Another landlord view point
 

First if you go look at the average cost of the prime months it is $3460 a month. Believe me as I survey over 100 rentals every year to set my rental rates and have spread sheets with 200 plus properties on them updated annually. Ranches run $3390 and designers run $3540 on average for the three prime months. I survey a lot of like properties, location, features, golf cart, wireless, any many others. I throw out the high and the low, take the average and set my rent $100 below the average.

Getting properties cleaned properly between tenants is an issue. I have gone through 3 different companies and none are satisfactory. The problem is they all try to clean 30 homes in a 24 hour period and have nothing to do the rest of the month. Every landlord uses the calendar and rents from the first to the end of the month. So a very short window between homes. I have to go through each home and double check everything after they have cleaned. And I always find something they missed and probably also miss something.

I ask every tenant to keep a list of everything that is a problem. No matter how minor. If it needs attention now, call me and I will get it resolved. Any thing missing or something they want, write it down or go get it and give me the receipt. And believe me every one wants something we never think of. I have been asked for cookie sheets, electric tea pots, DVD recorders, hot plates, crock pots, aprons, knife sharpener, foot stools, ladder, zip lock bags, dust busters, car washing supplies, and other things I wont mention. Most I provide when asked and leave for the next person so over time most bases are covered.

There is always something to fix between tenants. ALWAYS. And again you have a very short window to get it done. And most don't let you know or write anything down. Hopefully you find it, but not always.

And there are also the things they try to hide. Spilled coffee on the mattress, broken golf cart wind shield, empty golf cart gas tank (even though lease states it's full now, leave it full when you leave) empty grill tank, even though I pay them to get it filled if needed. Almost impossible for us to know how full that tank is or how much someone used the grill. Cut furniture, and spilled wine, and moved furniture, and many other things. And then there is things like the stickers they put on the frig and the golf carts.

And then there is the issue of pets and smoking. Many potential renters ask if there have ever been pets in the home. And if there have, they wont rent from you. It is greater then 60% that do not want a home if there has ever been pets in it. And even though my lease states, no smoking any where, to include the garage, lanai, driveway or anywhere on the property, people will still do it.

I guess the point is that landlords are not perfect and neither are the tenants. Most are truly wonderful people and I have made some great friends from my tenants. Most of my business is repeat tenants and I provide a discount to keep the good ones coming back.

I do my very best to keep and maintain a clean home, in good repair, and provide everything a tenant wants no matter how strange it may seem to me. Doing so does have it's challenges. So please all tenants, communicate with the property owner, let them know anything that will help them provide you with a quality experience.

And no one has ever asked me for a left hand ice cream scoop. :shrug: No idea where I would even find one. But if I could, for the $3 or $4 bucks it would cost, I would get it for a good tenant.

Thanks for an excellent explanation from a landlord's perspective.

I am appalled that someone would "sticker" your fridge or golf cart. Why??:shrug:

Iridehd - and that is why you have repeat business. If most landlords were half as accomodating as you this post wouldn't exist.

You are a careful, diligent and hardworking person who attempts to do anything you undertake ethically and well.


There are a lot of people who come here too young to retire from work, buy a new home, furnish it nicely and rent it out until they can come and live in it.

I would hate to turn over my home to anyone to live in, and particularly if it was new and had new furnishings. I think most people in our age group are responsible and careful But there are a few that you can tell by their posts that they don't care about anything but their own convenience and would be negligent in their care of a new rental home.

I couldn't rent my HOME out. That is just me. I would wait to buy until I could move in myself and take care of it.

12ride says, "broken golf cart wind shield, empty golf cart gas tank (even though lease states it's full now, leave it full when you leave)."

Even after reading all the information on insurance companies saying that a rental golf cart is not covered by your liability insurance, you still rent the house to include a golf cart? Don't you feel this has the possibility of an accident in YOUR cart by the tenants and YOU will be responsible as the OWNER? Couldn't you be sued big-time and lose everything you have worked for so so long?

This is an excellent post! I also welcomed the OP's perspective as we rent out our "home" during the high season. I used the OP's original post as a checklist and came to the conclusion that we provide in our home the bulk the items they indicated were missing. We are too young to retire so we can only spend 3 months a year in TV, we rent our home to defray some of the cost of owning it. I also think the OP's rent is competitive and not out of line.

We rented in TV for 15 years before we bought our home and can see both sides of this. We rented a villa once over the phone and later found out that the landlord had furnished it by giving his young daughter $1000 to go to garage sales to outfit it. It was horrible....

We place emphasis on the fact that the tenant is renting our "home" and anticipate people will view it as such and treat it as such.

We have the same people coming back year after year.We go the extra mile for them if there is some reasonable item missing or needing repair. After all, they are our guests....

I guess another renter stole the left-handed ice cream scoop and it couldn't be replaced since it was the only one ever made.

left handed ice cream scoop
 

yes, they do exist. the type of scoop that has the 'sweeper arm' that releases the ice cream from the scoop is made with the lever that activates the arm on either the right side for 'righties' and the left side for 'lefties'. the lefty scoop is however difficult to find.

:coolsmiley:

That's the one that got me. Several of these complaints seem like they may be legitimate. (but then again I've met some very fussy people in my life.)

But ice cream scoops are what is important? And then a right handed and a left handed one. That makes me wonder just how bad this situation is.

Excellent post. Maybe the admin should consider making a special category for this post for others to refer to like the nuts and bolts section. Hint, Hint.

A great post. For those that rent their homes, these are the customers viewpoints whether you agree or not. If I was renting my home out, I would be thankful for comments like these that that would help me elevate the service I provide from good to excellent. I even found the comment on the left handed ice cream scoop to be interesting. What a great personal touch it would be to find out if your guests were left handed, then provide them with the ice cream scoop and a little note saying "I noticed you were left handed....hope this makes your ice cream more enjoyable". I guarantee that little touches like that would result in folks lining up to rent your place.

This is a great post with some good information!

I bought a property in Virginia Trace as an investment and had a long term renter that just moved out. I was told by that renter that the house was spot less...let me just say that there was a clear divide between my idea of spotless and theirs. I spent 14 hours cleaning the property so that it was immaculate for my first "seasonal" renter.

I have asked for feedback from my renters and will do all I can to accommodate their preferences, but also know that realistically I will not be able to do everything. I did put WIFI in and as a "welcome" to my home left them a bottle of red/white wine and a couple of chocolates as well as a small gift card to a local business for their enjoyment.

I am looking forward to this being a great experience.

I'm not sure everyone understood the original post the same as I. I took it as a "heads up" owners.....this is what renters want! Obviously, the OP related their own personal experiences, since that is what they know. I didn't take it as a gripe session, at all. I actually found it interesting.

I was in the guest relations business for most of my adult life; hotels, restaurants and finally owning my own, small, apartment complex. It is not the responsibility of the renter to inform the owner/manager that the carpet is dirty, the paint is in need of touch up, etc. The owner/manager should know about it, and fix it, prior to the renter's arrival. I have never understood how people are always saying you (the customer) should tell the owner/manager or you are somehow, partly, responsible for the problem yourself.

What you SHOULD tell the owner is when YOU cause there to be a problem, like the spilled coffee, as mentioned, or, even if you didn't cause it, something happens while you are in residence, like a faucet starts to leak or a stove burner stops working, etc.

One example....our tenants paid their own utilities. We had a water bill arrive for one of our apartments that was astronomical. When we presented it to the tenants, their reply was that the toilet had been running for the past month, non-stop, so they should not be responsible for all of the water bill. Now, these people had lived there for almost a year, with a low water bill. They never mentioned the running toilet to us, even though the lease stated they were to tell us of any problems, like that, immediately.

For what it's worth, we rented twice in TV before moving into our own house, and we found both rentals to be modestly priced, yet more than adequately equipped with nice, comfortable furniture, house wares and decor. I'm betting that is the norm, here.

:agree: You should not be renting as you want a home that will meet all your expectations and rentals don't always do that. You need to consider buying here.

DACA

Sorry casita37 but I disagree on your assumption. Paint and dirty carpet we should know about. However you will never find that the dishwasher is loose, the draw in one bureau doesn't work smoothly, that one burner of the stove doesn't always light, that a light bulb flickers sometimes, that the washing machine is noisy on the delicate cycle, a smoke detector beeps when the house is cool, and on and on. I have a check list I use when I go through the house and have added to it many times, but I can never find it all unless they tell me. Communication works. Just as your tenant did not tell you about the running toilet. We have new tenants every month except the 3 prime which always get rented together, and a very short window to turn the home around.

So please explain your contradictory statements.

1. It is the responsibility of the owner to fix before ...
2. It is in my contract for the tenant to tell me when something doesn't work ...

What works best?