February 10, 2014

Being a landlady - 6 month review

We recently collected our 6th rent check and so far all is well.  Our tenants are still really nice, we haven't received any complaints.  They haven't even needed us to fix anything yet. 

We did have an issue one day when the electricity was down in the whole neighbourhood.  The garage doors are electric and our tenant couldn't get into his garage.  There wasn't anything we could do though and they were understanding of this.  I have a key for our garage but I'm not even sure how that would work since the electric opener was put in.  But we don't have a separate key to open the rental unit's garage.  Just a back up garage door opener which requires electric.  Probably something we should look into.

The rent has been paid on time every month and their water usage (the only utility we pay from their unit) has been about the same as ours, so nothing excessive.  The condo association hasn't raised the monthly fees yet.  There was talk that it might come to that but so far there hasn't been any news.

After we pay all the bills each month, we have $325 left in income.  I always put $100 away for any home repairs that may come up.  This money also pays for the girls bumper bowling league fees.  I'm also using this money to pay our personal savings accounts back for money we took out for the down payment.  That will be repaid in a couple months and then I'll have to figure out what to do with the extra income.

So far I am still really happy that we went through with the decision to purchase the condo next door to us.  I'm happy we didn't let the naysayers affect us, most of whom have never owned rental property.  It was a very stressful decision to make and the amount of money we had to take out of savings to purchase the unit about made me sick.  But in the end, I'm really happy with the experience.

Once we get our savings account built back up or we have enough equity to use towards the down payment of another unit, I would be tempted to repeat the process and purchase 1 more.  But it will definitely be a while before that can happen.

2 comments:

  1. That is awesome that you have such good tenants. They are not easy to find!

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  2. I've always wondered if there are more bad tenants than good ones... everyone I've known that has been a renter has been respectful and timely, but most of the people (especially non-renters/non-landlords) have nothing but horror stories to share. I am glad it's worked out so well for you. Hope it keeps going well!

    (Though I wouldn't be too hard on the naysayers... I am sure the horror stories do have a base to it, but they're not typical... nothing's typical when it comes to dealing with other people!)

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