Do-It-Yourself Landlord's Blog

Took a week or two off from the tales told here in order to get a bunch of personal things in order. It’s been HECTIC, but it’s been the good kind. Well, the kind that will hopefully soon be good to me.

Okay, that was cryptic. And it'll stay that way for the time being!

Speaking of hectic (and absolutely fascinating) what’s up with this (alleged? Supposed? I have no idea how to refer to this guy) Landlord up in NYC? The charges are simply flabbergasting. And I don’t mean the attempted murder or arson.

Well, maybe the arson part. But only because it’s inferred that the arson was perpetrated on his own property.

But what’s really got me confused is how this guy is potentially managing to own MULTIPLE properties in New York City (Manhattan AND Brooklyn) with a collective value well into the millions of dollars, with hundreds of documented building violations spanning more than thirty years, yet NO ONE questioned why he was only claiming $52k as income? And on top of that, they can’t seem to confirm his real name, let alone just how many properties he owns.

Why am I so worried that the curve on my depreciation schedules might be too steep on the downside? Obviously, I want to be ethical in my dealings, and I do feel compelled to do right by my tenants up to the point where it no longer makes economic sense to be involved, but seriously.

That guy’s some kind of super phantom anti-hero Landlord if it comes to pass that he’s that far off the map.

Landlords misbehave in other countries too!

Hello Canada.

Wow. Superfink is extremely upset about the current behavior of her Canadian Landlord. He’s showing her crib about to new prospective renters, even though he pushed to have her and her roommate leave so he could renovate. And he’s apparently a fan of the no-tell unit showing! He just shows up with a crew of potential renters, oh, whenever!

Actually, I (in a round-about sort of way) understand the Landlord’s desire to get some renovating done, and the need to get the current Tenants out before it begins. Two reasons:

1. The renovation project I’m looking at will require some serious effort, and will likely demand the repeated cutting off of electricity and water. Some issues, such as a bathroom re-tile, will take a couple of days to complete. There’s only one place to bathe in the unit. So how’s a Landlord supposed to get that accomplished without a severe hindrance to the current Tenant? Sure, there are ways. But those ways usually get trumped by the second issue.

2. It’s difficult to upsell a unit that’s currently inhabited, even if you do extensive remodeling/renovating. Fact is, they rented X place for X dollars a month. You deciding to take the interior and appliances to X+100 will likely not translate to X+100 dollars in new rent within the mind of the Tenant. And why should it? Seriously. Contracts simply don’t work that way, and for good reason. Long story short: it’s difficult to convince a current Tenant that a newer looking sink and a dishwasher should fetch an additional $50 in rent per month.

But a new Tenant might not mind!

However, I suspect that Superfink’s Landlord was trying to lever them out before their actual Lease was up. Which is indicative of a rather low moral character, and sorta brings us all down in the process. Even in calm realm of Canada.

My word, what a MESS (BE CAREFUL, when I clicked on the image to see more, which there are more, my browser was attacked by all sorts of adware/spyware and a frenzy of pop-ups, but it might just be my janky browser - it's IE, after all). But there doesn’t appear to be much in the way of structural damage, which is cool. Just a few dozen trips to the dumpster, a solid sandblasting, and perhaps a thorough delousing of the entire property. Then it’ll be right as rain.

It makes me cringe to look at though. Teeth gritting.

But then there’s the other side of the coin. This Landlord (I know, it's from 2003, but that doesn't diminish the impact), in some odd parallel universe of super-convenience and Canadian hilarity, demanded that his Tenants offer up their entire contractual year of post-dated rent checks when they signed the lease. This was obviously done by the Landlord for convenience, so that he wouldn’t have to wait for checks to arrive, and he could avoid the possibility of intentionally late remittance.

That being understood, I’m not even sure where to begin with this one. It’s… flabbergasting that someone would have the nerve to demand this of a Tenant. It’s simple contract law, and a violation of the spirit behind fair consideration (common and legal) in a civil society. As a Landlord, when you lease a property, you HAVE to assume that you will be paid based upon the terms of the signed contract, and the Tenant HAS to assume that they will be taken care of in terms of the Landlord providing a safe and clean environment. The demanding of post-dated checks removes almost all of the trust, AND puts the risk squarely on the shoulders of the Tenant.

Any Landlord that paranoid about the enforcement of their rental agreement(s) should likely look to exit the business. To avoid the ulcers if nothing else.

I’m currently dipping my toe back into the duplex market, back on the hunt. I’ve been particularly pleased with my current Tenant set, wondering why everyone else in the world doesn’t just leapfrog through duplexes.

Which, of course, led me to the interweb to find some contradictory, or at least counter-opinioned stories of duplex investing. I didn’t really find any true horror stories out there. I found the usual recommendations concerning repairs, Tenant selection and such. That’s all fine and dandy, but I honestly wanted to hear of some grizzly investing woes. Properties gone totally awry.

I found this story on Sitting Pretty Financially, one which I’d already read back in April, discussing the merits of different real estate investments (and a kinda healthy dose of bragging on the writer’s part, but that’s alright by me). She maintains the Duplex recommendation while giving fair warning on the dubious nature of Condo purchases.

Oh, Condos! Such the investment cad! So willy-nilly and difficult to pin down!

I am not a big fan of the Condo as a means of real estate investment. You own no land, just the rights to a piece of space above some land of which you may or may not own some miniscule number of voting shares for. Town Homes are typically slightly better, but only because they more resemble an actual home and there are fewer “owners� per square foot. Fewer cooks in the investment kitchen.

Regardless, my search was for duplex stories, and I stumbled one of the friendliest, most earnest approaches to landlord blogging I've ever read. And I read lots of them. This one’s called I Bought a Duplex! I can’t tell how long he/she’s been writing, or whether they'’ll continue, but it’s a rather good read!

Obviously nothing is dissuading me from my pursuit of another Duplex investment. Especially since I feel that we're passing the soft-rent plateau of the past five or so years, as rental rates continue to solidify under current market conditions.

Going out on a pretty sturdy limb here, but I’m pretty sure all of our visitors here are actual DIY Landlords. That, and a plethora of service providers (we are on the internets, after all). But there’s a rather distant chance that someone reading this is a prospective Landlord. Someone who has yet to make the complete jump into the pool we swim in every day.

But for one reason or another, they’ve got a toe in the water.

Perhaps considering the merits of a managed-property investment. Perhaps considering taking over their family’s Landlording business. Maybe their spouse is a Landlord who is currently unable to fulfill their duties as such, and they’re trying to fill that gap.

The obvious and natural question they’re asking themselves is whether or not Landlording is “for� them. It’s a good question for a beginner, and a perfectly reasonable question for even the most seasoned of Landlords: is Landlording in your nature? Letalife has a great 10-point list of things any Landlord, potential or current, should consider. Sure, it’s a UK-based list, so several points won’t apply directly to US markets (the whole “bed sits� and “house shares� thing threw me off for a spell), but the gist of the list is germane.

In my own experience, the toughest part of Landlording is sourcing appropriate Tenants. For the most part, it's an artform. But in recent years, there are better and better tools out there to aid in the search. That being said, for the Letalife bulletin on “reliable, cost-effective method of finding suitable tenants,� where Letalife recommends its UK self, any US Landlord may want to check out a site like Apartments-and-Rentals instead. Pretty much the same marketplace for Landlords and potential Tenants to meet each other, but US based.