Have you been through a little landlord overwhelm yourself? You know that feeling when it just seems like this landlord business is a bit too much for you and the stress of the situation will never end?
If you have, you’re not alone as this feeling hits just about every landlord at some point and it usually occurs when we’re going through a new experience. A new typically unpleasant experience, like say your first eviction? Or maybe working your way through a rental property insurance claim?
I know these can be overwhelming as I’ve gone through both of them and I understand that feeling of confusion, stress, frustration with the system and yes even a little fear.
If you’ve avoided it great, if you’re one of those that never get stressed greater yet, but for those of you are already getting nervous thinking about a situation my above examples, I have a couple thoughts.
Landlord Overwhelm Can Be Temporary
First, the overwhelm is only temporary. It might seem like it’s taking forever at the time, but trust me, it’s temporary.
Second, the knowledge and the experience you gain should be looked at as a positive. Initially it may not seem so positive, but if you go through a similar experience again it is much easier the second time. It’s going to be far less confusing and much less overwhelming.
Over the last couple weeks this has been more apparent to me than ever as I’ve talked to several people going through overwhelming situations. The irony is these have all been very smart people, but people going through a new less than fun experiences.
So all I did was add some perspective.
The one person is a fairly successful Real Estate investor and she’s going through a difficult eviction. I just pointed out the end goal (getting the tenant out) and how much more diligent this will make them as a landlord. It’s turned the experience from a nightmare (and the tenant was a nightmare) into a learning experience and an overall positive.
The second individual, also quite successful, was having a challenge in a new area they weren’t familiar with. I reminded them that many many many properties ago, their first purchase was also overwhelming, now it’s a walk in the park! With this new challenge, once they moved past the learning curve and looked back in a year the initial stress and overwhelm would be almost comical.
Sometimes when you’re feeling a heavy case of landlord overwhelm, you simply need to step back, take a big picture look at the experience and realize that while it currently feels like it’s too much, in a month, maybe six months, maybe two years down the road, if you look back you’ll realize it was just a hiccup along your path to landlord success.
Have you been stressed or overwhelmed as a landlord? How did you cope? Were there positives if you look back now at the situation? Leave me a comment below and tell me how you dealt with it!
If you’re going through landlord overwhelm, you’re not alone. We’ve all been there. It might take additional action, maybe talking with other landlords or acquaintances, but you can get through it!
If you know any landlords (or anybody for that matter!) who are stressed already, be sure to share this with them! And remember think big picture!
Hi, great site with tons of helpful reads. Thanks. But talk about landlord overwhelm I am the poster child. I own a 7 unit building, newly acquired cuz husband passed away, so now I run it. Well, every single unit is in terrible condition and I feel like I am struggling to put a bandage on the bobo but apartment after apartment keeps needing urgent repairs. I feel lost and alone and in need of guidance. I am a softee and tenants are running me to the ground. How can I get a handle on all of this?
Hi Vanessa,
Thanks for the feedback, glad you’re finding it helpful.
I have several thoughts for you. First, and I think you know this, you need to take control. You have two choices, let the tenants take control and walk all over you and you could lose your building, possibly additional savings and a level of happiness, or start understanding this is a project you need to make work.
It may involve making an example of a tenant or two, or even all of them and start fresh by evicting them where allowable. There are good people and good tenants out there, so you’ll need to find them and if the ones you have aren’t good, get rid of them.
Part of the challenge is nicer places attract better tenants, worse places are lower priced and attract worse tenants. Look into any options to potentially refinance the place to get soem money to do improvements. This can be a tricky path and requires a lot of diligence, but if it’s a reasonable building you may be able to increase the financing by $50,000, $100,000 or even more for only a slight increase in monthly payments. This additional money can then go back into the building and allow you to fix the booboos properly rather than just short term bandages.
Once the units are better and the building improves you should be able to also get better rents balancing off the increased costs while stopping you from bleeding out other money. If refinancing isn’t on the table, or even if it is, check to see if there are grants or programs available to do improvements with government funding. There are tons of programs available that give low interest loans for making properties more efficient, they can be a challenge meandering through the programs and the paperwork, but ti could get you over the hurdles.
Next, create systems and processes you can follow. With systems and processes it can protect you and it’s a fall back. If tenants try to challenge you, fall back on your system. “Sorry we can’t do it that way, our systems dictate we need to do it this way from past experience.”
This allows you to not be quite as soft and move forward.
Finally find soem other landlords or investors in the area you can network with. Check to see fi there is a landlord or apartment owners association you can join or meet with and you’ll find more people to guide and mentor you along the way.
Hope that helps Vanessa,e and hopefully reading more of my articles gives you additional guidance you can use.
Bill
Hello Bill, I’m glad I found your site. I hope maybe since you have so many years of knowledge you might have a solution for me. I purchased a house in 2013 it was built in 1920. I found out the following spring it had preexisting foundation problems that would cost 40,000 to 60,000 to fix. I never could get the money saved up to fix it and I couldn’t sell it for what I’d paid which meant CMHC would come after me. When I met my fiance I moved out to his acreage and we rented my house out. Everything was fine up until recently due to lots of good quality rentals being available our little 1920s bungalow with the unfinished basement is only desirable to bottom of the barrel renters. We are struggling with the decision to renovate it because it seems it might be a better idea to tear it down and build new due to the fact that our last tenants broke almost every window in it not to mention other undesirable things. We don’t have enough savings to qualify for a builders loan but to repair it up to a standard that would be competitive in todays market will easily cost us 80,000 or more I believe. Right now my husband has it listed as a handyman special with a discounted negotiable rent rate which quite a few people show interest in, I’m fearful though that we will have increased liabilities with this and more problems. Currently I still owe 162,000 and my realtor said I’ll be lucky to get 130,000 for it. Any advice would be appreciated.
Hi Melissa,
I emailed you directly with some thoughts. For those following along online though, there may be some ability to go after the original seller if the deficiencies with the foundation were a known, undisclosed previous condition. So I’d start by discussing that with a lawyer.
Additionally there may be insurance opportunities, but that could backfire to as once insurance is brought in they may simply cancel to get out of any obligations leaving you in a worse spot.
Bill
I did go through a lawyer and we discussed suing the previous owner however due to the bank not doing an inspection when it was forclosed there was no evidence of the previous owner kbowing the damage even though it had clearly been renovated and when we did the backround search on the previous owner he had already claimed bankruptcy before so it was advised to save my money due to the unliklihood of ever actually recieving any money.
Just finish a nasty eviction grand total to me is just under $10000. Just sent it to collections and they will take it to RDTRS. See what figer they come up with. At least they are out and a new tenant starting on the 1st.
Hey Kevin, that’s a serious amount of overwhelm, but you seem to already see the big picture “At least they are out and a new tenant starting on the 1st”!
focusing on where you’re going makes those rough patches that much easier to deal with, plus I imagine you’ve learned a couple lessons along the way.
Bill
Thanks Bill