BBQ Capital | Kansas City Real Estate Investing

We have pretty high expectations of the tenants we rent to here at KCPropertyManager.com.  But by the same token we are pretty demanding of the owners, as well.  Want to keep your tenants?  Then fix your house.

Property management is a symbiotic relationship between the three principals; The Owner, The Tenant and The Manager.  All have to be doing their part.  But if a one breaks down the whole relationship can go sour in a hurry.  Everyone likes to bust on the tenants for non-payment, late payment or breaking this or that.  I hear all the time of property mangers that don’t fulfill their end of the duties regarding collection of rent, maintenance and communication during evictions.  But let’s be fair, not all owners deserve great tenants or property managers. 🙂

Not fixing dishwashers is not acceptable.  Having a tenant sit in a cold house for three days while you decide which heating and air conditioning company might save you $75 is not acceptable.  If there is a water leak, fix it.  If there is a roof leak.  Fix it!

Listen, these are the owner’s obligations.  And you won’t be able to sell the house until these things are repaired anyway.  Don’t buy a rental property until you have a reserve set aside for repairs (not to mention if you have a couple months of vacancy) because repairs will be necessary.

So everyone always hears the bad stories about property management.  And quite frankly, they can be more fun to tell.  But it’s also good to tell a good story every now and again.

A few months back we moved in a couple that has a young baby and they had good credit, a good rental background and pretty good jobs.  But because they were young and the rent was going to be up at our comfort level when considering rent + expenses/income we decided to ask for a co-signer.

Things were fine for a few months but then he left her over another woman and took the baby.  Key endless couple drama here.  One locked the other out and one left and tried to get back in and possible kidnapping and over-the-state-lines charges and etc.  Oh, and of course, they stopped paying rent because neither wanted the other to benefit.

Well, each time they would call to talk we just told them to hold the drama and pay the rent.  So we filed eviction and collection on everyone, including the co-signing mom.  Poor lady.  She had excellent credit and a great job…but a nut for a kid.  She ended up stepping up big time.

We negotiated that we would release them from the lease IF all past rent was paid, late fees paid, damages/cleaning were paid and the legal fee our attorney had incurred were paid and a forfeiture of their deposit.  Mom stepped up big time.

Now I realize she did this in her best interest.  But let’s face it, many a co-signer won’t do so and it has to go through legal channels.  She was a woman of her word and in today’s America that still counts for something.  Since she was willing to do that we let the lease go because it’s in a part of town where renting shouldn’t be a big hassle.

So in the end the investment property owner had to wait about 48 days for his money but he was made whole plus a tiny bit more.  Property management comes with all kinds of wrinkles.  Here is a story of people who made right but it’s also a story of why a rental property owner needs to have 3-5 months of house payments in reserve…just in case.