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My 1st rental property was my own home
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My 1st rental property was my own home, which I had lived in for only a few years |
| I was a carpenter and suffered a spine injury in my neck at work, which meant I could not work on the tools for a few years until I had recovered fully. So I had to take an office job on the Gold Coast, Queensland, and a city some 2 hours from where I lived. I decided to move home but rather than sell I kept the home as an investment and rented it out |
There were a few reasons for this. The main one being that the housing market was flat and selling the home would mean taking a loss, so the better move was to keep it until the market picked up and rent a home near my new job location. |
Being new to the rental property business, I did some research and decided to manage the property myself and save some fees from the real estate companies.
In fact getting a tenant was quick and painless, I simply put a sign on the fence and like magic my phone started to ring within the hour. |
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Of course being a self-assessed good judge of character I chose a tenant the 1st day! No references needed, no rental history, just based on looks alone. Oh! She happened to be a young good looking single woman, but that had no influence on my decision.
I just felt she would be a good tenant. No I did not check if she had a job or could afford to pay the rent or even if anyone else would be moving into the home, being a good judge of character over ruled any of those questions. |
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Well as you may have guessed my first experience as being a landlord was about to become very enlightening, as I was young and naive, I assumed the best and trusted what people said. |
After the 1st month’s rent was not paid, and I left many many messages with no return calls, I decided to visit the property just to check on what happen to all the promises of prompt payment etc |
By the time I was able to get away from work and get to the property it was now 2 months after the tenant had moved in and no payments were made, as I approached the property I could see it had been transformed, a little like the “Transformers” movie, but in reverse, you know how the broken down car in the movie transforms into a shiny new great looking robot, well my well mowed well cared for home had transformed into a car wrecking yard. The lawns were dead, gardens covered in car parts, at least 6 cars parked in the front and back yard, 2 car bodies and several other wrecks I am not sure what they were. |
Yes I did say it was only 2 months and there was only one young woman on the lease. Seems she had a boyfriend that was a backyard car mechanic / come car yard wrecker. They invited a few mates to move in and share the rent; well I guess that meant there were a bunch of guys sharing a rent free house. We had a few words and a lot of promises were made about paying the rent, catching up the overdue rent, removing the cars etcetera, however to make a long story short, none of the happened. |
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My Tips and common sense on :Rental Properties
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If you have your own home, your property may have equity built up, that you can use on an investment property, check the current valuation, to see if you have money tied up that you can use for wealth creation. |
Before you sell, check with your accountant to see the best way to be tax efficient. |
A lot of tenants use false letters, false rental references, and false incomes to get a rental property – before you give the property to your chosen tenant confirm the documentation with a few simple calls. |
Verify employment or income. |
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