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Originally posted by sigcrazy7:

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Originally posted by jimmy123x:

There are all kinds of tricks you can play. A buddy of mine owns pawn shops so he's used to dealing with deadbeats all day long. He also owned a rental building and was evicting these tenants for lack of payment, was going to have to take it to court etc. (2 month process), he went over there on a Friday at 3pm and took off their front door and dropped it off at a painting company to get painted and left them with NO front door over the weekend, they moved out before Monday. LOLOLOLOL

Even in the landlord friendly state of Utah, doing something like this could land you in a world of trouble. All the tenant has to do is get free legal aid, file an injunction, and you'd be screwed until the judge decides you've learned your lesson. The courts everywhere are very jealous of their right to evict, and have no sympathy for landlords who attempt to bypass the system.

It's legal in Florida if you're removing it for maintenance. He got a reciept from the paint shop etc.

As someone who does evictions for a living, I strongly recommend you heed the the repeated advice here about tenant selection. I can tell you many stories about crap tenants, and show you great pictures of the damage they leave behind. Your state court system may be a good reference. Here in PA you can do an online search of court records, and see if your prospective tenant(s) have been involved in past civil/eviction proceedings. Most of the bad ones do this repeatedly, moving from one unaware landlord to the next. Do your homework.

I had a client years ago who did the front door removal ploy to bounce unwanted tenants.

If you didn't pay the rent, he would call County Mental Health which would get you a 72 hour stay in the county nuthouse. I asked him why he thought he could do that, and he said "you gotta be crazy to not pay rent!"

Picking tenants is vital. Bad ones can ruin you. Sometimes they destroy your property intentionally. Other times, it's just how they live. It can take 6 months, or more, to run the process of eviction if they want it to, and one wrong move, one paper that doesn't say exactly the right things served on all the right people at the right time can be disastrous.

One of the title companies sponsored a seminar in San Diego, "Investing in Real Estate in Texas" back in the early '80's. One of the attendees during question time said he wanted to know about two things, subdivision regulations, and tenants rights. The panelist looked at each other in confusion briefly before a lawyer from Houston leaned to his microphone and replied, "Few, and none!" Things have certainly changed from those happy days!

Another question on this. I am more risk adverse and prefer having solid assets like property. (401k is fairly aggressive as I'm 33 and have time to build) My plan is to rent out my current house and build a new one. I'm not doing it to make money on rental but to build equity and pay off the house. Is it worth it then? My mortgage is $934 a month an should be able to get ~$1400 a month rent. Does this make sense?

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Originally posted by SIG4EVA:
Another question on this. I am more risk adverse and prefer having solid assets like property. (401k is fairly aggressive as I'm 33 and have time to build) My plan is to rent out my current house and build a new one. I'm not doing it to make money on rental but to build equity and pay off the house. Is it worth it then? My mortgage is $934 a month an should be able to get ~$1400 a month rent. Does this make sense?

It's way more of a headache than you can imagine. Finding good people that aren't going to try to scam you, people that have good credit, and who won't destroy your place is MUCH HARDER than it seems. We had numerous applications that looked great, then after a credit, eviction and criminal history check we said NOPE!

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Originally posted by SIG4EVA:
Another question on this. I am more risk adverse and prefer having solid assets like property. (401k is fairly aggressive as I'm 33 and have time to build) My plan is to rent out my current house and build a new one. I'm not doing it to make money on rental but to build equity and pay off the house. Is it worth it then? My mortgage is $934 a month an should be able to get ~$1400 a month rent. Does this make sense?

In your case I'd be more inclined to make your money on the financing...find the right buyer, and owner finance to them.

Some folks end up with this being a good idea.

My experience with 4 rental houses over the years has not been very good.

And we did our best to see we got decent people as renters.

Doubt I would even consider it now. And we still have 3 places we could rent.

To be blunt, it is a huge PIA! But maybe I am just getting too old for that much fun.