Yeah, this is definitely gonna be at least a four-post day. Last week, Carver of property Beta and Molly of property Chi were both late paying rents. And they hadn’t contacted me about why I hadn’t received anything. It was the first time I felt good about the prospect of throwing seemingly good tenants out on their butts. And it's all because of preventive maintenance, a belief I've had since 2011.
Molly got back to me first after I left a note under her door (her phone wasn’t working). She apologized quickly, saying that she thought she had spoken to me about what had happened. Apparently there was some convoluted story with her ATM and bank account and blah blah blah. I didn’t really care. She sent the money this Thursday, and has to send me a copy of the paperwork proving her story so she can be excused from paying the late fee. The funny thing was that I was seriously about to file for her eviction that day. She also called me (from Tisha’s phone) Saturday morning to ask if I can come open her door, as she locked herself out… again. This marks the second time she's locked herself out in as many months. I told her I was out of town on the weekends, and she actually seemed upset by that. Like it’s my job to take care of her boneheaded mistakes. Ugh! Money problems from the start of the tenancy? Copping an attitude with her landlord about things that are her own fault? Phone being shut off (a la Kylie Ray)? Texting with phrases like “2day” instead of “today”? She’s displaying all the warning signs that she’s gonna be both an imbecile and a jackass tenant. Even if she makes it to the end of her six-month lease, I think I want her out. Her apartment is in excellent condition, so I can throw her out and move someone in very quickly. I was even hoping that she would fall on bad times so I can kick her out and get a man in her apartment. If a guy were there, I could get him to do the shoveling when winter comes instead of having to pay someone else to do it.
As for Carver, he texted me saying he sent the rent plus the late fee. So I made $35 off of his irresponsibility. I love late fees. But, had he not paid, I would have thrown his ass out too. Thanks to the free labor charge he has done to the bathroom and the backyard, I can get that place rented out even faster than Molly’s apartment due to the excellent neighborhood. That whole “preventive maintenance” thing I talked about a long time ago is finally paying off. I feel good enough about the rentability of properties Alpha, Beta, and Chi… all thanks to making sure the apartments were kept in good condition (property Charlie will be a long “work in progress”). This is the way I envisioned doing real estate when I first started, and it’s nice to see an example of my strategy paying off with these two idiots.
I know I have a long way to go before I can feel the same about all my properties, but at least I know my theory on preventive maintenance works. The more preventive maintenance I do, the quicker I can rent out an apartment once a tenant leaves. The quicker I rent it out, the steadier my cash flow will be.
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