Billings - Rental Culture

[Hal Roach]

Originally Posted by Electrician4you

And plenty of LLs got screwed with no lube by their tenants. What’s your point? There are bad people on both sides of the fence. I can tell you that at one time my leases were a page long and I had no background check procedure. Now my leases run 9 pages long and everyone gets a background check. Why do you think that is? Is it because I want to create all this additional work and process or because Ive been screwed in the past and I’m unwilling to let it happen again.

And don't forget, every time a new law is passed to alledgedly protect tenants; rent increases. And if they try rent control, it makes rentals that much harder to find, and also discourages landlords from doing repairs. Eventually, the landlords take over and massive rent increases occur. Being worth more dead than alive isn't a good way to sleep at night, either.

[Electrician4you]

Originally Posted by Hal Roach

And don't forget, every time a new law is passed to alledgedly protect tenants; rent increases. And if they try rent control, it makes rentals that much harder to find, and also discourages landlords from doing repairs. Eventually, the landlords take over and massive rent increases occur. Being worth more dead than alive isn't a good way to sleep at night, either.

Rent control wouldnt stop me from doing repairs. I understand that things do wear out over time and i have the foresight and sense to actually put money away for future repairs. But then again I don’t run my business on a shoestring budget either. I have tenants who moved away and years later are contacting me asking if I have anything available. What would tick me off is the tenant destroying things and expecting me to just open my checkbook and write checks to fix it and expect no pushback.
I don’t ask much. Be respectful of my property, my neighbors, follow the lease agreement and pay your rent. In turn I will do needed repairs, I will not bother you with needless bs and you most likely won’t get a rent raise every year or notices to vacate. The $50/100 that I would raisecthe rent is nothing to losing a month or five of rent looking for a new tenant. Yes I’ve had times where it took 4+ months to find a tenant. Not because I couldnt find a body to fill it, but because the applicants wouldn’t pass the most basic requirements. So it stayed empty. I rather leave a property vacant than put a tenant that isn’t qualified.

Massive rent increases occur because there are many people who want to live in one place. There is very little demand for rentals in say Red Mountain California (yes it’s a actual town) . Why? Because not many people want to move there. I also started doing more rent increases because I am being charged more for services and repairs. I try and keep it just as needed basis. So it’s not just because I want more money. I make plenty of money from our rentals. I don’t need to squeeze everything out of a tenant. I want to keep them as long as possible. Raising rents like crazy will make them move.

Like anything else people try and protect their investments. I’m handing a half to 1.6 million dollar of properties to a people that I know very little about. All for about 1-2% or less of the value of the property.
I protect myself by having detailed leases, month to month only renewals and stricter guidelines as to the quality of tenants. In the past I have dealt with the slobs losers and filthy tenants. I decided that I was tired of the way things were going. So i completely revamped the properties, the guidelines and acceptance of tenants.
I only cater to better qualified applicants. I found that I have less headaches that way.

[Rockskipper]

The basic fact is that the more people who need to rent, the more scarce rentals become, and the more landlords can screw everyone with impunity. And they do. It used to be a bad thing to be greedy, but anymore, people seem to think it's fine and dandy, maybe even a good thing.