This is not a story about how great I am, this is not a happy ending story.
Late last year I took the plunge into buying my first property for the sole purpose of renting out. I've been doing the owner-occupied roommate thing for awhile and that has worked great.
Last week I finished up in court with a ruling for the tenant to pay back rent and leave. So my first tenant leaves with an eviction.
No heartfelt goodbye's, no promises to always keep in touch, I sincerely hope to never speak with them again.
But thanks in large part to you fine folks, this hasn't been a disaster for me and I plan to continue to move forward. The following things were advice I followed from here that were super helpful:
1. Always charge enough in rent. By having the rent high enough, I will still likely be cash flow positive on the property by the end of the year, and certainly am not hurting now.
2. Don't be shy about evicting. You don't want to be an asshole, but rent is just another bill, and if they don't pay it and don't want to talk about why, this is just another thing.
3. Always have a lease with strict terms governing practically everything.
4. Review the laws in your state/county/city/everything to make sure you understand what you have to do and what happens if you don't do it.
Here's the things I ignored, which is why I can't say I'm a great landlord and that none of this stuff is my fault:
5. If you have a bad feeling about the tenant walk away.
6. Put everything in writing and accept nothing not in writing.
7. Abide by your own terms, for instance, don't accept payment in a form other than what you said you would accept.
8. Have enough cash when you start so that you can handle the property remaining vacant.
9. Spend a morning in eviction court. Having done that now, I have completely revised my mindset regarding this whole enterprise, and who I'm willing to rent to.
I was absolutely desperate to rent when the tenant walked through my door, the property wasn't ready, I wasn't ready, but I had run out of money (from a project budget standpoint, again, I deserve zero sympathy). I ignored certain odd things, like a P.O. box as the only address they'd give me, an out of state license but in state plates on the vehicles, and a complete lack of rental history which I chalked up to some deficiency in my background check process.
They also didn't look at the house at all. Just showed up for the viewing with check in hand ready to sign the papers. Wouldn't wait to move in until I said it was available, needed it right then, wasn't a problem that it wasn't quite clean, wasn't a problem that it was a little bit rough.
The last four months were a cautionary tale for new landlords. Every dollar of rent went right back into making improvements to try and make them happy, and as soon as I said "No" to a request, legal threats and the rent stopped coming.
Fortunately I've read enough accounts of this type of thing on here to recognize what was happening and just took advantage of the "out" when they stopped paying rent.
They'll be gone soon and I'll move on down the road, just wanted to thank the MMM community for all the resources and conversations about this stuff.
Here's what I have to add that I didn't remember seeing (though I can't imagine it isn't here):
People will absolutely lie in court. They will say they paid, they will say they hired contractors, they will say everything and anything, especially if they know it is hard to prove otherwise. For instance, I had been accepting money orders as payment, and they tried to use a money order receipt to show they paid me, and if it weren't for my property manager keeping meticulous records of payments, that lined up exactly with my own bank records, I might have been screwed.
They contact me daily since the court ruling to try and pay, but every communication is "we'll pay x amount but we can't leave until y day." I am careful to respond in a timely manner, but always with "comply with the court order."
The tenant has tried physical intimidation, so there's something called a "civil assist" where you call the police and request a civil assist, that I plan to use for the final walkthrough. A uniformed officer comes by and chaperones the interaction. No cost for this in my area.
Always keep in mind what you actually want. There's very little chance you'll see any more money, you want them gone as soon as possible.
Nobody "wins" in a legal proceeding, there's just varying degrees of loss.
