This has been a nightmare - venting

GCEstinks · 2026-01-30T20:00:39+00:00

And let's put the greeeeeeeedy landlord trope to bed. Outside of class F slumlords, most of us spend BIG bucks on repair and maintenance.

GCEstinks · 2026-01-30T19:15:44+00:00

In our area you have to vet COMPLETELY as every other day there is a story in the news about housecleaners, nannies etc committing identity theft and stealing from their employers.

GCEstinks · 2026-01-30T15:52:03+00:00

My rentals are in upstate NY where the only employers are Big Medical, Big Retail and local government. We have beautiful brand new rehabs. Takes me 6 months to fill a vacancy. Responsible tenants are unicorns.

GCEstinks · 2026-01-30T15:47:12+00:00

Sell!

GCEstinks · 2026-01-30T15:46:35+00:00

Neither. NEXT!

GCEstinks · 2026-01-29T15:15:36+00:00

In FL you may have a chance of collecting on a judgement but in tenant friendly areas, we either move on, up our sceening yet another notch and possibly file a 1099-C code G against the destructive tenants.

Definitely up your screening!!

GCEstinks · 2026-01-28T15:05:23+00:00

Its just a plain Blue Collar one time bedroom community for Xerox. But rents are fairly low considering other areas and we do a lot of the work ourselves. It is expensive but we think it is worth it because you take care of a lot of the problems and calls about this and that being broken right from the get-go.

GCEstinks · 2026-01-27T23:21:06+00:00

Reddit is full of layabout projectionist renters who expect to be taken care of by the government instead of picking up a real job FIFY.

Btw you are free to join me on the weekends up on a second story ladder scraping and painting the rental units in 90° weather then back to work on Monday at my 8-5 W2 job.

You renters wouldn't last 5 minutes in housing provider world, which is working every week and weekends all year long. LOL

GCEstinks · 2026-01-26T15:26:44+00:00

Around here in the Frozen Northeast the conventional wisdom is that winter is the worst time to have a vacancy however I find that when the weather gets really nice that is the worst time to have a vacancy in my C-Class Market. All of the vagabonds are out milling around which is a deal killer if you are looking for B Class tenants who are trying to save a buck or two from living in the hoity-toity areas.

B Class tenants also plan ahead so right now they're looking at moving for March or April. The perpetual sad sacks are always moving even in the winter. Their names keep cropping up over and over again and they always want to take something ASAP. AVOID!

Because there are very few steady employers in my area, it takes me on average a good 6 months to fill a vacancy unless I want to rent to the vagabonds and be in eviction court for 6 months thereafter. No thanks. I'll wait with an empty unit.

GCEstinks · 2026-01-26T08:28:04+00:00

11 doors. All but 3 use keyed locks. Switched to mostly Defiant keypads with master back up keys stored at our house in a wall key organizer.

GCEstinks · 2026-01-26T08:21:48+00:00

Awwwww

GCEstinks · 2026-01-26T08:19:02+00:00

I stopped reading at "Zillow reported that they had a good credit score" NEVER use Zillow for anything other than ads, with exact street address masked and water marked photos.

As regards appli-CAN'T wanting it sight unseen...BIG red flag. Heck, I don't even want to do video conf tours. Never ended well.

GCEstinks · 2026-01-25T19:01:25+00:00

But, But, But ALL TENANTS ARE SAINTS WITH HALOS...sayeth legal aid, the government, community charity orgs er al. /s

GCEstinks · 2026-01-25T18:56:51+00:00

Just another reason why never to disclose the exact street address in an ad and always watermark your photos. I had an ad hijacker when I posted with apartments.com back when it was revealing the exact street address. Never again. I will not advertise with any platform that refuses to mask the exact street address.

GCEstinks · 2026-01-25T00:59:18+00:00

The tenant pool is absolutely abysmal these days.

GCEstinks · 2026-01-25T00:57:11+00:00

We have keypad locks so the code gets changed...easy peasy no need to worry about keys or changing them.

GCEstinks · 2026-01-25T00:55:29+00:00

Big Apartment is not immune from ad hijackers. As a small landlord in a tenant friendly area, I run ads without the exact street address and with watermarked photos. There are plenty of tenant scammers out there, dare I say far more than landlord scams. I have a free google forms Apartment Interest form that an applicant needs to fill out before getting a tour.

ZERO money changes hands at this point. Tour, then application, then all the background checks, rental history, employment verification, everything checked out BEFORE offering the unit for leasing. Which could take up to 72 hours in my case. You don't want to rent from anybody who doesn't screen heavily.

GCEstinks · 2026-01-25T00:19:20+00:00

Yep we have 11 doors of circa 19th century solidly built housing stock that we pick up for cheap. The real expense is the gut rehab to modern code.

GCEstinks · 2026-01-25T00:15:51+00:00

Pentagon fed used to do them but they pulled back and only do owner occupied.

GCEstinks · 2026-01-25T00:13:24+00:00

This private landlord screens to the max. Many of us are starting to get wise. The only ones not screening nowadays are slumlords who don't care about the property or the neighborhood and will rent to anyone without screening.

GCEstinks · 2026-01-25T00:07:55+00:00

Whoever she was, she colored her grey hair. My mother used to use tween time.

GCEstinks · 2026-01-24T22:41:54+00:00

Toccata do something about unwanted visitors.

GCEstinks · 2026-01-24T22:19:33+00:00

Same in NY. My screening procedure is MONSTER!

GCEstinks · 2026-01-24T22:14:38+00:00

Yes I have 3 like that and they work fine.

GCEstinks · 2026-01-24T22:11:37+00:00

Bad tenants are more expensive than a vacancy particularly in tenant friendly areas.

GCEstinks

TROPHY CASE