Self Help

Avoid Older Homes: A new house, preferably one less than 25 years old and, ideally, less than 10 years old, will largely avoid problems as listed below. Newer properties have newer plumbing, electrical, roofs, appliances, and systems. There’s far less chance of anything expensive going out.

Here’s a list of problems that you, and your tenants, are likely to run into in older homes:

Plumbing distress: From leaking faucets (which you have to run out and fix) to leaking pipes (which require moving the tenant out while the house is plumbed again).

Electrical distress: From light switches and plugs that suddenly burn out to overloaded circuits which, if not fixed, can threaten fire. Older homes tend to have wiring that’s too lightweight for today’s modern appliances. Tenants can easily overload it by plugging too many heaters, lights, washers, or other appliances into the same circuit, blowing fuses and circuit breakers. This can necessitate expensive rewiring.

Roof leaks: You might put up with a bucket for a while, but a tenant will want it fixed instantly.

Worn-out appliances: You might keep them running for a few years by tenderly caring for them. Tenants will simply turn them on full and, if they don’t work, expect instant replacements.

System problems: From termites in the floor to bad heaters and air conditioning. If you’re in the place, you can tolerate it a while, perhaps even do some of the repair or replacement work yourself. If you have a tenant, it will have to be done immediately or you’ll lose the tenant - and your rent.

Avoid Bigger Homes: The problem is that the more people that occupy the property, the more wear and tear (and potentially damage) to it there is. This goes double for children, who in their play tend to bump, dent, gouge, and even chew up walls, floors, doors, and so forth. The old adage of landlords used to be, “I love children, in your place not mine!” However, anti-discrimination laws prohibit you from refusing to rent to a family because it has children.

You can, though, refuse to rent if the home is too small to accommodate a large family. Therein lies the reason for not having too many bedrooms. Although you can’t find a hard and fast rule that says how many people, at maximum, can occupy a bedroom (some fire regulations put it at four), it’s a cinch that the more bedrooms you have, the more people can reasonably occupy the property.

It stands to reason that a house with four to six bedrooms can have more people in it than a house with only one, even if both properties have the same square footage. Does that mean that a one-bedroom house makes a good rental? Not usually. You won’t find many tenants (or many buyers, subsequently) that want only one bedroom. But two and three bedroom properties do make good rentals - while four and five-bedroom properties usually do not.