On Sat, 2 Mar 2013 18:47:59 +0000, nestork
wrote:


Daniel Tyasmoko:

I've been a landlord for over 25 years now, and I can assure you that
there is as much to learn doing this kind of work for a living as there
is doing any other kind of work for a living.

Buying a house merely as an investment is a risky proposition in my
view. If you rent that house to a tenant, and a few weeks later he
starts to complain that it's infested with bed bugs or cockroaches, not
only is it your responsibility to hire an exterminator to eliminate the
problem, but you cannot hold the tenant responsible for bringing them in
if he simply claims that they were there to begin with. How can you
prove him wrong?

Another issue is deciding who to rent to, and that means being able to
tell a good tenant from a bad one. I find that at least 20 percent of
the applications for rent that I get are bogus. People will give me the
name and phone number of a friend, and claim that he's their landlord.
I simply go down to the property tax department here in Winnipeg and
find out who the property tax bill is sent to every year, and that way I
know the name, address and phone number of the real landlord. And, when
I talk to that landlord, if he's never heard of the applicant wanting to
rent from me, then the application goes in the trash because I can't
believe anything on it.

And, of course, as a landlord, you pretty well have to do all the
cleaning, repairs and renovations yourself. That's not because you
can't hire someone to do that work, it's because the work they do isn't
on par with what a landlord would do if cleaning, repairing or
renovating his/her own property. And, I can give you some examples:

I once had a tenant hire a cleaning company to clean up his suite in the
days immediately prior to his vacating. Two immigrant women showed up
with rags and sponges and started cleaning the kitchen cupboards. They
couldn't get the marks off the shelves that were made by the metal cans
stored in that cupboard, so they just gave up and said the marks were
permanent and the shelves would have to be painted over. You can't get
those marks off with a sponge or a rag, you have to use a Magic Eraser
or a Scotchbrite pad. I gave them each a Magic Eraser and they claimed
that they knew what they were doing, the Magic Eraser wouldn't work any
better than a rag, and basically said they were done with the
cupboards.

They did the same thing trying to clean the soap scum off the bathtub
and shower tiling with rags. Soap scum is soap that's lost it's
solubility in water. So, using a wet rag to remove soap scum is an
exercise in futility.

Long story short, I let them do their thing, then took pictures, then
filed a claim against the tenant for the cleaning I had to do after
these women were done. And the claim succeeded.

Here's another one: I replaced all the square edge kitchen counter tops
in my building with prefab plastic laminate counter tops. BUT, when I
cut a hole in the prefab top for a sink or for the kitchen deck faucet,
I paint the exposed particle board with an oil based paint both inside
the hole and on the underside of the top around that hole. That way, if
water ever leaks into that area, the paint will prevent the particle
board from absorbing any moisture until the leak is discovered and
fixed. You can do the same thing with an epoxy meant to be used to
restore the strength of rotted wood.

NO counter top company will do that, and it's because 99% of customers
judge the quality of the work done by what it looks like, not what's
been done to ensure the work lasts a long time. So, as long as the
customer can't see that something's been done to extend the expected
lifespan of the work, no company will bother doing it. They're only
concerned about getting paid and the work lasting one year until their
warranty expires. Whatever happens after that is the customer's
problem, not theirs.

And, it's the same story even if you buy a building big enough to have
it's own maintenance staff. The people working for you are only going
to do the bare minimum to ensure they don't get fired. They're not
going to do as good a job as the landlord would.

Here's a tip for any renters in here wanting to rent in a well
maintained apartment block:
Look for a building with flowers growing in the planter at the
front of the building. That's cuz no caretaker is going to create extra
work for himself by planting flowers. Those flowers are almost
certainly planted by the landlord's wife, girl friend or perhaps mother,
and that usually means that the landlord lives in the building, and that
usually means that the landlord maintains his own property, and that
usually means that everything in the apartment will be in good working
condition.

Looking after a rental property is NOT AT ALL "easy money".


I've done it too about the same # years as you, maybe a little more
and you are correct. Not easy especially in the beginning of doing
it. Like you said, it's a learning process. Still do it and like
you, I could tell a lot of stories.