Tenants to my rescue

 

I’m sure you have heard horror stories about terrible tenants. I know I have. As a matter of fact, I have bought more than one house from tired landlords who were actually afraid of their tenants.

Can you imagine that? The landlord — you know, the person who owns the property and has the right to demand their property back — was actually afraid of their tenants. And in each case it was not because the tenant was some sort of ruffian or criminal mastermind. Instead, in each of those circumstances I found the landlord was afraid of confrontation and decided it was easier to avoid the situation than to deal with the tenants’ poor behavior. And that snowballed into a fear that was unfounded.

 

When I met the tenant, I saw them for what they were — just people. And like David Tilney always says, you have to be hard on problems and easy on people. Once we bought those houses, we either helped the people get back in line or find a new place to live.

 

For us, though, we don’t typically run into tenants with bad behaviors, and we are definitely not afraid of them. On the contrary, we set an atmosphere of respect that runs two ways between ourselves and our tenants, and we set this expectation from the very beginning when we introduce the four jobs of a tenant.

 

I have told you before about how we screen our applications and how we do the in-home interview. But I want to harp on something with that methodology. When I first meet with the applicants in their home, and I do my “this is kinda weird, isn’t it?” ice breaker (referring to me meeting them in their house), I always follow that up by saying, “I’m here for two reasons.  The first is that we believe in something called the tenant landlord relationship.” I then explain that it’s hard to have a relationship with just a piece of paper (as I point to the application). Then I tell them that today, I want to sit down, get to know them and to turn them from paper to people.

 

Next, I tell them that I’m here to introduce the four jobs of a tenant. I explain that if they get the house, we’re hiring them to do four jobs. And if they do those four jobs, they can stay in the house just as long as they like. But if they neglect one of those jobs, we will have to terminate our relationship.

And as I’ve told you before, the four jobs are as follows: No.1, Take care of the house; No.2, Pay on time; No.3, Be comfortable to work with by using good communication and always being respectful; No.4, Be a good neighbor.

 

Now I’m sure you can see the value in jobs one and two as a landlord. But jobs three and four are equally as important. You see, we don’t get tenants who act ugly to us. We get people who are comfortable to work with and who are respectful with both their words and their actions. And if they decide they would like to neglect that part of their job, well, they have to go find a new place to live. But I will be honest, that has only happened with tenants we inherited — meaning they already lived in the house when we bought it. The people who get vetted through our system are always respectful, and we are to them as well.

 

Being a good neighbor is important, too, because tenants come and go. But your neighbors will be there after tenants change over. The way we look at it, we want our tenants to be the kind of people we would like to live next to. And they are.

 

Here is a case in point. I was on a service call this week after we had that big storm the other night. The tenant on that property went to leave for work and saw the wind had knocked the aluminum fascia half off and it was dangling.

 

I went out there in the work truck and got everything tacked back up. As I got ready to leave, I loaded the ladder, stowed my tool belt and got in to crank it up. But when I turned the key, I heard a click and nothing. Y’all, it was in the 90’s already and I was not excited.

I got out and checked the battery terminals. One looked a little corroded so I took it loose, cleaned it as best I could and then tightened it back into position. I tried to start it again and nothing. At that house, the two neighbors on either side are our people as well. And I could see they were home. So, I called them to see if they could come jump me off. Both sets of tenants came up to help. And between the jumper boxes and one tenant tapping the starter while I cranked it, we got her going.

I want you to realize that both those tenants dropped what they were doing, left their air-conditioned homes and immediately came over to help. Not because anything was in it for them. It was because they are good people who genuinely like to help. They literally came to my rescue without thinking and without a moment’s notice.

 

Who wouldn’t want to have neighbors like that? I know I sure am grateful to.

 

Joe and Ashley English buy houses and mobile homes in Northwest Georgia. For more information or to ask a question, go to www.cashflowwithjoe.com or call Joe at 678-986-6813.