Being a landlord

We finally closed on our 4-plex. Previous owner owed taxes plus mortgage, and etc. We finally agreed on a price that they and we both had to pay more to get the deal done.

As it happened, the day we closed, I had a friend who had a friend needed a place to live for 1-2 months. So we rented to them. 3 of the 4 units were already rented, although March rent has not been paid. Previous owner was a long distance owner, he did not take care of his tenants well, and the tenants did not pay rent on time. Such was a vicious cycle.

Hopefully, as we have become the owner, and hired a good manager, he would start reinforcing the rent payment, and taking care of the tenants better. 3 old tenants all have a list of repairs that previous owner did not attend to.

Since I was the one rented out the last unit last week, I dealt with the tenant. It's not a tough job, but can be tedious. Most of the jobs are cleaning jobs, and thankfully, they got done within the week.

I can see now that it is really worth it to hire someone to manage the rental property. With a family to take care of, and having another job, trying to take care of these rentals ourselves would be very time consuming.

We pay our manager 7% of our gross rent. He is responsible to collect rent, get tenants if one unit becomes vacant. The repair and cleaning is extra, for which we pay him $20/hour. If the job is more than he can handle, he would discuss with us.

There is no free lunch. Although our gross rent return looks very good, this investment is not without risk, nor is it a piece of cake.

Our rentals

We have 4 rentals, renting from $500 to $720/month. After managing them ourselves for about 3 yrs, we turned it to a management co. Well, he is worth his charge! After he took over, for the first time, all 4 are rented, and 1 of the 4 even had a rent increase.

Our yearly gross rent income (before taxes, insurance and expenses) over property purchase price is a little less than 10%. But nowadays, there are rental property on the market that brings over 12% return.

Humm, may be time to buy some more...