Fully rented! The words are magic to my ears. The alternative is the pesky vacancies that need to be filled. There are several issues associated with vacancies that are unappealing. There is the stress of the financial piece. How long will it take for me to find an acceptable new tenant? How much will it cost to bring the place back to rentable condition? It is best not to skimp on either. My strategy is that it is best to wait for the right person and make sure the place looks great and is clean, clean, clean. People hate other peoples dirt. I can’t tell you how many people come to my place and comment about how many dirty rentals are out there and how clean my place looks.

I spend lots of time on the phone qualifying a potential tenant before I agree to show them my place. I ask them who will be living there, when they want to move and if they are familiar with the neighborhood. My goal is to separate the tire kickers from the real potential renters. It is always fascinating to me how entitled people feel when it comes to looking at property. They do expect you to provide a service just to educate them about what is out in the marketplace. They will walk all over your property peeking in windows when you have asked them just to drive by. They will have you show them your place knowing that they aren’t moving for 6 months. There are also those who insist that you must come and show them now because this is the only time in their life that they will ever be able to see you place and they are SURE this is the place for them. FYI, don’t bother changing your schedule and rushing down there to show them. These appointments never turn into renters. They walk through quickly, and out they go. Off to the next landlord who they have likely told the same story of urgency.

The other non starters are the people who start the phone conversation with “I am calling with regards to”. Sometimes it takes them quite a long time to spit it out. I want to chime in and help them “the rental, spit it out”. But it takes them a long time “I am calling with regards to, um, an ad I saw on craigslist for a bungalow. Can you tell me what a bungalow is?” I want to say “I know why you are calling. I have taken 10 calls like this this morning. If you don’t know what a bungalow is you could use google to find out. It would be faster than calling me.” Anyway bottom line these prospective tenants, if you want to call them that, never turn into renters because they do not have a CLUE what they want.

So who are the good prospects? People who know the area, people who like the area and need to move soon! I actually love talking to these people because it is likely we can connect and I can tell them about why I like living nearby. I can get an idea of who they are and see if it is a good fit for both of us.

But for now, I am fully rented. Yay!

Fast forward 15 years to the present. I now have 23 rentals. Not a lot by landlord standards but I consider myself a small lot farmer as opposed to a commercial farmer with massive tracts of land. Many investors buy residential rentals and have them managed by managers. Their profit margins are much smaller per unit. My attorney has several hundred units that are managed by management companies. He likely makes 1/10 what I make per unit. For him it is just an investment but for me it is a full time job. It is a very full time job.

So here it is Sunday morning. Most of my tenants are home from work and can get to some items on their to do lists like calling me to alert me to a slow drain or a roof leak. It usually starts Friday late afternoon and carries through the weekend. Never mind that it is the most difficult time to find a plumber or handyman. Tenants are busy people and they get to it when they get to it. I have to get the stuff taken care of as best I can and I do.

Occasionally however I get the wildly inappropriate tenant and her name was Janice. Janice was a Jehovah’s Witness and therefore celebrated no holiday. She also coincidentally celebrated no boundaries. New Years morning at 6:30 must have seemed like the perfect time for her to call me. “Good morning, how are you” she said in the most exciting friendly voice. “sleeping” I replied, “what is going on” trying not to sound as cranky as I felt. I was expecting a catastrophic event… a pipe burst at least. “well there are a few things I wanted to mention” she said. “First the light bulb is burned out in the fridge”. Hummm I grumbled “did you try changing it?” I asked. “Yes, but it was too dark in there”. I quickly got her off the phone thankfully before I lost my temper. Soon after I assigned her hours that she was allowed to call me. She could call me after 10 to 5 on the weekends and 9 to 7 during the week. She ended up moving several years later and made many, many more unreasonable requests and then took me to Small Claims court and lost. That was Janice.

I suppose that anyone you pay a lions share of your income to every month could easily become the blood sucking Landord in your mind. I feel the same way when I have to write the big mortgage checks. You want perks and services. I get that. So my strategy is to maintain the best level of customer service possible and yet maintain the clearest boundaries about what is fair and reasonable. It always surprises me when I talk to other Landords who don’t get this. They expect people to move in and pay and never be heard from again. Like they drop into a hole and just money comes out. It’s a people business people!!! A little service with a smile goes a long way to relationship building. Anyway that is my motto. But today I am hoping for a little quiet bliss and so far so good.

This is the view from my backyard right outside Los Angeles. Oddly enough, I have gotten used to the beauty. My Aunt and I were in Costa Rica a few years ago and she shrugged at one of the many beautiful vistas and said “looks like your backyard”. It is true. However, when I bought my house I bought a view that needed a house. There was a house of course. It was a house that when I toured my husband around I talked a lot about potential. Frankly, there was nothing but potential. The walls were blue as was the carpet. The bathrooms were bubble gum pink. The previous owners had birds that flew around inside pooping everywhere! Wisely the sellers planted some pansies in the garden. I plunked down my money and off to Home Depot I went. The house needed everything! At the time I had no funds and lots of energy. I went to the free tile class at Home Depot and little by little installed beautiful Chinese slate floors in my house. Mind you, I am 5’4″ and female. I was the only female in my tile class. It took a very long time to finish the floors. Some days I would only accomplish a 5X5 area. The first day, it was only the inside of a closet. This was a metaphor for how my real estate career started. One piece of slate at a time with great determination and no experience. I had an art school background but 15 years later I am a millionaire. My greatest tool was a great stubborness and a refusal to fail. That is it! If I can do it anyone can. I will add that lots of humor and patience helps. Stay tuned….