The Inside Scoop on Being a Landlord
February 16, 2024
Renting
Being a landlord can be a rewarding experience, providing good income and the opportunity to help people find a comfortable and safe place to live. But it’s also a significant investment of time, money, and energy, with endless amounts of frustrations, from dead pets to driving the other road home.
So what’s the real deal with being a landlord? Reddit user u/fiya79 opened the floodgates, and the responses were painfully on point…
1. EVERY JOB IS THREE TRIPS TO LOWE’S
“You cannot own a caulk gun. You must own at least 4. And when you need one next week, you will buy a fifth because the first 4 are lost. You can be sure that if you do find one it will be the really cheap one that is frustrating to use and doesn’t have a built in cutter. And you cannot find a razor to cut the tube, despite owning 20 of those.” —u/fiya79
“I always over buy for plumbing jobs. Need two 45 elbows? Buy 5. And a few 22 degree elbows just cause. The return counter hates me.” —u/Dumbdumbmen
2. THAT TEFLON TAPE SOUND
“You can’t find the teflon tape, even though it’s always in the way when I don’t need it!” —u/sherlocksrobot
“1. Pull Teflon tape from bag because it’s in the way. 2. Teflon tape falls to ground and makes the sharp cracking noise of its people. 3. Cover separates from base. 4. Cover and base bounce in opposite directions.”—u/Current-Ticket4214
3. RELIEF IN UNIFORMITY
“Multiple trips was a thing for me until I embraced uniformity. All cold feed: 3/4, all hot feed: 1/2, under sink: 1 1/2, in wall: 2, under floor: 3.” —u/Oddjibberz
“Buy paint in 5 gallon buckets. Same color all walls. Then you can touch up vs repaint. And, store roller cover in the bucket- no wash ups. 2) have your list of tasks and go forward until you have a hardware store item. Go to next item. Do all hardware runs at once. You will get three times as much stuff done this way.” —u/L-W-J
4. MANAGING MATH
“You want to turn your property over to a good manager. But there are no good property managers. You kinda suck at managing your own properties and you are still better than most companies. Yet you do the math at least 7 times a year…and it just isn’t worth it. Then a month later you get tired of the calls and do the math again, just to be sure.” —u/fiya79
5. IMPROVEMENTS ON IMPROVEMENTS
“That first flooring you laid with great pride will look like kindergarten work after your 10th round laying flooring.” —u/fiya79
6. ALGORITHMS
“Your YouTube algorithm will be filled with tile tips and dudes throwing up drywall at 4 sheets per minute.” —u/fiya79
7. CAR-FACTS
“Your tenants have nicer cars than you. My tenants collectively own 56 cars. Mine would be ranked # 51 on the list.”
“Your driving routes can be influenced by your units. Initially it seems like a good plan to drive by regularly. Eventually you add 3 miles to the commute just to avoid knowing what they are doing to your once-glorious yard.” —u/fiya79
8. DEAD PETS
“Oh God, dead pets… My tenants decided to bury their dead rat in my back yard without telling me, just into the bushes and apparently placed a bunch of rocks on the grave that I couldn’t see because of said bush. I found them shortly thereafter with my lawn mower blade, which actually stopped my mower. Then they have the audacity to be pissy with me because I mowed over their unauthorized rat grave.” —u/BlackMarketChimp
9. CREATIVE SCREENING
Always, always use credit checks to screen tenants…
“One trick, walk applicants back to their cars after a showing. Pay no attention to the type of car or the condition of the exterior. Take a glance inside. How tenants keep the inside of their cars very often has a strong correlation to how they keep the inside of what they rent. Filthy broken everything piled up with fast-food wrappers? Think really hard about renting to them.” —u/UselessSage
10. COLLECTING THE CHECK
“One very effective management tool is to provide a $50.00 “pay in advance” discount to your renters. It works.” —u/Broad_Firefighter552
11. TENANT-TELLIGENCE
“You’ll have a senior Mechanical Engineering student who does not know how to work a toilet plunger. That same senior does not know how to change a thermostat from cool to heat during the Florida Winter months. Instead, he’ll dress up like it’s snowing inside and endure 52 degrees not knowing he is only 2 button pushes from comfort. Should he really be classified as a genius because he scored 1580 on the SAT?” —u/MultiEvents
12. THE NIGHTMARE TENANT
“My last tenants were an absolute piece of work and A+ liars. Gave off they were a hard-working newlyweds with a baby on the way and their own business. Not only did we get payments late regularly but found out after we kicked them out that at least 3 other people were living there on and off. The backyard was dug up almost completely. We had holes in the carpet, stains. They covered everything with furniture and febreeze at each visit to maintain the illusion. And to top it off we found out from a neighbor that the cops had been called multiple times on the house and someone threw a dog out of the window during one of those times. Then, after not paying two months and getting kicked out, they had the audacity to try and sue us. We had to spend a good $8000 on repairs after they moved out.” —u/twarorzek
13. CLEAN UP
Losing faith in humanity, when a tenant walks in to this:
And leaves you this:
Photos by u/NeuroS0up
14. THE LAST LAUGH
“Some guy at their desk at Amazon in Seattle will tell you on Reddit that being a landlord is not a retirement. You will agree, after you finish your zip line tour in the actual Amazon.” —u/fiya79