- Want to be a landlord? If so, check out these bizarre situations you may encounter...
Being a property investor sounds like a straightforward job – you buy properties, rent them out, pay your bills, and run your business in between.
Although managing investment properties may not seem like something that would attract odd situations, it does. You’d be surprised to learn about some of the things investors and their property managers have encountered.
- A tenant who keeps a tiger for a pet
You’ve probably heard stories about tenants keeping exotic animals as pets, even in areas where it’s mostly illegal. Even when laws forbid specific animals, like in Texas, some tenants bend the rules. This is one reason investors work with property management companies – they don’t want to deal with these types of issues.
Tenants have been known to keep some pretty wild animals as pets. In one situation, a tenant kept a tiger in his apartment until it bit him and he had to call for medical help. The tiger had grown so large it had to be tranquilized and removed through the window on the side of the high-rise apartment building.
Other tenants have kept exotic pets like alligators, cougars (mountain lions), pumas, and even panthers. It’s unfortunately common for people to take on exotic animals as pets and not realize what they’re getting into, and then abandon the animal in their apartment. That’s usually how landlords discover these illegal pets.
- Tenants with wild imaginations
Many property investors who act as their own landlords experience at least one tenant with a wild imagination. Sometimes it’s harmless, like when the tenant tells them stories that are obviously not true. However, sometimes that wild imagination has real-world consequences.
As one landlord explains, a tenant moved in claiming to work for the CIA and demanded he install security cameras so they could watch the neighbor’s door. When he refused, the tenant made fake cameras out of soda cans, tinfoil, and silver paint, and mounted them to point directly at the landlord’s door.
After the landlord took down the fake cameras, the tenant called Child Protective Services (CPS). The strangest part is that the landlord didn’t have kids.
- An HOA with strange rules
Most people can agree that a well-run HOA can be beneficial, but many tend to have issues that make it difficult for tenants. For example, some HOAs will ticket residents for minor infractions that could be resolved with a quick conversation.
Other HOAs ticket residents for imaginary violations out of spite. One HOA even fined homeowners for having debris in the yard and a blown-off roof 24 hours after a hurricane.
Another HOA banned residents from parking in the parking lot and made everyone park on the street. The reason? They thought it looked nicer with an empty parking lot.
These kinds of situations are frustrating for property investors who live under the HOA, but they can also be detrimental when they have renters. A renter will only take so much of a corrupt or crazy HOA before breaking their lease to move into a new place.
- Not becoming profitable
Losing money on an investment is a property investor’s worst nightmare, but it happens, and it’s often unexpected. Nobody buys investment property expecting to fail or lose money, so it’s a huge disappointment when that happens.
There are various reasons why property investments fail to become profitable, but sometimes it’s out of the investor’s control. Many times the tenant does so much damage to a property that the owner can’t recover.
For instance, when tenants create $50,000 worth of damage, their security deposit won’t cover much. The landlord can take them to court, but there’s no guarantee they’ll pay the judgment.
When a landlord has to cover $50,000 in damages out of pocket, that means the next $50,000 they generate in profit won’t actually be profit. This situation drastically extends the amount of time it will take for that property to become truly profitable. That kind of loss can set an investor back years or even a decade.
As a result, many investors in this situation end up having to sell their properties before they lose any more money. One destructive tenant is enough; two would be devastating.
Property investing is never boring
Between tenants who make strange requests and random and undeserved HOA citations, there are plenty of interesting experiences to be had when you own rental property. However, these situations aren’t the norm. Most property investors are able to keep their investments profitable without experiencing too many issues.