Quote:
Originally Posted by manaboutown
My father had I think nine rental houses at one time. From the age of 12 until I was out of high school I was the slave, bringing back grass in the yards, cleaning and painting after tenants moved out. I have owned a few rental houses, a couple four unit and one 36 unit apartment building. It is hard to make much and one needs to be very careful about choosing tenants, maybe less so in The Villages, but still necessary. If one really looks at the risks, the hours spent on maintenance, bill paying, renting and so on and all of the various costs, very little can be netted. Since I owned these back in the late 1960s through the late 1970's I had wonderful tax relief on other income from comparatively rapid depreciation no longer available. Depreciation schedules the IRS has today offer almost no relief. Indeed, the structures actually depreciate more than the tax laws allow one to deduct. These days real money can only made on the sale, so choose wisely. Remember in real estate it is location, location, location.
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Good advice on being careful about choosing tenants. We had one that complained about the A/C not cooling. We went over and found the doors and windows open, the A/C on and the condenser (or is it compressor?) outside was all frosted up. We asked how long the windows and doors were open, 'since they arrived'. How long has the A/C been running, 'since we arrived'. They didn't have the sense that God gave grapes. They received a lesson on running the A/C and a follow up visit twice to make sure they weren't doing it again. But there were other incidents with those tenants. Thank goodness they were there only 2 weeks.