{"id":91236,"date":"2020-09-26T05:00:50","date_gmt":"2020-09-26T11:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/renewsblog\/?p=91236"},"modified":"2024-02-20T15:53:08","modified_gmt":"2024-02-20T22:53:08","slug":"3-problems-avoid-shopping-rental-property","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/3-problems-avoid-shopping-rental-property","title":{"rendered":"3 Problems I Avoid When Shopping for a Rental Property"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following are three problems I try to avoid when I look for a rental property. This isn\u2019t to say I will never touch a property that has one of these issues, but there better be a really good reason for it, and I would have to factor it into my numbers.<\/p>\n

3 Problems I Avoid When Shopping for a Rental Property<\/h2>\n

1. Neighborhood<\/h3>\n

You cannot easily fix a neighborhood. Sure, you could join the local city council and start a neighborhood watch, but the neighborhood is not likely going to change because you want it to. Therefore, I don\u2019t want to buy a property where the neighborhood will always be an unsolvable problem.
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\nRelated:<\/strong> How to Weed Out the Top Tier Tenants From the Rental Destroyers<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The property will continually be difficult to rent, the tenants will trash the house, I\u2019ll have to deal with evictions and late rent, and in the end, the property\u2019s value may never increase (and might actually decrease). I\u2019m not saying I will only buy in a Class A neighborhood, but I\u2019m definitely not going to buy in a Class D area.<\/p>\n

\"Close-up<\/p>\n

2. Foundation Issues<\/h3>\n

Foundation issues scare me because they can be a money pit to fix, and the cost of a solution can sometimes eclipse six figures. This is especially true with foundation issues on a house with a basement or slab. I would also put any property that has water leaking in the foundation in this problem category and steer clear. Yes, there are investors who specialize in properties that have bad foundations, but for me, the risk is too great.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

3. Shared Driveways<\/h3>\n

I once bought a nice house in a nice area that shared a driveway with a neighbor\u2019s house. Literally, the two houses were 20 feet apart with the driveway in between, split evenly down the middle into \u201ctheir side\u201d and \u201cmy side.\u201d When I bought the house, I didn\u2019t see any issues with this situation, but within a few months, I learned a terrible truth: The neighbor was a driveway hoarder.<\/p>\n

He started to pile up garbage, boats, engines, tires, and everything else you could imagine in the driveway. Although he was polite enough to keep his junk on his side of the shared driveway, it made my property look incredibly bad, and we had a terrible time trying to rent or sell it. The junk in the neighbor\u2019s driveway reduced the value of my property by 20%, and there was nothing I could do about it.<\/p>\n

Now I don\u2019t buy properties where the neighbor could so easily affect my bottom line.<\/p>\n

\"woman
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\nRelated: <\/strong>The 5 Most Common Reasons Tenants Leave Your Rentals<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

In addition to these three, there are other location-specific problems, such as being directly below a flight path or next door to loud\/angry dogs. Likely, you\u2019ll have your own list of \u201cwon\u2019t touch\u201d property features, and that\u2019s OK. Success is found more often in what you say \u201cno\u201d to than what you say \u201cyes\u201d to.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t need to try to fix every deal you find. As the saying goes, \u201cOne man\u2019s junk is another man\u2019s treasure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ad-bookstore\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What are your personal deal-breakers?<\/em><\/p>\n

Let me know with a comment!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This isn\u2019t to say I will never touch a property that has one of these issues, but there better be a really good reason for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":710,"featured_media":115732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7390],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-acquiring-property"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/710"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}