Well, Crap!

Wifey and I own several rental properties.  We scraped, saved and did without to buy each of them. Our goal was to buy properties that appealed to families with children that were in nice neighborhoods plus put our hard earned money to work for us.  All in all the rentals have been nice to have but like owning any home there are expenses:  Property taxes, insurance, landscape fees, repairs and replacements.  They add up.  The net is small from each one but still worth the investment.

Here's one of the properties. A small lake is located across the street that is filled with fish, jogging trails to run on and picnic areas.  To the left of the home is small pond that feeds the lake.   Its home to turtles, fish and other forms of aquatic and bird life.

Without going into the details of the tenants who have occupied this home, let's just say that beauty is skin deep:  The homes always look great inside and out when we inspect them throughout their tenancy but oh what a shit mess they are once the tenants leave.  There's always lots to do in readying each home for the next tenant.

Today we'll inspect this home.  It will be cleaned to a level that the tenants think is pretty good.  What Wifey and I ask for is the home to be as clean as it was when they moved in.  We'll find that their standards of cleanliness are much different than ours.  The bottom line here is that either they clean what we find needs cleaning or fixing.  If not, it comes out of their security deposit.

We've already found a family to lease the home for the next year....a physician recently graduated from medical school who will serve a three year residency in one of our hospitals.  He has a wife and two little girls.  Perfect.  It's a great little home and it is always easy to rent.

The new family will move in the first week in June which leaves a lot of time for repair. 

I'm not crabbing (but I am) but it's always an expense to get a home ready for the next occupants.  Paint.  Clean the carpets.  Clean whatever needs cleaning.  Repair whatever needs repairing. For security reasons, rekey all of the locks.   It's not unusual to spend  a lot of our time along with a couple grand or more before turning the keys over to the new tenants.  You can see why we like to keep tenants for a while and not always fork out money every year or two when they move out. 

I think one day we'll sell all the properties just to rid outselves of the hassle. We could do other things like:   I'll buy that long wanted Corvette.  Spend a year or more in a rented villa in Italy.  Stuff like that.  The real estate market has to come up a bit before that's even a possibility. 

Here's part of the family room.  Wifey love this place and would like to live in it but it's a lot smaller than the home we own.  She'd have to dump many of her prized possessions in order to fit them into a home with fewer square feet. 

There are three bedrooms, an office, two baths, a living room and a three car garage.  Ample for any family except ours. 

The kitchen has gas appliances which goes with a guy with lots of gas.  Together we could burn off a bunch. Our home has all electric appliances which do the job but nothing like cooking with gas.

The backyard has lots of privacy.  Pond on one side, green space to the back, neighbors only on one side of the home.

We're lucky to have such a wonderful asset.   I need to quit crabbing and enjoy the ride.