I am an out of state landlord. Anyone else alandlord here??:jug:

I was a landlord until recently. We could see the real estate market slowing down and decided it was time to sell.... whew! I'm glad we did. Here on the east coast you can't give away city townhomes right now.

We had Section 8 tenants. It was a good deal, the city paid most of the rent & the tenants always paid on time, knowing they would lose their vouchers if they didn't.

But once the market appreciation stopped, we decided the positive cash flow wasn't worth the PIA (pain-in-the-***) factor. We had one house with an oil heater, and the tenant was responsible for putting oil in it. Did you know that if you continually run an oil heater on the sludge at the bottom of the tank it will always need repair at midnight on the weekend before Christmas :scratch:

I had one tenant threaten to crack my white skull. That was fun. :duck:

All in all, though, it was a great experience. My husband & I love home renovation. We ended the leases, fixed the places up, and sold them for a tidy profit. I'm obsessed with real estate. One reason for being so frugal is that I'd like to move in 3 years when my daughter is finished at our local school. I'd like to save enough money to make the move as seamless as possible.

SO... Chatterweb... tell us more about your rentals!

I own one rental home, and one farm that we cash rent. 2 separate properties, 2 different rental people.

we own 1 rental in Az. Luckily, we have great tenants! The home is newer (less than 3 years old) so there is not much as repairs go.

The thing I had to get used to, is the HOA, who sends us violations for weeds and such. I am proud to say, so far, we have not gotten fined!!

I am saving some money in the EF and PTO from work in the event that the tenants move on.

But, for now, things are well.

I have learned a lot. When we need a new tenant, I will hire a property management...just to find and screen a tenant.

I do not think we will sell it, but no one can predict the future!

We had several rentals when we lived in Omaha. We've sold all but one rental home. Since moving to our homestead, we bought an additional 1/2 section of land that we currently rent out.

Tenants can certainly be...interesting! The rental home we still retain has a stable, long-term tenant, so we feel blessed by that.

I am a soon to be landlord again.I am in the process of renovation of some homes I purchased in Ohio. I have been a land lord for about 14 years but have not done it recently. I am looking at hiring a management company to care for them. I am also thinking of doing section 8 as the economy is hard there. I can't afford to be a landlord here in southern CA as property prices, along with taxes are crazy. I am also looking to move out of my house in 3 years to a cheaper and less crowded section of CA. We plan to rent our current house out, but I find it hard to believe people rent for 3k a month which is the current going market for my house.

I rent a house to my sister. She has three kids and needed a place to live with a good school district. She wanted me to co-sign, um NO. It's been seven years and she (so far) hasn't been late with rent. and even though she's family, I still have a lease drawn up by my lawyer and signed by her.

My Dh has been reading up on the basics of property management and rental. He is hoping to purchase a property in the upcoming year and I'm just not sure what to think about it all. I can live with tightening up the belt, I can handle DIY remodeling and we work well together, but ....

He has been talking about establishing "seed money" for the initial investment and has mentioned me selling off some of my utility stocks that continue to grow. I told him outright that I'm not willing to give up such funds unless it was an emergency.

We have also discussed the possibility of adoption to start a family and I'm worried that doing both would put too much of a financial strain on us. He suggested I then use the stock money to fund the adoption because his finances would be centered around the new property ventures.

What are your opinions on:

1. purchasing and renting properties in the current economy (mid atlantic region)
2. funding with stocks that continue to increase (currently reinvested dividends)

We are looking into establishing a relationship with an attorney who would be able to help us on the business/legal aspects.

We own one rental home AND we are in the midst of an adoption! :)

Our rental home is about an hour away from us and our tenants are GREAT!! We just bought the home about 6 months ago. The tenants came with the house. They were in their last house for 10 yrs and only moved out because the house sold. They don't particularly like change and he does most of the work on the house himself. He calls to let us know what needs to be done, tells us how much materials would cost him and asks if we'd like him to do it (minus materials from their rent) or would we rather call someone else?

So far we've only had to call an expert once to deal with bees and it was because our tenant wasn't comforatable tackling it (and we didn't want him to for liabilty reasons).

As for funding, we used a Home Equity Line of Credit on our current home for the downpayment. We're half way through the adoption (our paperwork is in China, we're in for a long wait now), and we paid for all of the initial costs as they came up.

Thought I would bump this up. I am a landlord again as of May 1,2008.Second house is being shown hopefully soon. Working on houses 3,4,5 right now. I am working to supplement retirement and replace income.I also love to recycle homes.

Dh's plans for world domination one property at a time is starting to take off!

We are heading to settlement sometime this week on a 2 unit rental. It has some work that needs to be done, but other than the plumbing, we can probably do it ourselves without much problem.

The area is in a fairly old neighborhood that has a high rental population and when driving around the areas we see a lot of home pride.... clean yards, well kept exteriors. It also is a pretty stable area.... not a lot of properties changing hands so that is also comforting.

Ceashell, Did you end up selling stock How is the adoption coming?I will have to stay ahead of your husband for world domination.LOL.

Well I haven't been able to get him to have another conversation regarding adoption since his brain was turned onto property investing. However, we just settled on a 2 unit townhome and are starting the DIY fix it up. So once that is completed I can try to refocus him on adopting. Neither of us are are of the mind set that children would "complete" our lives, but instead we would like to "share our lives" with children. (My girlfriend was of the "I'm not complete without children mode and went thru years of infertility treatment before adopting her 3 kids and she was crazy/frustrated about it for years.)

As for the property: since the mortgage market is so shaken up, we ended up having to put a 20% down payment which took some of our savings, but did not touch my stocks. It doesn't change the cost of the property but it was an unexpected change the week before settlement. It does however lower our mortgage per month which means we can pay it off with extra payments more easily to increase our equity..... then reinvest in another property. (That is step 2 in the world domination plan so everyone better watch out! LOL - dh is soooo funny!)

We hope to get the upper unit made ready and available by the June and the second unit (which needs an entire new bathroom) by July, but it is going to take a lot of work.

I`m glad you have good tenant`s.
I know there are bad ones. and hard to get out of your places. good luck.

DH and I bought a duplex when we got married. Rented 1/2 and lived in the other half. The rent paid 3/4 of the mortgage and I was able to be a SAHM. EXCELLENT move. Worked out really well for us. We purchased our current home and rented both units of duplex for a few years. Bought a commercial property where we run our business and rent a house that is on the property. All five of our children were born while we lived in that duplex. Yay for living Frugally!!

DH and I bought a duplex when we got married. Rented 1/2 and lived in the other half. The rent paid 3/4 of the mortgage and I was able to be a SAHM. EXCELLENT move. Worked out really well for us. We purchased our current home and rented both units of duplex for a few years. Bought a commercial property where we run our business and rent a house that is on the property. All five of our children were born while we lived in that duplex. Yay for living Frugally!!

Yay Indeed!!

We still own the rental, and have new tenants. I like to own property and getting rent is a blessing.

i'm an out of state landlord. I have a property manager that handles the property for me (thank goodness). I have had a lot of turn over due to the crazy lady that lives upstairs. She is a piece of work and has run off every single tenant there since she moved in ... ARGHHH

i will move in there myself when I can so I can run her off !!!:angry:

i'm an out of state landlord. I have a property manager that handles the property for me (thank goodness). I have had a lot of turn over due to the crazy lady that lives upstairs. She is a piece of work and has run off every single tenant there since she moved in ... ARGHHH

i will move in there myself when I can so I can run her off !!!:angry:

not hijacking ... just curious rowdy. What does this lady do to your tenants? Can you get rid of her? I lived near a crazy lady, she drove me bonkers.

she calls my property manager and complains about noise. She knocks on each tenants door incessently and says that they are making noise. She claims you can't make any noise after 9 pm per the condo rules. She will complain about them smoking, she will complain that there is stuff in their patio. She even calls the police saying that they make noise. She owns the unit and I rent mine out. It doesn't matter who moves in, they always move out due to the harassment.The longest tenant I have had is 5 months. I have written her letters, begged her to stop and even wrote a letter to the HOA. They know she is a psycho but she cleans the complex for $200 per month so they put up with her b.s.

It sucks to be me !! Before I got the condo, my mom owned it and had the same problem with her for many years.