Sounds scary doesn’t it? Making a mistake as a landlord can cost thousands of dollars in lost rent, due to damages and in some cases even lead to foreclosure. But I run into landlords every week who got into the business with minimal to zero knowledge of even the basics of being a landlord.
Learning to landlord on the job can turn into a very expensive education and that’s where I come in. Hopefully.
With dozens and dozens of articles and videos on the site providing the basics already, I’m planning on adding even more so I can help others avoid the trial and error path.
Now, if you’ve already registered to receive emails on my site you know one of the first things I ask you is what challenges you face as a landlord. I’ve had some great responses from people and hopefully I’ve provided some answers to help you with those challenges in my replies to you.
The question I have for you in this article though is what was your most expensive mistake?
My Expensive Landlord Mistake
Personally, my biggest mistake when I started was not following my screening process and skipping steps along the way. During this learning curve I let in some of the wrong people because I went with my gut, rather than following my process.
This brilliant decision making cost me most of my Christmas vacation as I had to spend it fixing walls, repainting a property I had just painted less than six months earlier, cleaning and doing general fixes so I could have it ready to go for January 1st and not lose anymore incoming rent money due to vacancies or deadbeats.
It’s part of the reason why one of the first courses I put together on the site was my tenant screening course, which I give away for free because it’s so important to a landlord’s success! Since I started following the procedures I laid out I’ve only had to evict one tenant out of my regular fixed term rental properties in the last seven years.
Of course, if I had followed my rules that one eviction would have never come to an eviction which was another lesson. That particular situation involved a young couple who split up and rather than allowing/forcing them to break the lease and both move on, I allowed the boyfriend to stay and to have his brother move in to help cover the rent. Ooops.
So maybe that didn’t fit specifically into the screening category, but it did fit into my screening system which I strayed from as I didn’t due my proper due diligence with brother number two.
Your Turn
My list of other expensive lessons could go on. From not doing enough due diligence one early properties we bought to initially trying to do all the work ourselves rather than farming work out to contractors. But what about YOU?
What have some of your expensive lessons been? If you can take a few moments to leave a comment to help other landlords that would be great. By sharing some of our experiences we can make it easier for others to learn from our lessons and to help avoid some expensive pain.
Plus it may point me in the direction of my next course which hopefully helps everyone.
So leave me a comment below and let’s see who we can help with it!