Have you ever used a tractor to smash tentant trash

[California]

...then the rest has been easy money....

[after selling the rentals and carrying the financing for most of the price]

My wife saw this and reminded me I overlooked something.

After I finished grad school and got a 'real' job, she said she would watch the rentals when I was away on the frequent travel this job required.

Her participation included trying to collect on the note for a rental I had improved and sold to an investor. He had made additional improvements then 'turned' it again in a few months.

Unfortunately my buyer listed it with a snake broker who bought it for himself and an attorney, who happened to be a specialist in bankruptcy counsel, ie how to avoid paying your bills. After a couple of slow payments they abandoned making payments to my buyer or to me on our respective notes.

I alternated squeezing my buyer, who stood liable to pay me the entire amount due me, and harassing the broker and attorney. My wife went in to the attorney's office with a screaming baby on her hip demanding payment on the note a couple of times. She said it made quite an impression.

I filed formal default notices on those clowns twice in one year which forced my initial buyer to pay me current with interest, each time. Once I went into the attorney's office waving a bad check I received from him and asked his secretary, in front of a waiting client, if her paycheck had bounced this week like this check I was waving around. She suddenly discovered he was available to see me after all. I asked, in the front office, if he would give me whatever lunch money he had in his pocket as a good-faith effort to start covering the bad check. And maybe the secretary could loan him a little to help, too. I thought he was going to throw me down the stairs. After considerable phoning around, he wrote me a check on a different account that I cashed immediately.

Finally the broker partner called me and said people were gossiping about the foreclosures I had filed against him. (Two foreclosure actions from me plus whatever that interim buyer had filed must have had a devastating effect on his credit score!) He had had enough, how much to cash me out of the note I held? I received the whole balance due me, years sooner than I expected.

So it's not just tenant law you have to understand to come out ahead in this business.

 

[HappyCPE]

At some point the damage done by a tenant crooses the line from abuse into vandalism. If someone is tearing out copper pipe and wire, smashing drywall, and breaking stuff then that's criminal and there should be charges pressed.

On the other hand, dirty carpets, scratched paint, abused washing machines and the like can add up to a lot of wear-and-tear that has to be factored into the rent cost. Little of that is recoverable.

In NJ few judges will throw out a tenant. There's almost always a mitigating factor, real or invented. You have to know the laws. Always get a credit report on a tenant before he signs the lease, and always follow up with the reporting agency if the tenant doesn't pay his rent. Make certain the tenant knows this. Sooner or later they will discover that they can't get a credit card, car, or even a new apartment. [the last one may make it hard to get a deadbeat out].

I agree that an improved property is a better one. Neater, cleaner, more maintained R.E. rents for more and helps avoid "urban" blight [not to suggest that there is no blight in some rural areas] which ultimately improves the value of your property along with everyone else's. Being a slumlord has advantages when viewed on a spreadsheet but is no fun in any other way.

Financially rental property is a strain the first few years, but it gradually turns into positive income and in a 30 year working lifetime you will find all your real estate paid up and you will be sitting pretty! It isn't easy but there's no free lunch.

 

[schmism]

I *think* a California eviction includes putting their stuff beyond the property line, ie stack it on the curb.

At least that's what I told my occasional problem tenant.

Never had to do it!

St louis city and memphis both have simular rules. you can not "steel" the other persons belongings (you can put them out side your property)

BUT (hears the kicker) if you pile the stuff on the curb, then you face a "littering" fine from the city for placeing "junk" on the curb/tree-lawn.

so its a catch 22.

when i worked for habitat for humanity they charged us per dumpster (no matter what i weighed). we usually had a crew of voliinteers who job it was to "pack" the dumpster. In my time there we had 2 trucks snap cables trying to get them up onto the truck.

 

[tlbuser]

At some point the damage done by a tenant crooses the line from abuse into vandalism. If someone is tearing out copper pipe and wire, smashing drywall, and breaking stuff then that's criminal and there should be charges pressed.

Agreed, but.... in our experience, it's just not worth the satisfaction to spend all of the money on legal fees to throw someone in jail without getting restitution. Seems quite a few judges won't order it and if they do, the person can't pay anyway.
The rental I was talking about had been rented to the same people for a little over 6 years! One day, the checks stopped and the troubles started. Used to be one of the nicest families you could encounter. No clue what happened, things just went sour.

I don't anticipate losing money on the transaction. The neighborhood itself is starting to downslide so, I'll try and get out.

All of the above mentioned things (credit check, etc.) are true, sometimes though you just aren't prepared enough to see the worst that people have to offer