinsic value
because they make more than minimum wage, I just think the problems comes from
a few areas:

\- They were/are getting treated like shit and are transferring the energy on

\- People are increasingly 'busy' leading to higher levels of stress and
anxiety that just have them snapping easier

\- There's a lot more of us than there used to be, so even if the percentages
stayed constant, there's a lot more f%cking twats running around out there

Especially with younger people I professionally interact with (I'm 34), but
also with age peers, I've noticed that a shockingly large percentage have
never had that job experience of working at a place that was crappy, for
minimal pay, bad hours, tough work, etc. Generally they didn't work at all
until maybe a couple of internships in college, or some other form of light
entry into the workforce. I think it really does something to create a lack of
empathy for those people not in a situation exactly like ours.

My personal belief is it doesn't matter what our two situations are, being an
asshole is being an asshole. If you're going to be a jerk to someone who's
working a random lunch counter, you're probably just generally a jerk the
majority of the time. Wealth, status, fame, are no excuses for a lack of human
decency.

~~~
specialist
I dated someone who lived in a Section 8 housing complex. It was a major eye
opener. Every one was terrible to every one else. I'd never seen anything like
it. It validated the observation that the middle class has nothing to worry
about from the lower class, they're too busy tearing into each other.

Generally, people behave poorly, are easily controlled/distracted, when
they're scared and stressed. Like when they can't pay their bills. This Great
Unraveling, where no one feel financially stable or secure, is turning
everyone into savages.

~~~
bluejekyll
I wouldn't generalize too much based on a single experience.

I live nearby a low income city owned apartment complex. It's not a high rise,
but is more dense than the surrounding houses.

There are many elderly people there who go out of their way to be nice to me
and my family when we walk by. But there are others who don't have enough
respect for the neighborhood not to just throw their garbage on the street.
Literally garbage bags in front of their doors on their sidewalk (they have
garbage cans less than 20 ft away which they could instead use). I wish I
could understand why they don't see this as their own neighborhood and should
treat it with more respect.

Generally what I notice is that there are some people with some mental issues
who just yell and scream at people randomly. They need more than just housing
help, but hey this is America, healthcare for those at the top is great. Then
there are the elderly who IMO are the ones most deserving of the housig help.

Generally something feels broken, but I'm not clear what the fix is, it's
definitely not one thing. And I don't think it's just money, because anyone
living there is getting a substantially lower rent than market rate, and
that's really my main point. I don't believe the root cause is money, as much
as it's less education; mental or physical issues that make traditional work
hard; and some misaligned societal incentives. Those all lead to financial
issues that landed them there; basically financial hardship for many that I
see is more of a symptom of a greater societal problem. I'm definitely no
expert, and have never had to deal with any of that personally.

~~~
Nomentatus
Psychopaths are very much over-represented amongst the richest (didn't get
caught) and poorest (did get caught.) There aren't too many who took a middle
path and ended up with middling results.

------
triplesec
There's a lesson in this piece in community, and how the rich and fortunate
should treat those they deal with, just perhaps as in the movie It's a
Wonderful Life:

'My dad gave himself over to that place. He kept a shoe-repair place in
business for nearly thirty years by breaking policy, by being patient with the
billing, by cajoling, by any means necessary, because he respected the man who
ran it, a guy I knew only as Clarence. He fought to keep the supermarket open
for the urban customer base who had nowhere else to go for groceries without
getting on a bus. I believe he provided small loans to start-up businesses. I
know he waited out their rent checks. He kept things running as landlord, even
at some cost. He did it for the betterment of the city.

In his residential spaces, he was loathe to raise the rent even after many
years. Especially after many years. He dropped off cases of beer and huge
boxes of Italian cookies to make his tenants feel appreciated. He gave rent
abatements when people got cancer. He gave graduation presents, anniversary
presents, sent handwritten notes and newspaper clippings to his tenants and
their families. While I'm sure some people hated the landlord in him, I
believe my dad treated his tenants with honor as long as they did the same for
the space he provided (and didn't run up the house account at Wilson
Hardware). I know this because people stopped me—on the floor of the mall, in
the street, at the reception after my father's death—to testify to it. I came
to see that my father was known by many, if not all, as a kind steward of
place. This is as much as any landlord can hope to be.'

~~~
c0achmcguirk
Great section of the article. It reminds me how much my kids watch and learn
from me. The author's father shaped so much of how he sees the world and
aspires to be.

This was a good reminder that your kids notice every kindness you pay to
others.

------
pdog
If none of this sounds appealing to you, consider investing in a real estate
investment trust (REIT). These are companies that purchase office buildings,
hotels, and other properties and distribute their rental income as dividends.
For example, Vanguard has a diversified REIT ETF with a minuscule expense
ratio and a healthy 4% yield:
[https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundIntExt=I...](https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundIntExt=INT&FundId=0986)

~~~
adventurer
Real estate looks as if it is way over-priced at this point. If you don't want
the tax benefits of owning a rental, why not index fund your money, then you
would be almost double the 4% long-term, either way.

~~~
eldavido
Which market?

I agree a lot of hot metros are looking expensive (SF, Seattle).

Things are cheaper in places farther from growth and money, e.g. rural
Indiana. I'm not sure whether they're better deals on balance, but quite
different.

~~~
sitkack
Just what those people living in those places need. More investors making
money off their condition. The rent is already too damn high.

~~~
nradov
REIT investors aren't the cause of high rents. Actually the opposite. Every
dollar they put in lowers the cost of capital for property developers and
encourages the construction of new housing units.

------
api
I've never done it but I've heard stories. One particularly nasty one was from
a landlord who entered a recently vacated property a few weeks after the
tenants left. He found a dead dog who had obviously been left alive. There
were scratches and bites and claw marks and filth everywhere where the dog had
tried to get out and then to eat carpets, cabinets, etc. The place was
generally trashed and infested with roaches that hadn't been there when it was
rented. He found it so disturbing he started selling properties after that and
exiting the business. (He also called the cops on that one. Not sure if
anything happened as a result.)

He said that was the worst but he had other pretty insane stories: domestic
abuse, meth cooking, Fear and Loathing levels of trashing the place, etc.

There's a lot of real nasty and/or disturbed people out there. Anything that
gives you a lot of unfiltered contact with the general public shows you that.
It's depressing and frightening.

~~~
dbg31415
I just did a post on here about being a landlord... domestic abuse... it's a
real mess. And it just eats your profitability -- not to sound callous.

I had a tenant who hit his girlfriend. They were both on the lease. Anyway she
filed charges against him (good for her!) but that meant I had to let her off
the lease. Her dipshit boyfriend couldn't pay for the place on his own... so
then I was left in a situation where I got paid like 1/2 rent one month, then
had to give him 30 days for free to vacate...

The girl called me in tears, "Can I please get my security deposit back I
moved out already?" I was like, "No, sorry... I can't give that back until I
do the exit walk through, and you're already behind at least half a month on
rent..." and then, "I'm sorry but your shithead boyfriend didn't clean up the
place after he left..."

I felt for her, but not a lot I could do other than eat the loss she was
causing me by having horrible taste in men. I feel like a jerk saying that...
but I didn't feel like the burden should fall on me... She got all snarky with
me, threatened to hire a lawyer... but nothing ever came of it... I ended up
taking their entire security deposit, and still having to pay out of pocket
for cleaning services.

Domestic violence creates a no-win situation. I'm out money, and it's not like
my mortgage and taxes stopped because she had drama in her life... I really
just wanted to tell her, "Be more careful, and have higher standards next time
around..." but of course that would have been rude and uncalled for. The whole
thing just sucked. I still feel guilty about it... and there's no reason I
should, she signed the lease agreement.

~~~
GavinMcG
Can you clarify for me how you're using ellipses? It seems like you're ending
many sentences with them. What effect are you trying to achieve?

~~~
therealdrag0
Look just like pauses to me. Not necessary, but legible.

------
chrisseaton
> "Do you like making me into the landlord?"

Is 'landlord' a dirty word with connotations in the US? Why's it such a big
deal for him to say he's the landlord? Obviously he's the landlord.

~~~
pmorici
I think it means that the father preferred to view the relationship as one of
equals or partners. When the tenant starts playing games with the rent that
forces the father's hand and makes the relationship adversarial in nature.

The sentiment reminds me of people who view their boss as the enemy always out
to screw them vs an equal they work with to accomplish company goals. It
depends a great deal on the general demeanor of the boss for sure but basic
professionalism on the part of the employee goes a long way to keeping the
boss from having to be the bad guy.

~~~
sidlls
I think you're glossing over a very important part of this: the power
imbalance. It's easy for bosses (or landlords) to think of their relationships
with subordinates/tenants as one of "equals" as long as it benefits them. As
soon as they perceive it doesn't, however, that imbalance becomes very much
front-and-center. Any notion of equality in the relationship is either an
illusion or temporary and it's best for all parties if they behave as though
they recognize the imbalance and understand what it means.

~~~
scarface74
I consider my manager as an "equal". I respect his "role power", but working
for a small IT department we very much have a partnership. His role is to get
strategy and priorities from on high, my role is tactical - implement the best
architecture and training in the way I see fit within the very broad
guidelines that he sets.

He has the power to guide my job but I also have the power to leave and find
another job.

~~~
sidlls
That works nice, as long as it lasts. Do you think your manager views your
relationship as a partnership? What happens when his boss jumps on him for
failing to deliver something, delivering something poorly, etc.? Are you sure
he's not going to serve you up as a scapegoat?

~~~
scarface74
If i am the lead dev/architect and he gave me the latitude to implement it the
way I thought was best, why would I be the "scapegoat" and not the person that
should shoulder the blame for a poorly implemented project?

On the other hand I don't over promise. I've told everyone that they can
either impose a deadline or features but not both. In other words, they can
tell me these are the features they need and I can come back with a deadline
after talking to the rest of the team, or they can tell me the deadline and we
can discuss what features you can have by the deadline.

I'm not naive enough to think that everyone has a job where they can do that.
But when I interviewed I was coming in to basically create a modern dev shop
from scratch - source control, CI, automated testing, etc. with a group of
developers who learned on the job without any formal training. I only accepted
the job with the promise I would be given the time to set things up correctly.

------
JamesBarney
One of my tenants was disgusting.

He had a loogey/booger wall.

He also had a dog we didn't know about, and this was a unit that was right
behind our house. Which mean he didn't take the dog out to shit, he just let
it shit on the carpet. And all the dog shit, had toe prints in them... uck

Other than that it's been pretty good. A lot of people just work hard, and
want a roof over their head.

------
mcguire
" _And you never know how someone lives until you lie beneath their kitchen
sink with your head on a bag of Meow Mix._ "

Why is there a bag of Meow Mix when the policy is 'no pets'?

~~~
nradov
Some tenants find a way around "no pets" policies by getting their pets
classified as service animals under the ADA for "emotional support" or
similar. While some people have a legitimate medical need the system is widely
abused.

~~~
Chris2048
> by getting their pets classified as service animals

No cat has ever provided a service

~~~
kuschku
Cats have been approved as service animals for autistic children before.

~~~
Chris2048
Do you have a link for that? DoJ appears to include only dogs (and maybe
miniature horses):
[https://www.ada.gov/service_animals_2010.htm](https://www.ada.gov/service_animals_2010.htm)

Or do you mean emotional support/comfort/therapy animals?

[https://www.animallaw.info/article/faqs-emotional-support-
an...](https://www.animallaw.info/article/faqs-emotional-support-animals)

[https://adata.org/publication/service-animals-
booklet](https://adata.org/publication/service-animals-booklet)

------
k__
It's nothing special. Every time you interact with people you have to start
from zero.

Don't let idiots make you bitter forever.

------
Normal_gaussian
> Clarity, I found, is a better motivator than the threat of small claims
> court.

Clarity prevents problems before they start

------
Integrity
I've never been a landlord but have known two over the course of their rental
property careers. They went from being amicable to noticing and expecting the
worst from people, essentially becoming jaded. And the transformation is
similar in quality to many police officers, how they wear an expression on
their face as if humanity has broken their heart.

Watching this impacted me enough to decide that I'd never want to be a
landlord. It's an odd position to be in in the first place. To be responsible,
in a sense, for how others live.

------
dbg31415
I have a rental property... I used to live there, then I bought a house closer
to work and rented out the original house with plans of moving back there some
day. Now... I'll never move back. It's in a nice neighborhood, rent requires
the people who live there to probably make $150-200k a year... you'd think
it'd be OK... But nope. Anyway every part of the article is true.

The rest of this is just be venting for therapeutic reasons. Ha.

First... you really don't make that much money off the property. Once you pay
for maintenance upkeep, and taxes, and taxes on the income you get as rent...
you just aren't making much... if anything from the renters. I'm probably
losing money on my renters... but I make it back (in theory) in property value
gains.

Second... holy hell, some people just should never leave apartments. And all
the stereotypes are true. You have to assume they are all out to fuck you
over... and incompetent... if you don't, you'll be in for a lot of
disappointment.

I rented to an Indian family for 12 months, and after I had to have the place
scrubbed top to bottom, ducts all cleaned... and it still smelled like curry.
New tenant was furious at me for "not cleaning"... I have no idea how to get
the curry smell out. I spent over $2k in professional cleaning services...
over 2x what it cost to de-cat-pee the place... now I never want to rent to
another Indian family. We literally hand-washed the walls, twice... Then
eventually repainted everything inside (another $4k)... the house has no
carpets or curtains... no clue how the smell stayed. And I had to give a
discount to the new tenant for 4 months because of the smell. There is a fan
over the stove... but it clearly never got used when they were cooking.

I rented to a Chinese family for 6 months... and I think they moved like 10
people into a 3 bedroom house. I only met the first couple... but every time I
went there were 2 cars in the garage, 2 in the driveway, and at least 4 on the
street. And every time I would knock on the door a different person answered
in broken English.

Families with kids... will trash your property. And they will bitch and bitch
that things were broken before they moved in, their precious snowflakes didn't
burn parts of the walls, or drill holes, or kick the drywall under their desk
so much it cracked all up the wall...

Pets are disgusting. Cats stink. Dogs are destructive. I had to re-do the wood
floors after a tenant's dog clawed them all to shit... had to sue the tenant
for damages. "It's normal wear and tear!" they insisted... but they had a 120
pound dog whose nails they never bothered to trim. I got smart and just
replaced everything with tile after that. For a rental... just pretend you're
dealing with malicious jerks who are bent on destroying anything nice you put
in the house... and then plan accordingly.

Tenants will lie and lie and lie again to get out of paying for damages. And
worse than lie, they do shit that makes it hard to find the true damages...
forget toothpaste in the walls to cover up nail holes... I had a tenant put
duct tape over drywall and then use spackling paste and paint on top of that.
It looked just good enough that if you were in a rush you may have signed off
on his move out damages. I had another family try and prop a closet door up,
one that took out the inner glass of a window so it wouldn't appear broken
(still had the outer glass) -- but then it made it a harder job to replace the
glass because they had bent the frame all to shit. Cost them more than if they
would have just told me about the break in the first place...

They aren't at all honest about what they fuck up, and they don't have a clue
what it costs to fix something correctly. "Man, faucets only cost like $40 at
Costco... why you charging me $500?!" Well... because the faucets you
destroyed were nice faucets that cost around $350 each, and there's an
installation fee... and I'm not even charging you for the other faucet that I
have to replace so the two will still match in the master... I'm also covering
the damage to the granite counter top where you hit it with a hammer or
whatever when you were trying to tighten your vice grips on the faucet handle
instead of calling me when you initially broke it a year ago..."

Tenants always sneak in dogs, cats, extra roommates... My first lease
agreement was 10 pages... the last one I used was about 45. It spells out
everything that I know to include... plus penalties... "Don't sit on the damn
roof, asphalt composite shingles are not meant to be walked on when it's 100
degrees outside... you're getting charged for replacing 1/3rd of the roof
because you put lawn chairs up on the roof and literally were up there so
often you wore a path in the shingles..." "Don't smoke in the house, but if
you are going to smoke in the house... don't just cut the wires to the smoke
alarms and just tuck them back up in the drywall."

Despite hiding all the shit they do, and bitching about things they notice...
most of them are incompetent at owning a house... won't report water on the
windowsill leaking in right away until there's rot in the wood and the whole
frame has to be replaced... won't report a wasp nest growing out of the
rafters in the roof until it's a $1,200 job to remove it... will let their
kids hang off of the ceiling fans and fuck those all up... Some people should
never live in a house... put them in an all brick apartment building with
cement floors and reinforced windows. There's a reason public schools are
built the way they are.

You lose so much faith in people when you rent property. If you don't assume
they're all out to fuck you over... you'll get fucked over. It'll cost you a
fortune in repairs, and so much hassle and stress because the dipshit who
rented from you will fight you tooth and nail... and cry about every little
cost... when in fact they aren't even paying 50% of what it really cost to get
it repaired... let alone the time you lose because you can't rent it in the
shitty condition they left it in.

~~~
askafriend
You've just convinced me that I never want to be a landlord. I don't need to
read any more. All of that stuff sounds like stuff out of my worst nightmare.

In fact, I don't even want to own a home any time soon. Sounds like way too
much work.

~~~
arghIdontwantto
To counter the op.

My family has been in the rental business for more than 30 years. I have 2 of
my own. We never had any issues like the op mentions. A couple late payments
and 2 evictions from lack of payment and that is it since I remember (I only
started helping around 15 years ago, can't say what happened before).

Just really choose your tenants carefully. Better to have someone you know
will take care of the house and get 400 a month then someone that can pay 500
but shows a lot of warning signs they will trash it. And if you are even
remotely handy, a lot of the small fixes can be done by yourself in a matter
of hours.

~~~
dbg31415
Sort of depends on the quality, right? I mean, I know your 400-500 range was
an example... but the house I'm leasing out rents for like $3500 / month in
Austin -- that's on the upper-side of things here. I can fix some things,
provided I have time, but a lot of stuff I end up calling a handyman for if it
needs to get fixed during the week, or if it's something "nice" that I don't
want to mess up trying applying my amateur-level talents towards.

I said this in another post, but my worst tenant by far came from because they
were a friend of a neighbor I trusted... it's easier said than done screening
folks. You never really know what they are going to be like.

Glad you've had luck with it! Care to share any screening pointers? I'm happy
with my current tenant... I did a criminal check, credit check, and asked for
some references... but I've gotten those all come up aces in the past too and
still had people trash the place. All I've found that works is a verbose
contract spelling out penalties if they do things I don't want them to do.

~~~
arghIdontwantto
(not in the USA, so things are a bit different, we can't do credit checks or
criminal records for example) The tenants I have in my properties were
relatives of people I knew. What we do here is we have a concept (fiador)
where while you sign the lease yourself, another person/couple (usually
parents) are financially responsible for any non payed rent/damages. This has
the 2 benefits, a) the fiador knows he will be liable for any crap the renters
do, so if they know they will trash the place they will refuse to sign (big
warning sign) and b) you have 2 separate entities to go after for damages.

------
FroshKiller
This was a great read. Thanks for sharing.

~~~
mistersquid
The writing on this _Popular Mechanics_ article/memoir is superb, filled with
rich detail and expository flourish.

For example, this passage succinctly and adroitly presents the landlord's
peculiar fate.

    
    
      > For a landlord, all stories end on a broken aquarium. Or
      > maggots in the unplugged refrigerator. That double-pane
      > window that "fell out" during some Halloween party. The
      > climax of a story belongs to the tenant. The denouement is
      > the landlord's burden alone. And it generally involves a mop.
    

A pleasure to read such good writing.

------
jonawesomegreen
As someone who had pondered becoming a part time landlord as an investment,
this is a really interesting read.

~~~
Norandomguy
Some random advice to you or anyone else: it's not as easy as you think.

The housing boom over the past 20 years makes everyone belive that real estate
is the path to easy wealth. But being a landlord takes work and offers a
market return. There is no magic. Those people who tell you "I just collect
the rent" haven't been doing it long enough.

~~~
falcolas
Or they turn over a good portion of that rent to a third party to do the
actual maintenance and management of the properties (a big business in and of
itself).

~~~
ams6110
If you are thinking of using a management company, know that they have it
pretty well figured out. Their fees will take almost all of your rental income
after mortgage and taxes and insurance. So you'll end up with property that
the tenants paid for (no small thing) but no real cash flow.

~~~
nradov
Besides that there is a high level of fraud in small-time property management.
Crooked managers have kickback arrangements with their preferred vendors for
landscaping, appliance repair, painting, etc. The property owner pays full
retail price for the work and then the manager gets cash back under the table.
Many managers are 100% honest but it's difficult to know whom to trust and
there's no way to really be sure.

~~~
FireBeyond
Hah, know what's even better than that, when the PM company outright owns (or
their owner owns) a whole arm of companies like that, AND has "exclusivity
arrangements" with those.

------
eternalvision
This article is from February. Some process possibly involving random inputs,
led to OP posting this article today. Yet, I've observed a lifetime of such
randomness as anything but random in my little perception of the universe.

------
ikeboy
>Then sit with the tenant at a bar or coffee shop and read through the whole
of it before the signing.

Hm.

------
branchless
The tenant works, dad landlord ring up for a cut. Poor landlords having to do
some work!

