As a renter, what are your expectations of your landlord? Obviously everbody wants a nice place to live where everything works, but let's go beyond that a bit. Who mows the lawn? Who shovels the drive when it snows? If you make improvements to the property, such as painting, how much of a credit do you expect towards rent? What do you consider an emergency that needs immediate attention?

My step dad and former business partner owned a few single family rentals and 5 apartment complexes. I used to work maintenance for him and was on call for over 300 units. Some of the calls I got were insane. Clogged toilet (at 2 am!!!), the A/C didn't work (even though it was only 70 degrees!!!!), I locked myself out of the apartment (FOR THE 4TH TIME THIS MONTH!!!). I was on one end of it, I would love to hear the other side.

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You bring up good points here. I used to rent a condo when I first moved to Slidell, LA and when I did I had problems with one of the alcoholic neighbors which there wasn’t much I could do.

He always parked in my assigned parking and had his friend’s park in his. He would never move the cars and one day I had to snatch him up.

I think a toilet clog to some extent is important but can wait till normal business hours.

An AC is out and it was 70 degrees could also wait till normal business hours.

I think if a fridge went out that is something else because of the money sitting in their needing to be frozen or chilled to stay GOOD. This I would say is important.

I also never had to deal with the landlord and loved it. I sent him his check every month and we never spoke unless I needed something.

If I fixed the toiled or anything else all I had to do was send him the receipt when I made payment and he would reimburse me for the amount of the receipt plus $25.00 off the next months rent per item I fixed because it saved him from calling a repair man out and eating the $75.00 an hour cost.

I think that is one of the hardest things with apartment complexes or multi plexes. Neighbors. We had two neighbors at our last apartment that were a total combined weight of 600 lbs. We could feel our floor move when they walked and they were in the apartment NEXT to us! They were also very loud and fought constantly. It was a good year...

I agree with the toilet and A/C going out NOT being emergencies, but there were times where I had screaming tenants on the phone telling me they wanted it now!! Needless to say, I am glad to not be on call anymore!

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If you are keeping the house up for the landlord I think you should get a discount in your rent. This is because it would cost the landlord money to hire a landscaper to do it.

There is a fine line between profit and being nice and giving back. It is a delicate balance because the landlord can do so much and then not make any money.

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My grandfather used to rent a house to a military family and the guy was in the construction division.

When my grandfather made is bi-monthly inspections if he saw anything that needed to be done he would talk with the tenant and work out an arrangement to take x amount of dollars of the rent if he did the work.

It worked out and over the course of a few years my grandfather made a profit and had his house fixed up.

I guess it all depends on the person you are renting to.

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You can roll with me or under me. I don't care which one you choose! - - "me"

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Well, let's see here...I'm currently a renter and I have some issues with my landlord. The biggest issue I have is that #1, she doesn't follow through with what she says she's going to do. Not a huge deal, but still annoying. Here's the huge deal...we had a kitchen fire about a month or so ago. It was started because of her faulty stove (we didn't know the thing was broken because we had been using our own prior to that...we got sick of making payments on ours when there was a working stove already there...). Would you believe...that a month later...this woman still hasn't come out to the house to look at the damages to the kitchen? I don't care who's fault it is (honestly, I don't think it was anyone's fault...an accident)...wouldn't you want to see the damages in one of the houses that you own???? Oh, and she claimed that the stove wasn't hers...it was just left here from the previous tenants. I betcha if we found a few grand in that stove when we first moved in she would claim it.

K, I'm done complaining...but that's the issue I have with my current landlord. Please...dear God...take some pride in the houses that you own.

Landlords need to be responsive and to encourage communication. There are calls that are a priority and those that are not. Part of the art is capturing the calls and managing expectations.

Some people rent because they do not want the hassle of maintenance. Changing a light bulb is maintenance to them. Others rent for economic reasons and they happen to like being in charge of the property even if they are not the owner.

The key is to have some clear rules, to stick to the rules generally but to be intelligent with certain exceptions come up. Better to have too many calls than to never hear about water leaks and other issues.

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John Corey

Real Estate Investor (REI) with over 20 years of experience.
Multiple states and countries; present portfolio spans 11 time zones.

Always open to answering questions. See the contact page on my blog; link below.

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www.ChelseaPrivateEquity.com/blog