I had been considering selling the apartment building I had owned for several years.
I was tired of all the work that goes with being a landlord.
Not only do I pay for all the repairs, but many times i end up paying for the repairs that happen when the tenants walk out. Last month, I had a tenant move out in the middle of the night, and I didn’t know they were moving. There were no forwarding addresses, and I was out for three months’ rent. They had kicked the basement door in and I needed a replacement door. Once I got inside the house, I was flabbergasted. The basement wasn’t the only place that needed replacement doors. Every door in the house had been torn from the hinges. I had to call a window replacement company because most of the windows were broken. It floored me to think that someone could do this much damage to someone’s property. Once I found someone who did replacement windows and doors, I had to call someone who did general contracting. I had walls that had giant holes in them, and a ceiling that was falling down from a still running bathtub. I never thought one of my tenants would be so ignorant to leave a home in this state of disrepair. The worst part of the clean-up, wasn’t even the replacement of doors and windows, or needed a general contractor. I had to hire someone to exterminate the rodents, bedbugs, and roaches. I think it may have been cheaper to have the house condemned and build a new one.