14 Emotional Roller Coasters You Might Experience as a Landlord
Written on May 27, 2014 by Seth Williams, updated on October 7, 2014
As any experienced landlord can tell you – owning rental properties can be an emotional roller coaster.
When you buy your first “income property” – you’re embarking on an exciting new adventure that is filled with ups & downs, highs & lows, and will help you to learn many important new life lessons.
In the end, you’ll figure out how to work better with people, become a better business person and juggle a lot of the challenges that come with owning and managing rental properties.
Shown below are a few examples of what some new landlords have experienced in their first 12 months of property ownership.
14 Emotional Roller Coasters
1. When you make an offer on a property, and your agent calls to let you know the offer was accepted:
2. The feeling of anticipation after you list your first property “FOR RENT” on Craigslist:
3. When a prospective tenant says, “It’s none of your business what my credit score is.”
4. How it feels to get your first property tax bill:
5. When you get a call from the city’s zoning & compliance inspector:
6. The first time you make a monthly profit:
7. After 1 month of using Cozy, when you realize how much easier property management can be:
8. When your tenant demands that you replace all the windows in your building:
9. When you evict a tenant, and walk into their vacated unit:
10. When a bad tenant finally moves out of your building:
11. When you get in an argument with a tenant, and they question your competence as a landlord:
12. When you see one of your old tenants in a public place:
13. When your tenant trashes the place and asks for their entire deposit back:
14. When you meet a new landlord who tells you, “Oh, I don’t need to do a background check on these people.”
Can You Relate?
Which scene(s) can you relate to? Let me know in the comments.
Topics: Property Management
About Seth Williams
Seth Williams (@retipsterseth , G+) is a land investor and residential income property owner, with nearly a decade of experience in the commercial real estate banking industry. He is also the Founder of REtipster.com - a real estate investing blog that offers real world guidance for part-time real estate investors.
5 Comments
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Jim Johnson
How about when you’re just tired of working with tenants and would like to put your money under your mattress but realize that if you do sell you’ll lose a very large part of your profit (profit?) and you’ve just been working all these years so you can send O’Trauma on another vacation…oops…Dip-lomatic Junka.
Seth Williams
Lol – I’m sure you’re not the only person in that predicament Jim. :)
Bob @ effinglandlord.com
Seth is right, Jim. We all get tired of dealing with tenants sometimes, but that’s the only really difficult part of the job. As I see it, you have a choice: either whine about Obama and how unfair the world is and then get back to work, or just get back to work. As for selling out and stuffing the money in your mattress, there’s absolutely no profit in that, and no write-offs either.
Sheryl Holland
I love this — with exception of the use of Mitt Romney in #3 — I’d rather not have to see his face ever again. And for all you Obama dissers out there, the man is at the helm of a remarkable recovery. haven’t been so sound since 2003, the market hit a record 18,000 on 12/23/14. The real estate “junk mortgage” crisis and subsequent devaluation of our property holdings occurred while the Republicans were in charge, and is reflective of that ethos.
Nanette
2 3 6 9 10 13 and 14. 9 and 13 are my favorite….those are great. Sometimes tenants take you through the ringer that’s for sure. Going forward I am using the tools available through Cozy to make sure bad tenants don’t move in!
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