How do people live like this?
Rental Property Investor · Abilene, TX · Member since 2019 · 44 posts · 25 votes
So I have been actively looking for good investment properties for the last two months. I went and looked at two yesterday that were still tenant occupied. The standards of living are so crummy at the houses that I wonder how people live like this. I want to get a rental and make it nice. Decent floor. Functioning toilet and shower. No significant holes in the walls. The people living in the current houses that I viewed seemed quite content to live in these "crap holes". It makes me wonder if my standards are too high. I'm not trying to make these places flips or super fancy but I do feel like if I have a decent property that I could find decent tenants. My friend who has a ton of rentals keeps telling me "Even if this house is not a rental, the tenants will turn it into a rental fast." Is it just poor tenant management and selection or is this something y'all see across the board?
Lol your expectations are too high . Look Anything below b class and most tenants live like animals or worse . Don’t take it personally it’s just how these folks were raised and accustomed to . I was floored how some people live initially but I’ve grown to just accept slob mentality. It’s avtually kinda comical to me now .Most of my tenants just have an old mattress laying on the floor and nothing of real value besides a cheap flatscreen tv and random junk . Most never used cleaning products at all or ever felt the need to pick up their stuff or do dishes . Don’t be offended or over improve your property to make it nice . Collect the rent and keep it safe . Most tenants wont take any care of your added niceties and you’ll be frustrated along with ultimately just losing money . Sad to say ,There’s a reason they rent and don’t own a home . Things you think would get higher rent actually won’t . Focus on getting more bedrooms and more doors , not stuff like granite counters , stainless appliances or fancy tile work
It really depends. Totally a case by case basis. You'll have a great property that's just gross by the time you check in a year later, but then you'll have section 8 tenants that keep things in perfect condition. It's really hard to call. But as long as you budget for a solid make ready, it's really out of your hands, let the people live as they wish as long as they pay on time!
Welcome to the wonderful world of owning rental property! Usually (but not always) if you buy in a C neighborhood, you will get C or lower tenants. And if you go into an A area, you will get "better" tenants. This is not to say your A-type property will never get a bad tenant who trashes the place just before the sheriff throws them out.
Remember to do regular inspections at the property you own, take photos and make notes. Charge the tenants for repairs for damages they caused, and make sure you and they both know you are a concerned property manager. That won't keep a tenant from living in a crap-hole, HOWEVER, it can nip the problem before it becomes overwhelming.
Good luck!
When I bought my house in 2012 and cleaned the carpets they stayed clean. And when I painted the walls in 2013 the paint didn't chip or get dirty.
Tenants are often tougher on rentals, ESPECIALLY if they have kids.
I invest in C properties and some units are left just as nice as the tenant(s) entered them and some are a wreck (my one-bedroom apartments tend to stay in the best shape - larger properties with kids typically get wrecked to some degree).
Thank you all for your sincere replies. I am trying to keep my expectations realistic. I am looking into 2 bedrooms right now so maybe I won't court the "families' with kids causing issues. I guess in the grand scheme of things any and every tenant has the potential to be trouble. I guess having a strong vetting process in place will help limit the potential damage. And as a follow-up, I guess I was more surprised that the landlords never felt the need to fix the issues or I guess weren't made aware of them. Who knows.
Lol your expectations are too high . Look Anything below b class and most tenants live like animals or worse . Don’t take it personally it’s just how these folks were raised and accustomed to . I was floored how some people live initially but I’ve grown to just accept slob mentality. It’s avtually kinda comical to me now .Most of my tenants just have an old mattress laying on the floor and nothing of real value besides a cheap flatscreen tv and random junk . Most never used cleaning products at all or ever felt the need to pick up their stuff or do dishes . Don’t be offended or over improve your property to make it nice . Collect the rent and keep it safe . Most tenants wont take any care of your added niceties and you’ll be frustrated along with ultimately just losing money . Sad to say ,There’s a reason they rent and don’t own a home . Things you think would get higher rent actually won’t . Focus on getting more bedrooms and more doors , not stuff like granite counters , stainless appliances or fancy tile work
Thanks @Dennis M. for the advice. It’s funny you mention the TV. I was in one tenant occupied dwelling and they had junk piled all along the edges of the house about 3-4 feet high. Sink basins cracked. Washing machine in the kitchen and dryer in a shed in the backyard. And the first thing I see when I walk in is a gigantic 80” flat screen tv. To say I was shocked would be an understatement.
So I have been actively looking for good investment properties for the last two months. I went and looked at two yesterday that were still tenant occupied. The standards of living are so crummy at the houses that I wonder how people live like this. I want to get a rental and make it nice. Decent floor. Functioning toilet and shower. No significant holes in the walls. The people living in the current houses that I viewed seemed quite content to live in these "crap holes". It makes me wonder if my standards are too high. I'm not trying to make these places flips or super fancy but I do feel like if I have a decent property that I could find decent tenants. My friend who has a ton of rentals keeps telling me "Even if this house is not a rental, the tenants will turn it into a rental fast." Is it just poor tenant management and selection or is this something y'all see across the board?
Sounds like these properties represent value add opportunities. If the neighborhood is such that it could attract either C or B tenants, who are paying either C or B rents, get those places fixed up, get the C tenants/rents out, upgrade it to B tenants/rents, and keep on keeping on.
@Riley Holt
My father and I have a mix of A, B, C and even a couple that might even be considered F class at the moment due to H class tenants lowering a couple of C class down that far. Lol
We’ve just hired a property manager to handle a couple properties that has years of experience in our market area and is familiar with everything. We’re working on bringing a C/D borderline 3/1 home up to a B/C right now. Near the local military installation, but is also on the south side of town in an older subdivision that has had a lot of blight and depreciation over the years. Houses sell anywhere from $10-60k and they might even be on the same street.
Several years ago we had a younger military couple that rented this house, kept it clean, helped me reno while they were moving in from out of state (even fixed me dinner while I was working). Stayed for 16 months. Best tenants we’ve ever had. House was move in ready the day they PCS’d. Very next tenant trashed the place. And so did the next one. And the next one.
I guess the moral of the story is to know your market. Due your due diligence on your tenants. And don’t expect granite countertop rents with a formica budget. It’s all a case by case basis on how in depth you should go on a particular property. But also have an exit plan to sell if you can’t get the tenants and rents you’d like.
So I have been actively looking for good investment properties for the last two months. I went and looked at two yesterday that were still tenant occupied. The standards of living are so crummy at the houses that I wonder how people live like this. I want to get a rental and make it nice. Decent floor. Functioning toilet and shower. No significant holes in the walls. The people living in the current houses that I viewed seemed quite content to live in these "crap holes". It makes me wonder if my standards are too high. I'm not trying to make these places flips or super fancy but I do feel like if I have a decent property that I could find decent tenants. My friend who has a ton of rentals keeps telling me "Even if this house is not a rental, the tenants will turn it into a rental fast." Is it just poor tenant management and selection or is this something y'all see across the board?
I don’t care what the property looks like or how tenants live. It sounds mean but I run my numbers (rents rehab other fixes) and make an offer that makes me money. I can evict a tenant, I can repair the home the only thing I can’t do is go back to the seller and ask for a refund after closing. Also I can’t move the property either, so buy where you want to have rentals. You can’t make a area that is a C/D into a B area, at least not without buying the entire area. But you get to pick the house and the price. If the seller says no to allow your offers, because the answer is always yes if you keep asking the question in a different format :).
But know that the property is a tool for you to receive money from. It isn’t for you to live in or worry about how a tenant lives, within the bounds of the law and local ordinances of course. But if they want to be nasty and live like that, as long as rent is in time that’s on them.
Sorry for the rambling on. Just expressive about this. I felt the same way until I realized I don’t have to live there. Heck I don’t even go see the property except during my quarterly inspections.
This isn’t to say I allow my units to be damaged. That’s money out of my pocket. I provide a clean and functional place for someone to live. That is my job. Their job is to pay me monthly for the right to live there. If either of us don’t live up to our end of the agreement then they move out or stop paying rent. But I never allow a thing to be broken in my units. Prompt and timely responses to maintenance requests shows the tenant that not only you care about the units but you care about them. (I don’t care about them like that. I care that I provide what I said I would)
Good luck. Get your location to buy in and then run the numbers. Everything else will take care of itself eventually.
So I have been actively looking for good investment properties for the last two months. I went and looked at two yesterday that were still tenant occupied. The standards of living are so crummy at the houses that I wonder how people live like this. I want to get a rental and make it nice. Decent floor. Functioning toilet and shower. No significant holes in the walls. The people living in the current houses that I viewed seemed quite content to live in these "crap holes". It makes me wonder if my standards are too high. I'm not trying to make these places flips or super fancy but I do feel like if I have a decent property that I could find decent tenants. My friend who has a ton of rentals keeps telling me "Even if this house is not a rental, the tenants will turn it into a rental fast." Is it just poor tenant management and selection or is this something y'all see across the board?
I don’t care what the property looks like or how tenants live. It sounds mean but I run my numbers (rents rehab other fixes) and make an offer that makes me money. I can evict a tenant, I can repair the home the only thing I can’t do is go back to the seller and ask for a refund after closing. Also I can’t move the property either, so buy where you want to have rentals. You can’t make a area that is a C/D into a B area, at least not without buying the entire area. But you get to pick the house and the price. If the seller says no to allow your offers, because the answer is always yes if you keep asking the question in a different format :).
But know that the property is a tool for you to receive money from. It isn’t for you to live in or worry about how a tenant lives, within the bounds of the law and local ordinances of course. But if they want to be nasty and live like that, as long as rent is in time that’s on them.
Sorry for the rambling on. Just expressive about this. I felt the same way until I realized I don’t have to live there. Heck I don’t even go see the property except during my quarterly inspections.
This isn’t to say I allow my units to be damaged. That’s money out of my pocket. I provide a clean and functional place for someone to live. That is my job. Their job is to pay me monthly for the right to live there. If either of us don’t live up to our end of the agreement then they move out or stop paying rent. But I never allow a thing to be broken in my units. Prompt and timely responses to maintenance requests shows the tenant that not only you care about the units but you care about them. (I don’t care about them like that. I care that I provide what I said I would)
Good luck. Get your location to buy in and then run the numbers. Everything else will take care of itself eventually.
I liked that .. very insightful response
Thanks @Dennis M. for the advice. It’s funny you mention the TV. I was in one tenant occupied dwelling and they had junk piled all along the edges of the house about 3-4 feet high. Sink basins cracked. Washing machine in the kitchen and dryer in a shed in the backyard. And the first thing I see when I walk in is a gigantic 80” flat screen tv. To say I was shocked would be an understatement.
Just out of curiosity, Riley, are you without speck or flaw in your own life?
Because I've met a lot of clean freaks who cheat on their wives, beat on their kids, manipulate their husbands...that sort of thing.
I once knew a guy who was all about the personal grooming. He trimmed his little goatee every day. All new clothes all the time, carwash at least twice a week, put styling gel in his hair. We became business acquaintances. Went one day to a local restaurant to have salads. Good salads, lots of cheese, olive oil. And I looked up as he started talking about how he just loved the smell of a 12-year-old girl's urine, and there were bits of cheese and oil in his goatee, and his eyes were alive as I had never seen them.
So you'll pardon me if I'm a bit suspicious of all this clean-clean I'm-better-than-they-are preening.
Thanks @Dennis M. for the advice. It’s funny you mention the TV. I was in one tenant occupied dwelling and they had junk piled all along the edges of the house about 3-4 feet high. Sink basins cracked. Washing machine in the kitchen and dryer in a shed in the backyard. And the first thing I see when I walk in is a gigantic 80” flat screen tv. To say I was shocked would be an understatement.
Just out of curiosity, Riley, are you without speck or flaw in your own life?
Because I've met a lot of clean freaks who cheat on their wives, beat on their kids, manipulate their husbands...that sort of thing.
I once knew a guy who was all about the personal grooming. He trimmed his little goatee every day. All new clothes all the time, carwash at least twice a week, put styling gel in his hair. We became business acquaintances. Went one day to a local restaurant to have salads. Good salads, lots of cheese, olive oil. And I looked up as he started talking about how he just loved the smell of a 12-year-old girl's urine, and there were bits of cheese and oil in his goatee, and his eyes were alive as I had never seen them.
So you'll pardon me if I'm a bit suspicious of all this clean-clean I'm-better-than-they-are preening.
Wow . I have heard it said from hotel cleaning staff it is not uncommon for clean cut guys in suits with everything looking good leave hotel rooms sometimes smelling of stale urine and with human feces on the wall . Scary stuff . On a side not I do love a good hearty Greek salad with cuts of steak covered in feta, giant olives and oil , yum
@Riley Holt you're projecting your standards on other people. I'll tell you something that may shock you.... everything you've said about these people, someone would say about you, if they visited your home.
Standard of living is relative, dont try to change how people live, and dont expect them to change because you make the unit nicer.
Walk a mile in their shoes.....
This business does 2 things after a long period of time. It hardens you and it softens you. After seeing enough situations that were outside of my upper middle class bubble upbringing, I became much more sympathetic to other people and their situations.
There are no guarantees with tenants. I try and get a look inside their vehicles during the interview. It the inside is a mess and full of old McDonald sacks then chances are they will care for the house in the same manner.
I own the full alphabet of rentals. I’ve seen new construction properties in AAA+ areas get trashed at mind boggling levels. You can’t screen it out, you can only build operating modes to streamline the cost of turnover. Now of days I’ll take 100 units of what your described vs an A+ property.. There’s good money in them there units you mentioned, just got to scrub the dirt off.
LOL. Yup - Welcome to the rest of the world. My advice is to build as indestructible with a mind for cost as possible. So no, you would not put granite counters in a lower-end unit just because they will last forever. You might spend on quality cabinets instead of the cheaper ones that will disintegrate in a couple years. You might install a pedestal sink instead of a cheap wooden combo set (actually about the same price). You might spend $3 a foot on luxury vinyl instead of $1 a foot for peel and stick. You might swear off carpeting.
My first eye-opener was as a cable guy. Wow. Nobody picks up for the cable guy. Then later in life I was broke, and lived in housing worse than any of my units - I still kept it as clean as I could though - that's me.
Month to month. It is quite impossible to screen for this stuff. Sure, there are clues sometimes, but you really never know. I am a-ok with a slob, I am not ok with a pig. Pigs belong in the barn. Cleanliness is relative. I make it quite clear I am not going to clean up the stove or bathroom when they leave. The rest is just wear and tear.
#1 Pay me
#2 Do not destroy my property
#3 Do not cause a ruckus in the neighborhood
It becomes apparent quite quickly which tenants live too hard in property, if a landlord takes the time to observe it.
I have been very fortunate in my tenants so far. I also inform them that we do bi-annual inspections. Even the best tenants forget to tell you about minor inconveniences, and often don't notice the little things until they become big. I have no evidence, but I think the fact that I show up and make notes makes a difference.
I can fix your 95% of your concerns about tenants living in a manner that would damage your property with 5 words: "2 minute in home inspection."
Once they pass your "on paper" application, the last step is go visit the place your applicant lives NOW. Your rental house will look, smell, and sound like that within 1-2 months of them moving in.
Now let's look at the common excuses for not doing this and how to solve the issue.
1) What if they don't live in town?
Hire a Realtor in their town for $50 to go take papers by for them to sign. Doesn't matter what kind of papers: a release, a copy of the ad, a fee disclosure...make something up. Zelle/PayPal is awesome for stuff like this. And there are always starving agents fresh out of real estate school that need something to do. Require the agent to fill out a checklist of cleanliness, cooperation, how many folks living there and send that to you along with some pictures of the home's exterior, and also any pets/animals on the premises. I've caught more than one person trying to sneak in a pit bull this way. Of course, they said it was "just visiting".... Lots of visiting pit bulls it seems.
2) What if they don't let you come inside?
There's a reason they don't want you to see inside, and it's probably because the place is a disaster. No inside access = Denied.
3) What if they think I'm being intrusive?
They already gave you their social security number, birth date, income, kids' names, criminal background check authorization, etc... and they think a quick head-poke inside the front door is intrusive? Again, no inside access = Denied.
4) What if I'm uncomfy doing this?
If this makes you uncomfy, hire it out as mentioned above. If you don't want to DIY or hire it out, then don't invest in real estate. The first time you clean raw human filth off a wall you'll get more comfy with this process. Ask me how I know. ;-) I hire a cleaner now, but still....
5) They'll think I'm weird for asking to do this.
So what? You're going to hand them keys to a place worth $10s if not $100s of thousands. Anyone who does NOT do this is weird.
This process only takes 2 minutes and can save you (literally) thousands of $$$. No excuses. Do it.
@Kiera Underwood
I agree totally. It depends upon the character of the tenant.
Here’s what I’ve learned over 40 years as a landlord.
They must have a steady job.
You must strictly limit the number of occupants. I prefer 2-3. Never more. Let them politely know before they sign a lease that no overnight visitors are allowed.... ever. That includes family friends from out of town. You will never get rid of them and it will cost you plenty. Always do a background check. I prefer Transunion. Always get a security deposit. If their FICO score is less than 700 always get first, last, security. Avoid section 8 tenants unless they are elderly and sober. Ask for local references. In return for all of this promise to keep the property in good shape.... nothing fancy. Give them $50 at Christmas ( they love this and will remain loyal to you).... cheap insurance and reduces turnover. I play “Two strikes your out” first offense a written warning by certified mail. Second offense eviction.
You ain't seen nothing yet!!!
We had a couple of kids clean out a property we grabbed because the smell & debris was gut wrenching. I commented to the young girl hauling out disgusting trash "can you believe people live like this". She replied "sure I have relatives that live in much worse".
Two children slept on this bunk bed with several cats, complete with the respective breath taking, eye stinging cat odor. They were actually eating out of the fridge below the morning the sheriff evicted them.
Wow. This escalated quickly. I wasn’t expecting the pervert salad story for sure. I’m not trying to say I’m better than anyone. I’m just trying to figure out the mindset of these tenants. Thank you all for the advice and I will take it to heart.
My wife and I are partners in our investing. I am certainly no expert but I have had the hardest time keeping her focused on the fact that WE are not going to be living in the rental we are rehabbing. (C/D) Sure a swing on the screened porch would be nice but not for tenants. A dishwasher would be great, so would wood floors and solid surface countertops, but not for tenants. "I want to paint the rooms these colors" WE are not going to be living there.
The rental needs to be safe, sound, generic and durable. The safer, sounder and more durable it is the more money it puts into your pocket.
I have a friend in the business who says we should have a question on our applications: "What is the make and model of the vacuum cleaner you own?" He believes most of his tenants don't own one.
I've found that most people are what I would call "normal" in terms of cleanliness. Some of my tenants have been outstanding. A few probably never cleaned anything a single time from the day they moved in until I cleaned up after them when they moved. I'm sure that homeowners fall into these same categories. Also, we've all probably rented at some point in our lives. So it's not a tenant thing it's a cleanliness thing.
Think about it....rent a nice place, do no cleaning or maintenance for 2-4 years, then move on to a new-to-you cleaned up, freshly painted rental, with the worst case being loss of a deposit. That could make a lot of sense economically compared to the cost of time and and effort to clean.