Lessons From an Overfriendly Landlord
When I purchased my first property, a triplex row home in an outlying section of Harrisburg, I was very anxious to get to know my tenants on a personal level. I introduced myself and made myself available to them 24 hours a day. I listened to all their complaints about the previous landlord and his leftover maintenance.
When my father upgraded his computer, I reloaded his old one so the hard drive was clear and gave it to my one tenant’s teenage daughters so she could use it for school. It was the ‘caseworker’ in me that made me do it and from that gesture I felt good.
It seems that computer was a turning point for me in my career in property management. Not because of the incredible satisfaction I felt from helping someone less fortunate. Not because I gave a low income family a computer they could not have afforded otherwise. But it was a turning point because of the overwhelming sense that that teenage girl could not have cared one bit that her great landlord gave her a computer for free. This little teenage diva felt entitled to this hand out and in return didn’t have a thank you, or even a neck snap in return.
It was then I realized that I am a landlord first and “friend” comes somewhere down the list. I have to thank this teen diva for that awakening because it had made me aware of the line in the sand that I should never cross.
There are many tenants out there that feed off of landlords that want to be friends. Friends do friends favors… Like let them slide on the rent for a couple of days/weeks/months… They dismiss the hole in the wall from a frustrated fist. All this will lead you holding the bag when this pseudo friendship come to a halt and your nice little investment is looking very similar to a well partied college row home. read more…
