[arghIdontwantto]

To counter the op.

My family has been in the rental business for more than 30 years. I have 2 of my own. We never had any issues like the op mentions. A couple late payments and 2 evictions from lack of payment and that is it since I remember (I only started helping around 15 years ago, can't say what happened before).

Just really choose your tenants carefully. Better to have someone you know will take care of the house and get 400 a month then someone that can pay 500 but shows a lot of warning signs they will trash it. And if you are even remotely handy, a lot of the small fixes can be done by yourself in a matter of hours.

[dbg31415]

Sort of depends on the quality, right? I mean, I know your 400-500 range was an example... but the house I'm leasing out rents for like $3500 / month in Austin -- that's on the upper-side of things here. I can fix some things, provided I have time, but a lot of stuff I end up calling a handyman for if it needs to get fixed during the week, or if it's something "nice" that I don't want to mess up trying applying my amateur-level talents towards.

I said this in another post, but my worst tenant by far came from because they were a friend of a neighbor I trusted... it's easier said than done screening folks. You never really know what they are going to be like.

Glad you've had luck with it! Care to share any screening pointers? I'm happy with my current tenant... I did a criminal check, credit check, and asked for some references... but I've gotten those all come up aces in the past too and still had people trash the place. All I've found that works is a verbose contract spelling out penalties if they do things I don't want them to do.

[arghIdontwantto]

(not in the USA, so things are a bit different, we can't do credit checks or criminal records for example) The tenants I have in my properties were relatives of people I knew. What we do here is we have a concept (fiador) where while you sign the lease yourself, another person/couple (usually parents) are financially responsible for any non payed rent/damages. This has the 2 benefits, a) the fiador knows he will be liable for any crap the renters do, so if they know they will trash the place they will refuse to sign (big warning sign) and b) you have 2 separate entities to go after for damages.