Rental Properties

[teachercd]

Any of you guys have rental properties?

 

If so, what do you like and/or dislike about it?

[GSG]

My parents bought a set of 4 apartments plus a small house last year. They needed some serious updates. I think my dad liked not having to pay IN on his taxes this year. He's semi retired now, so he has a lot of time to do the work they need. He gets pissed at some of the renters because they're just lazy as hell. They leave their bags of garbage outside for weeks, cigarette butts everywhere, beer bottles, etc. Sometimes they're a little late with the rent, but that seems to have stopped since he started enforcing the late fees in their new leases. I've gone to help him as much as I can. The yard was crap last year, and now it's actually starting to look nice. He got a couple of the people to move out and was able to do a complete overhaul on one apartment. We'll be doing another one this summer.

[husker B-rent]

i just recently purchased my first rental property and actually lived in the house til i had it paid off. Its in a small town so i only paid $30,000 but it is a very nice house and if in a larger market would have good for closer to 90,000 easy. I have been renting it out for the last 6 months and so far nothing major has happened repairs wise, just a few little thing here and there totaling around $100. My rental account has accumulated $3300 in that time thus allowing me to do any major repairs that i may have to cover down the road and making most of what i am getting now simply profit minus insurance etc.

 

it has worked out excellently for me, but that is not always the case. I would recommend doing extensive background checks and having two rounds of interviews to really narrow down the interested renters. Make sure you get as much insurance as you can as well or that may come back to haunt you someday, because in this case not only you can prevent fires your tenets have to prevent fires too! i plan to buy a couple more with the money im making and it really just depends on what your goals are.

[teachercd]

i just recently purchased my first rental property and actually lived in the house til i had it paid off. Its in a small town so i only paid $30,000 but it is a very nice house and if in a larger market would have good for closer to 90,000 easy. I have been renting it out for the last 6 months and so far nothing major has happened repairs wise, just a few little thing here and there totaling around $100. My rental account has accumulated $3300 in that time thus allowing me to do any major repairs that i may have to cover down the road and making most of what i am getting now simply profit minus insurance etc.

 

it has worked out excellently for me, but that is not always the case. I would recommend doing extensive background checks and having two rounds of interviews to really narrow down the interested renters. Make sure you get as much insurance as you can as well or that may come back to haunt you someday, because in this case not only you can prevent fires your tenets have to prevent fires too! i plan to buy a couple more with the money im making and it really just depends on what your goals are.

 

 

How small of a town are you in? How hard was it to find renters?

[bennychico11]

Anyone making a decent profit from rental properties? I've always wondered how much it takes to actually consider it a worthwhile business. Maybe commercial leasing is more profitable?

 

My dad rents out the house I grew up in (I also rented from him for a time being). He doesn't do it himself though...he uses a company to handle all the applications, tenant issues, etc. Although he's not 100% happy with that company. He's actually not allowing his current tenant to renew his lease because the guy was always late in payments. When my dad originally told me about this guy, I told him he had way too many demands and that he might be a problem tenant. He had requests of my dad to paint the stairs going to the basement so he could see them better...replace light fixtures on the ceiling, etc. Then the guy moves in, hires someone to install a GFI outlet on the outside without requesting permission! Basically drilling a hole in the wall (from an inside outlet) without asking. He wanted to plug in a refrigerator on the deck. When my dad was over doing some work on the property, he noticed the outdoor refrigerator was plugged into a power strip on the deck! Talk about fire hazard.

 

You get weird people. I'm the type who is a little over-protective of the things I buy and I'm not sure I could trust other people with them. I think I'd have to purchase a property knowing that it would probably be messed up by the tenant.

[husker B-rent]

i just recently purchased my first rental property and actually lived in the house til i had it paid off. Its in a small town so i only paid $30,000 but it is a very nice house and if in a larger market would have good for closer to 90,000 easy. I have been renting it out for the last 6 months and so far nothing major has happened repairs wise, just a few little thing here and there totaling around $100. My rental account has accumulated $3300 in that time thus allowing me to do any major repairs that i may have to cover down the road and making most of what i am getting now simply profit minus insurance etc.

 

it has worked out excellently for me, but that is not always the case. I would recommend doing extensive background checks and having two rounds of interviews to really narrow down the interested renters. Make sure you get as much insurance as you can as well or that may come back to haunt you someday, because in this case not only you can prevent fires your tenets have to prevent fires too! i plan to buy a couple more with the money im making and it really just depends on what your goals are.

 

 

How small of a town are you in? How hard was it to find renters?

relatively small about 4600 people. wasnt hard at all, i had 6 people in my initial round of interviews before narrowing it down to 2 and then 1. another thing i forgot to mention is that i do a random day walk through once a month and i put in their lease that i am allowed in their home any time day or night and can remove the tenet for any reason i see fit.

 

basically just make sure you get everything you can into the lease and protect yourself because the tenet likely doesnt care as much about your property as you do.