Is living off of rental income from mortgaged investment properties feasible?

[Tallysmom]

Originally Posted by bentobox34

That's strange... as a tenant, those expenses have been taken out of MY deposit every time I have switched apartments!

My landlord/landlady just spent the entirety of the months of June and July touring Europe. I don't get the impression they are doing too bad at all...

I haven't rented in ages but I thought general wear and tear was part of doing business. When the tenant left, if the apartment was "clean", as in not trashed, and the carpet wasn't filthy and stained or burned, fixing nail holes in the walls, repainting or touching up, doing a general clean and cleaning carpet was just a matter of course and not taken out of your security deposit.

The first place we left we got our deposit back in it's entirety, and the second place -- well, she was such a harridan we were lucky to get out with our sanity. Losing the security deposit was a given.... and we didn't care.

[MrRational]

Originally Posted by bentobox34

That's strange... as a tenant, those expenses have been taken
out of MY deposit every time I have switched apartments!

Originally Posted by Tallysmom

I haven't rented in ages but I thought general wear and tear was part of doing business.

When the tenant left, if the apartment was "clean"...
was just a matter of course and not taken out of your security deposit.

Duration of tenancy is the difference being experienced (I suspect).

If a tenant is in place long enough (5yrs as a minimum) then aside from malicious damage
or way out of line filth pretty much anything needed to 'make ready" is on the LL.
Or should be.

Of course some LL's have learned nasty tricks from unscrupulous PMC's
for all manner of ways to gig tenants for additional income.

[Lacerta]

Originally Posted by jimhcom

The second piece of advice is to only rent to people with good credit. A persons credit record tells a landlord everything they need to know about a tenant. For every 1 person with good credit there are 7 or 8 with bad credit and a sad story about how their lousy credit is someone else's fault.
When it comes to tenants there are only 2 kinds of people, the ones who are responsible and pay their bills and the ones who don't. You are trusting a tenant with an asset worth in many cases hundreds of thousands of dollars, don't take chances.

^^^ This

Given a choice between someone unemployed, with 2 pets, but 800+ credit or someone steadily employed, with no pets, but a 600- credit score, I will take the 800 score every time. The person with 800 credit has life figured out. If they don't have the income right now, they still know where the money is coming from. If their pets do damage, they are prepared to acknowledge it and cover the repairs. It isn't about the score, though, it is the attitude toward debt. I actually don't care what the actual number is, I care what the report looks like.