Do they deserve to live in your property? You provide a great place to live for the people who rent from you. You maintain your properties with pride. You pay strict attention to everything that goes on in your properties. You display references from previous tenants that sing your praises.
But some people don’t appreciate it. They don’t take care of their homes, they don’t pay the rent on time and are bad neighbors. These tenants make it hard on your good tenants, who do appreciate how well you manage your business.
Renting from you is a privilege. Privileges have to be earned just like good credit, a good job and respect. Tenants earn the privilege of renting and continuing to rent from you by paying their rent on time, being good neighbors and taking good care of their homes.
What right do bad tenants have to make your life more difficult and your business less profitable than it should be? Moreover, what right do bad tenants have to bring down the quality of life for their neighbors, often your other tenants? Do they have special dispensation from some higher power that sanctions their doing the things that define the phrase “bad tenant”?
You are best rid of tenants who have lost or have never earned the privilege of renting from you.
Yet too many landlords fall for the sob stories and empty promises of tenants who have a horrible rental history. And too many landlords hesitate to boot out tenants who don’t deserve to rent from them. They feel guilty about keeping or putting someone out. But before you start feeling pity or guilt, remember where your first duty lies.
It is to the people who pay the rent on time and qualify as good tenants. Your second duty is to yourself and your investments. You put the money you earned, your sweat and your blood into your real estate investments and you are entitled to a reasonable return.
If you rent to or permit to stay in your property people who have lost the privilege of renting from you, you are putting their interests ahead of those of your good tenants and your own; and your entitlement to a reasonable return flies out the window.
Having a place to live is not a right. If someone wants to give people who have abused their homes a place to live, that is their prerogative; but it is not owed the people who haven’t earned it. Chances are the person who gives housing to the unqualified will have their “good deed” punished by an unappreciative recipient, by someone who believes that person is a sucker. Even housing authorities, the organizations dedicated to helping the “poor and downtrodden,” will not tolerate bad behavior from their tenants. Even they don’t believe that bad tenants have a right to live in properties they manage.
The next time you have a vacancy or have problems with a tenant, remember that renting from you is a privilege. Does this applicant or tenant deserve to live in your property?
