A challenging part of the business
The mother of all challenges in real estate investing is the rental market. In order to be a successful landlord you will need exceptional diplomatic and communication skills. Your tenant will test you to limits that you never thought possible and you will be given the runaround by the estate agents as they seek to minimize their loses at your expense. You will be insulted and called every name under the sun just because you happen to exercise your rights to collect rent.
The government will take every opportunity to increase your taxes and will slap all money of regulation onto your business as if in a deliberate attempt to make you fail. At the end of your business cycle, you will find that you have not make the profits that you wanted to make in the first place yet your property will be in tatters partly due to the mischievousness of the people you decided to invite into your house.
I know that many landlords have positive experiences with their tenants and happen to get all their rent moneys on time. They do not face some of the difficulties that I have briefly touched on in the introduction above. However the positive experiences tend to be associated with the business customers. These are people who have an interest in sticking to the tenancy contract as it is written and ensuring that the place looks presentable such that it can attract the customers.
However the many people that I know who have ever been involved in real estate investing almost universally have a negative view of residential lettings. They believe that the tenants are only polite in the beginning when they want to butter up the landlord. Once the honeymoon is over, they are then at liberty to show off their nasty side.
An effective antidote to horror tenants
I think tenants just need to know where they stand with the landlord. They need to understand the implications for them and their property if they fail to meet the obligations of the tenancy agreement. They also need to recognize that the real estate investor is not their benefactor who is supposed to give them advice on how to pay the rent. The attitude has to be firm but polite. If they realize that you the landlord will not put up with any nonsense, they too will adjust their behavior in order to avoid confrontation.
The landlord also has to run a professional real estate investing business. If the landlord fails to undertake their obligations under the tenancy agreement, then the tenant is well within their rights to consider that one violation deserves another.
If you are not doing the property maintenance and repairs that you were contracted to do, you cannot turn around and say that now you want to pursue rent from the tenant. They will quite rightly laugh at you for having the cheek to try it on with them. You have to expect the treatment that you dish out to your tenants otherwise you will be in for some disappointment.