Getting Rental Turns Right the First Time with Perfect Practice
“Never mistake activity for achievement.”
John Wooden (legendary UCLA basketball coach)
A popular maxim says that if you want to be wealthy, keep things old:
- Old Car
- Old House
- Old Wife
When you get things right the first time, it saves a lot of money! I’d also add “Old Tenant” to the list…
It’s also been said that “practice makes perfect.” Athletic gurus (originally attributed to Green Bay Packers coach, Vince Lombardi) have amended that to “perfect practice makes perfect.” The reasoning is that if poor technique is being practiced, more practice could potentially make one worse.
The same can be said of turning homes for rent (I’d say selling them too, but it seems like if your house was on fire in Charlotte, it would still receive multiple offers).
It makes sense that the longer a rental home is on the market, the better the chance is that it will rent. More potential exposure equals more showings which would equal more applications and a quicker turn between tenants. More time on the market (practice) automatically equates to better results (perfect). But I don’t think that the market always bears this out.
So having a home on the market for rent for a longer time can be sub-optimal? Why?
Most of the time, to increase the days on market, the days are taken from when the rental home is tenant-occupied or while it is vacant and repairs are being completed. This is usually when the house is not in optimal condition. So rental ads are urging people to see a home that isn’t in great shape.
This matters for several reasons:
- Great tenants care about the condition of the house. They are very interested in their living environment and value well-kept domiciles. These types of tenants typically return the home in as good or better shape than when they moved in. We really like these meticulous tenants! They usually pay before the 1st of the month too.
- The manner in which the internet home search game works warrants putting out the best product first. Prospective tenants typically set up search parameters and are alerted when rental homes come to market that fit their profile. So when a home is initially put on the market, this should precipitate the biggest surge of showings. If the home is hard to get into (tenant-occupied) and/or looks disgusting (being cleaned and repaired), they will visit and pass on the unit. Or the wrong type of tenants who aren’t bothered by the poor condition will put an application in.
- Homes on the market for a long time tend to get stale. People wonder what is wrong with the house when it keeps coming up in searches for months and hasn’t been snapped up.
A caveat to this: I don’t have a big issue going to market while a home is tenant-occupied (this does not factor in COVID considerations). If the tenant that is there is cooperative with showings, it is essentially free time to market the house. It’s a great feeling to approve a tenant during this time and time their move-in a week after the current tenant vacates (allowing time to get the home in shape for a new occupant). But #1 above can still apply if the home is in poor shape.
In short, for optimal results, wait until the house is fixed up and at its best, then go to market. Get the rental house right the first time and practice perfectly!
Happy Landlording!
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Rental Outcomes: Don’t Bust The Guy Breaking Into Your Car?
It was a sunny Sunday afternoon and I was in my car with my kids to get some exercise in. I wanted to shoot some hoops, so I convinced my kids they did too. It was on.
We parked behind a local school and walked over to where the basketball court was on the other side of it; there was also a small playground 50 yards behind the court. My son and I wanted to play basketball. My daughter also initially wanted to play until she didn’t… then she wandered over to the playground.
It became a volley of walking from the basketball court to the playground and then back again. “Dad! Come see this!” “Dad! Over here!”
On my sixth trip back to the playground, I realized that if I walked far enough into the playground, I could get the sight view past the school to see my car in the distance (which was completely obscured from the basketball court). And I saw a strange man walking suspiciously around my car. I say “suspiciously” because there were no other cars there. What was he doing? He was looking into my windows and did not know he was being watched. How suspenseful! And what to do?
I went through the options. I could yell and let him know I saw him. That would probably prevent any theft or damage to my car. Yawn & boring.
Or I could go (undetected) back to the basketball courts, stash my kids in the bushes, and then sneak around to potentially catch the stranger breaking into my car. Once he broke glass, I could ambush and subdue him; in a perfect world, I could handcuff him with the zip ties in the back of my car. Then I could call 911 and the Charlotte Observer letting them know that a “local hero” had one criminal on ice waiting for them- no charge.
That would be awesome unless… the stranger was bigger than me, good at fighting, and also included kidnapping as part of his criminal repertoire. Then he might drive away in my car with my kids, and leave me bleeding on the pavement. That would be a major fail and one that would be difficult to explain to my wife.
Seriously, what outcome did I want? Though the hero thing sounded pretty good, I needed to get real for a minute. Despite the appeal of potentially getting a key to the city from Mayor Lyles, what was going to be the cost? Realistically, if all went close to best-case scenario (which it rarely does), I’d have a busted car window (that I’d have to pay for and deal with), be waiting a while for the cops to show up (with my knee in a guy’s back who is probably cussing me out), and be babysitting two young children at the same time. That did not seem like a great outcome, even with the best-case scenario.
To me, property management is about creating good outcomes for our clients; the best outcomes come from tenants who stick around a while and consistently:
- Pay the rent
- Maintain the property
- Get along with their neighbors
We recently got a call from the HOA of one of our condo units where they accused our tenants of unkempt living, namely having a unit so disgusting that bugs where infiltrating the homes of neighboring tenants. This was clearly a violation of #2 and #3 above. This was not good, if it was true. They wanted us to evict the tenants immediately (and if we didn’t, they were sending a Sheriff that night to do so).
Despite the sheer illegality and impracticality of such a threat (landlords wish it was this easy to evict bad tenants- “oh, just call the local Sheriff and have him go over the same day to remove them…”), what outcome did we really want? Did we want to remove paying tenants who never had any prior issues? Of course not. We wanted the tenants to correct any cleanliness issues, if applicable, and then continue to stay and pay rent.
So we contacted the tenants and explained what the HOA alleged. Then we let them know we’d be there for an inspection the next afternoon to ensure the HOA there was no issue. The tenants understood and said there was no problem with that.
The next day, our inspection showed a very clean unit. We thanked the tenants and reported the findings to the HOA. There haven’t been any issues since.
The desired outcome was to keep the tenants, not to try to play “gotcha” to catch them violating the lease. That would put ourselves in a position where we would need to make a decision that no one wanted to make- the costly removal of paying tenants.
Viewing issues from a desired outcome perspective, as opposed to the initial bravado impulse, can help make decision-making more clear. It may be “boring”, but “boring” property management is typically the most effective and keeps the checks coming.
Postscript: So I yelled something at the guy at my car and he left. My son hit some shots, my daughter hit the swings, and then we left (unscathed) in a non-damaged car. Yawn…
Happy Landlording!
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Tenant Management: Be Nice Until…
“A brother wronged is more unyielding than a fortified city; disputes are like the barred gates of a citadel.”
Proverbs 18:19
“I want you to be nice… Until it’s time not to be nice.”
Patrick Swayze to the other bouncers in Road House
There’s a danger of showing your age when quoting lines from the classic movie, Road House. Younger people have no idea what you’re talking about. It’s not as bad as making a “Rosebud” reference from Citizen Kane (1941), but it can make you feel like you’re in the same ballpark sometimes.
For the uninitiated, Road House is about a bouncer (Patrick Swayze) who is hired to go to a small, backwoods town in Missouri where some local ruffians are ruining a local bar by making it a warzone for fights. His job is to restore peace by training the staff to deescalate the increasing violence.
His first training session with the bouncers starts with him giving them the advice of “be nice”. No matter what bar patrons say to them, they shouldn’t take it personally. It’s a job. He instructs them not to retaliate, but walk offenders out of the bar, nicely. They should be nice, until it’s time not to be nice.
The inevitable question he gets after this speech is “how do we know when it’s time not to be nice?” He answers succinctly, “You don’t. I’ll let you know.”
As a Charlotte property manager, we often run into the same question. This may come as news, but tenants don’t always follow the lease to the T. They want to do what they want to do, regardless of what they signed their name to. This can be frustrating. And it can lead to the impulse to escalate situations quickly by invoking phrases like “throw you out on the street”, “it’s eviction time”, and “you’ll never live indoors again when your next potential landlords ask me for a reference”.
That’s not nice. And it’s usually foolish.
In my experience, nicely asking tenants to do something differently is effective. For example, if they are leaving the trash cans out for days which elicit HOA complaints, we may ask, “Would you mind trying to get the trash cans in a little earlier so we can be compliant with the HOA rules? I wouldn’t want them to start sending fines.” Or “can you try to make your rental payment a little earlier? The owner needs to be able to pay his mortgage on time and it would also save you from donating late fees to us every month. You’re usually only off by a few days.”
Most tenants are reasonable and respond well to landlords who ask for things nicely. I feel as a property manager, one of our most important jobs is to establish a respectful relationship with the tenants who rent from us. We both need things from each other and it’s much better for all involved when the relationship is cordial.
However, when a landlord is repeatedly ignored or there are egregious violations, it may be time not to be nice. This is when court action may be necessary, but it rarely leads to a happy ending. Remember, the tenant and his/her family are losing the place where they live and sleep; in Charlotte, at least, it’s going to be difficult for them to find another house easily due to the lack of available housing and a recent eviction on their credit. They are in a really bad situation that they will probably blame the landlord for.
At this point, the relationship in most cases is irrevocably broken. The chances of receiving additional rent are low and the house is usually returned in horrible shape. It’s a true “lose-lose” transaction.
It’s actually the same ending as in Road House. When it was time for Swayze and his fellow bouncers not to be nice, it infuriated the bad guys and a civil war broke out in the town. A lot of people got hurt (including Swayze’s best buddy, Sam Elliot, who was killed) and a lot of property was destroyed. In the end, Swayze got his Pyrrhic victory which, outside of movie logic, would only be considered a complete disaster.
So, be nice and try to keep things nice as long as it depends on you! It’s much better than having to turn to the alternative.
Happy Landlording!
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Fill Your Rental Home with Complainers?
As a property manager in Charlotte, we conduct a lot of rental house showings. Typically afterwards, the tenant is either interested in the house and submits an application or is not interested and goes incommunicado with us. Fair enough.
But sometimes we get an e-mail like below:
Hi BDF Realty,
I saw the rental house today and liked it. However, I was wondering if the owner would be willing to address the following before I moved in (if I were to apply):
- Clean the windows- interior & exterior
- Replace the kitchen flooring (small rip in front of the stove)
- Replace the light bulbs to LED
- Replace 2 of the blinds that have cracks
- Change the front lock because it sticks a bit
- Paint the downstairs bedroom a neutral color (I prefer beige for my bedroom set)
- Replace the vegetable drawer in the refrigerator (slight crack starting to form)
Etc., etc., etc… this list goes on for a page and a half filled with minor item after minor item. It’s not exciting reading! I don’t care to read anything that long unless it’s about one of my fantasy football players (7-3 this year so far- yeah!).
In my early, inexperienced years of being a property manager, I may have composed a letter back to them that would read something like this:
Dear Prospective Tenant,
Thank you for your (dis)interest in our rental property. After a careful review of your requests, here is what we are willing to do in regards to each of them (answers correspond to the numbers in your email):
- Nothing
- Nothing
- Nothing
- Nothing
- Nothing
- Nothing
- Nothing
- – 93. Nothing
Thanks again for your (dis)interest!
Love-
BDF Realty
P.S. From my experience, courtship doesn’t work like this. We have the property. You don’t have the property and may want to live there. You should be selling us on you, not asking us to do a lot of marginal stuff instead. Just sayin’…
P.S.S. There’s this thing called “new construction” you may want to look into.
However, this is almost always not the best tact to take. Landlords actually should want these tenants.
What???? Repairs cost money! Why spend it on non-operational stuff?
I’m not saying to offer to do everything. But definitely offer to do some things. Some people would call these prospective tenants “annoying” or “complainers”. A different, nicer moniker would be to call them “meticulous”.
And in my experience, “meticulous” tenants keep and leave your place in great shape; dare I say in “meticulous” shape! There are usually improvements made during their tenancy (that they pay for), rent is always on time (or early), and everything is in perfect order. We really like these people after the first few months and then don’t want them to ever leave.
There is some pain on the front end. However, once they get situated, the back end is awesome. Bring those complainers on!
Happy Landlording!
Learn MoreNew York City Living & Landlording: Count the Cost
“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and count the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?”
Jesus Christ (Luke 14:28)
Shortly after I graduated college, I moved to New York City (NYC- aka the “Big Apple”). “If I could make it there, I could make it anywhere.” Wow! It was definitely an experience.
Honestly, I was a little scared. All the television shows and movies that had criminals crushing the common folk were in NYC. I grew up in NJ, but my parents really never took me into the big city so I wasn’t sure what to expect. The mafia and gangs could just be waiting for fresh meat to show up so they could take my lunch money every day. Who knew?
Fortunately, my physical safety was never really threatened. My issues were more on the economic side. I wasn’t making much money; I was in a sales job and wasn’t selling anything. My manager nicknamed me “rowboat”… because I had no sales (get it?). The lack of cash inflow was tough.
And the cash outflow required was excruciating. It was the $3.50 for a small apple at the corner bodega. Then buying a round of 5 drinks after work that ran $90.00 (without tip). I used to joke that it cost me $20.00 to cross the street. Geez, it was an expensive place to live!
Good deals were hard to come by. And breakfast at the food cart on the corner of my street was one of them. $2.00 got you a large coffee (with milk and sugar) and a huge cinnamon raisin bagel with butter. It was my go-to meal every morning that I’d take on the subway into work.
One morning, there was a couple in front of me in line at the food cart. I could make out parts of their conversation; it was apparent that they were visiting from the Midwest somewhere. When the man was placing his order I could see him getting agitated. Then he said something that I’ll never forget:
“$1.00 for a cup of coffee??? I’ve NEVER paid $1.00 for a cup of coffee in my life!”
That’s when I knew that he was going to absolutely hate this trip to the big city. I almost felt obligated to get him in a cab (and pay for it) so he could immediately return back home. If $1.00 for a cup of Joe was cause for righteous price indignation, he was due for a heart attack later that day.
He did not count the cost of what visiting New York City was going to do to him.
Unfortunately, the same can be said of being a Charlotte landlord.
The investment real estate gurus preach that you will be a millionaire through rental homes! Buy as many properties as you can! This is the way that you build residual income that will last a lifetime for you and your children’s children!
They just don’t tell you that it is a cash-poor business. All of the above can be true, but the trick is the ability to stay solvent for year upon year as things break and wear out. All the financial models go out the window when a messy eviction happens or your HVAC unit needs to be replaced (just happened to me this month- the dreaded $5K phone call…).
Carpet will not last forever and will need to be replaced. The entire house will need to be repainted at some point. Appliances only last so long. The roof too…
Long term real estate investment can be a wonderful, profitable endeavor (you’ll love your net worth!), but don’t let anyone fool you- it can and will cost you money. So before diving in too far, count the cost. A few miserable days in NYC can be remedied with an early flight home to your 25 cent coffee vendor. Several broken-down rental homes saddled with mortgages in a buyer’s market is a little tougher to navigate out of.
Happy Landlording!
Learn MoreLike Dr. Bull, Sometimes the Best Property Management Looks Bad
I occasionally watch the television show, Bull. Dr. Bull, played by Michael Weatherly (formerly the affable “Tony” from NCIS until he left to get his own show), is a “jury consultant” who helps his criminally-charged clients pick a jury who will be sensitive to their plights and vote “not guilty” when the time comes. He and his talented team of specialists measure jurists’ reactions during the trial and change defense strategy based on their body language and other factors.
Of course, like most TV shows, things always go from bad to worse in the first 45 minutes of the show. “The client didn’t tell them he was romantically involved with the deceased!” or “Not only was she the CEO of the pharmaceutical company who would benefit the most from the stolen formula of the new cancer drug, she also happened to be the hired dog walker of the pup who had to have its irritated stomach operated on in which the stolen cancer pills were discovered!” (OK- that storyline hasn’t made the show yet…) But Dr. Bull and his team are inevitably able to pull the strings in the last moment to get the favorable outcome we all hoped for, no matter the odds. Bravo, Dr. Bull and associates!
But real life isn’t always so neat and uplifting. I remember in 2008-2012 we had clients asking us to sell their homes that were saddled with loans that were 25% more than the market value of their houses. So, much like Dr. Bull making magic for his clients… no, we actually couldn’t find anyone to buy them.
But that’s just the part when things go from bad to worse- it’s like TV, right? So we thought like Dr. Bull and came up with the silver bullet to just rent the unsellable houses out in the meantime. Yeah! That will work…. But the market rents (and our fee for management included) left the rental homes negative cash-flowing a few hundred dollars a month for our clients…
Well, this is the season cliff hanger, right? Where things go from bad – to worse – to much worse – before the glorious ending? This is how excitement builds, right?
So our next Dr. Bull-like epiphany is to hold the property for years while it negative cash flows. So, not only are these clients losing a few hundred dollars a month, there are also losses due to repairs, maintenance, and vacancies. And this goes on for years…
OK, this sounds like a downer, a depressing TV show that needs to be cancelled!
But, the funny thing is, I always felt like our best work happened back in those years when it could be argued that the results were the worst. We were able to fund stable tenants in a tough job market and economy to keep income flowing in. But it didn’t look pretty.
I haven’t seen any episodes of Bull where the good doctor gets a slam-shut life sentence case knocked down to only 20 years in prison for his client. Or a 20-year sentence knocked down to 5 years. That doesn’t sell. But, if he wasn’t a fictional character, it might be some of the case work that he was most proud of. There’s maybe some skill in taking really bad situations and turning them around slightly to make them better, albeit still imperfect.
It’s been on my mind as we’ve had some of the aforementioned underwater homes from almost a decade ago sell in the past few months. These long term clients who mucked through some tough market times with us walked out of their closings with $50K-$75K checks in hand. Not too shabby!
So maybe there is a future Bull storyline here after all?
Happy Landlording!
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Good or Bad Home Warranty Company: Who’s Taking the Call?
“My mom always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”
Forrest Gump
I like to play basketball at the local recreation center. I often wind up with “Jim” on my team which I’m ambivalent about (and don’t ask Jim what he thinks about having me on his team…). What I mean is that some days, having Jim on my team is a pleasure. He’s a virtual scoring machine; he just doesn’t miss any shots! I feed him the ball and just watch him go to work. We’ll call that “Good Jim”.
But then there is “Bad Jim”. I’m not sure if he has a split personality, or if he and his wife have an “on again/off again” relationship, or what, but other days he just doesn’t have it. He is disinterested, doesn’t play any defense, passes up easy shots, and turns the ball over constantly. Frankly, it’s disheartening. I feel like we are destined to lose when Bad Jim is on my team.
Do you want to know what reminds me of Jim? Home warranty companies. Some of our Charlotte property management clients utilize them to handle their repairs.
For the uninitiated, home warranty companies charge owners an annual fee (usually around $500) to handle any repairs. So when tenants have an issue, we (or the tenants) call the home warranty company, pay a service call fee (usually $50 -$100), and they will send vendors to fix any major component or appliance issue in the home (including, if necessary, the replacement of them) that are due to normal wear and tear. It doesn’t sound like a bad deal, especially for an older home.
But, like Jim, there is “Good Home Warranty Company” and “Bad Home Warranty Company”.
When Good Home Warranty Company is on, the vendor they put us in touch with gets back to us right away, schedules with the tenant, and takes care of the issue. It can be a good experience (though it makes it difficult to establish any type of service record with a particular company as their vendors change often).
But when Bad Home Warranty Company shows up, it makes it really tough on the property management company and the tenants. We recently had a refrigerator that took around 35 days to get fixed from the initial call(!) and an air conditioning issue that took a week to resolve (a long time to put up with excessive heat in the South during the summer!). The problem is that the home warranty companies have a vendor list and they send you one that you have to work with (and some are not so reputable). Sometimes these vendors call you back right away and other times they wait for days. As a property manager, it’s tough to push vendors you don’t know and have no prior relationship with.
Fortunately, 95%+ of our clients do not use home warranties. It allows us to use our own vendors who we have worked with for years; we use them because all of them care whether our tenants have to spend the night without air conditioning or don’t have a working stove to cook with. I think it’s important to have strong teammates who you know consistently have your customers’ best interests at heart.
Jim is a nice guy, but just not someone I like to have on my basketball squad because he’s too erratic; I never know if Good Jim or Bad Jim is going to show up at the gym. I feel the same about using a home warranty company. Not knowing whether Good Home Warranty Company or Bad Home Warranty Company is taking the call makes either of them difficult to rely on.
Happy Landlording!
Learn MoreGolden State Warriors’s Recipe for Property Management Excellence
The Golden State Warriors won the NBA Championship! They displayed a level of dominance that the league had never seen in its history by winning 16 out of 17 games in the playoffs. And in the only game the Warriors lost, the Cleveland Cavaliers had to set several offensive records to beat them.
How did they do it?
The easy answer is the players. They certainly have great ones- Charlotte’s own Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, etc. With that amount of talent, it could be argued that they could win by managing themselves. From a property management perspective, if you have great tenants who pay rent on-time without being asked and do their own repairs, it makes the job much easier!
But there is something to be said about the ownership group and management (including coaches) that make for a winning organization. It is truly a top-to-bottom effort to become a champion. Ownership and management need to be supportive of each other and have a common vision.
Owners Supporting Management
The majority owners, Joseph Lacob and Peter Guber, treat their employees and players well. When their head coach, Steve Kerr, had back problems the last 2 years (which caused him to miss half of last season and most of the playoffs this year) ownership showed unwavering support. They put no timelines on his return; they just wanted him to come back when he was ready. There was no coaching change controversy. They believed Coach Kerr was the right man for the job and he’s brought them 2 NBA Championships in the last 3 years.
Property management can be viewed the same way. Property managers work for home owners. And sometimes property managers make mistakes. We recently had a longer term tenant who we believe started running an illegal business out of the rental home; we don’t know why and exactly how it started. However, instead of getting angry and blaming us, the owner offered support as we worked to get the tenant out of the home as quickly as possible. We do our best, but will inevitably fail at some aspect of management. Having ownership support gives us the ability to do what needs to be done to right the ship and get back to a profitable equilibrium.
Owners Making Strategic Investments (aka Spending Money)
When the Warriors fell short in the NBA Finals last year, management felt they needed to improve the team; that meant spending and reallocating money on other players. With complete ownership buy-in, management went and signed Kevin Durant to a $54M guaranteed 2-year contract in the offseason. They were willing to spend money to potentially get better. There was no guarantee that Durant would mesh with the existing players (who had already won a championship 2 years prior without him). But they spent the money anyway. And Durant wound up winning the NBA Finals MVP!
Property management is no different. No one likes to spend money; I certainly don’t enjoy spending money on my personal rentals. But strategic investments are necessary to maintain and improve rental properties to keep them competitive against other rentals. When property managers make recommendations to spend owner funds, it is difficult to win when there is constant owner pushback. I guarantee Golden State ownership had financial questions about investing in Kevin Durant, and that is understandable! But no organizations can succeed in the long haul by practicing persistent parsimony (how’s that for alliteration!). And, really, it is much easier to not recommend needed maintenance and upgrades. The Warriors only missed winning the NBA Championship last year by losing Game 7 (so close- and they were even up 3-1 before eventually losing)- but everyone in San Francisco is ecstatic now that the organization didn’t rest on its laurels and aggressively pursued Durant.
The Golden State Warriors and successful property managers share a common recipe for consistent excellence- owners and management working together to make smart decisions for the long haul.
Happy Landlording!
Brett Furniss is a property manager at BDF Realty (Charlotte Residential Property Management), the trusted real estate advisor for Charlotte landlords & Home of $100 Flat Fee Property Management. BDF Realty utilizes their innovative Pod System for exceptional customer service in residential property management, home repairs, and home sales for single-family homes, Uptown condos, and town homes in the Charlotte-Metro Area. Contact Us Today!
Learn More“Rudy” is a Great Movie, Just Not a Great Rental Application
Rudy Ruettiger (aka “Rudy”) was the subject of a great movie in 1993 about his improbable story of getting into Notre Dame and then playing on their football team. It’s a true testament to the human spirit as he played high school football (not recruited), went to the Navy for two years, worked at a power plant for two years, and then after not getting into Notre Dame for low grades, went to Holy Cross College for two years before being admitted to Notre Dame on his 4th try! Whew!
Then he walked on to the football team and made it(!), got beat up on the scout team every day at practice, and then got on to the field his last game and picked up a sack. What a story!
Of course Hollywood embellished the story a little bit as Joe Montana, a freshman quarterback at Notre Dame at the time, said in an interview. No players were taking off their jerseys demanding that Rudy get in the game, it was typical for seniors to get into the last home game, and the players carrying Rudy off the field in triumph were just playing around. And Rudy’s legendary work ethic? “He worked his butt off to get to where he was and do the things he did. But not any harder than anyone else,” Montana said.
The truth is that Rudy should have never gotten into Notre Dame due to his bad grades (4 tries! Where did he get the money to pay the college application fees? Does “no” ever mean “no”? Did he finally get an admission officer who was napping?). He never should have been on Notre Dame’s football team (He was 6 years older than everybody else. He was 5-foot 6 inches tall and 165 pounds! He’s lucky he didn’t get killed in practice.). “Rudy” should have never happened and a movie was made about him because somehow it did.
As a Charlotte property manager, we sometimes get rental applications that I feel might have been inspired by Rudy. And I’m not saying that to be mean. I really feel that if we approved some of the applications we received, we’d essentially be ruining the applicants’ lives. For example:
We had a rental house on the market for $1,400.00/month. We received an application where the prospective tenants had several credit cards almost maxed out, they had been late 8 of the past 12 months on rent, and the rent they were currently paying was $1,000/month on a smaller house. How was adding $400.00 in additional rent (not to mention higher utility costs for a bigger house) a responsible move for anyone- landlord or tenant? It would just have made life much harder for everyone.
Even as romanticized as Rudy was, the chances are no one would have wanted Rudy’s life prior to running through the tunnel and getting into his one Notre Dame game. He was studying all the time to pass classes that were too difficult for him, while walking around with a beat-up body from banging into guys that were too big and strong for him to compete against.
Rudy may have learned character, perseverance, and many other worthwhile traits (while being the subject of a great movie!), but it was a hard journey. He was able to walk away with a Notre Dame degree, a great memory, and a lucrative speaking career after the movie came out. But I’m not sure there are any rewards for taking on more housing payment than one can afford. It’s stressful, and hurts families and relationships. Usually, it leads to evicted tenants and fired property managers.
We all want to root for the underdog, but Rudy is best seen in the theaters and not experienced in real life. Denying unworthy applications can sometimes be a great act of kindness.
Happy (& Responsible) Landlording!
Learn MoreRental Lessons Learned from Britney Spears’s Management Team
On New Years Day 2004, Britney Spears’s management team was just waking up to a wonderful, wonderful, and more superbly wonderful morning. They had one of the hottest singers on the planet, she was making them tons of money, and her momentum was strong.
Everyone was happy and content.
Or should I say everyone with the exception of Britney, but she had enacted a quick plan to change that.
In the spur of the moment, she flew her childhood friend, Jason Alexander (not the rich one from Seinfeld), from Louisiana to Nevada. Then after a night of partying, she proposed they get married. Jason was down and they found one of those quickie Las Vegas chapels to hitch them up. They were now married and well on to their way to marital bliss. They just had to break the news to their families, and Britney to her management team.
I imagine Britney’s conversation with her management team went something like this:
Britney: I married Jason Alexander last night! It was…
Management Team (interrupting): The one from Seinfeld?
Britney (laughing): No! Let me tell you the story! Jason looked me in the eye and I knew it was meant to be and we drove right to the chapel and…
Management Team (interrupting): Whoa! Hold on. I think you skipped the most important part of the story, the part where you stopped by an attorney’s office and had a prenup drawn up before you made it to the chapel, right? Right????
Britney (pausing): Not ‘zactly. You’re sort of killing my buzz right now.
Britney’s management team started formulating the equation in their minds:
Short term courtship + booze + no prenuptial agreement + gross income equality (gazillions versus $20.00) + contractual lifetime commitment = Britney financial disaster and the eventual termination of our employment
This didn’t add up well for them.
Property managers are often put in similar situations with rental applications. Potential tenants walk into a rental home and fall in love with it. The owners are anxious to have it occupied. It’s a boozy, quick courtship that seems destined to consummate. Is it a match made in Heaven?
Maybe. But an experienced (property) management team can step in and start asking the tough questions about the tenants before anything is signed:
How much money do they make?
Did you see they have 2 monthly car and student loan payments as well?
What happened with that past eviction?
Isn’t the tenant’s dog uninsurable because it’s an aggressive breed?
A tenant that seemed like a good idea at the time may become less desirable under more vetting. To avoid something like the Jason Alexander nuptials, it’s usually better to have some unattached, impartial party give some input on important coupling decisions before tying the knot.
While Britney’s management team was able to forge an annulment and put down the marriage in less than 55 hours, it can actually take a few months to part ways with a less than ideal tenant. So make sure the vetting is done before anyone gets too excited!
Happy Landlording!
Brett Furniss is a property manager at BDF Realty (Charlotte Residential Property Management), the trusted real estate advisor for Charlotte landlords & Home of $100 Flat Fee Property Management. BDF Realty utilizes their innovative Pod System for exceptional customer service in residential property management, home repairs, and home sales for single-family homes, Uptown condos, and town homes in the Charlotte-Metro Area. Contact Us Today!
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