?picking nickels out of horse shit?
 

I recently read that earning money by owning rental units (being a landlord) is like ?picking nickels out of horse shit.?

Doesn?t sound very good.

Any landlords have an opinion on this?

What would you say earning money is like - when you are doing (whatever you do) for a living???

Sounds about right if you are doing everything wrong. I owned 2 rental properties and working on 2 more right now and having a good time doing it.
The key is listening to people that have been there and learn from thier mistakes, hiring a good property manager and have a decent bank roll to do it right.

I would say that for just 2 properties u prob don't want a property manager, I've had bad luck with them in the past

Very interesting! I was beginning to think that it was nothing but headaches and shit. Glad to hear of your success! Continued success to you!!!!

Wait until Dec 24 and boot their sorry asses out into the snow...slum lord :BangBang:

Did you ever see, "Roger and Me?"

In that movie they follow the sheriff's department as they evict people on Christmas Eve.

They drag everything out to the curb . . . including the Christmas Tree.

I've had no issues with my rental properties - depends who you rent too; stop renting to crack whores, and you'll have good luck. I bought 5 house all next door to one another, on a street only blocks away from the university. I gutted the houses, turned them into triplex's - resulting in 15 apartments, within walking distance of a mall, the 2 universities, and the hospital - students and medical students eat that shit up, and rarely complain. Neighbours are all the same style of people, since the houses are all next to one another - so they don't complain about one another.

It's all about how smart you are. :2 cents:

That's brilliant Andrew! That's how ya' do real estate!

Location, clientele.

A bit expensive too, since it's a sellers market when the houses are next to 2 universities and a hospital. But I'd lather, rinse, repeat in other university cities if I could trust someone to be the landlords.

What's a landlord? a farmer?

You'd know the word better as "mom" - no worries.

I agree! That sounds just right!!!

What's it like getting the rent out of university students (diffculty of getting the rent on time I mean)? What about summertime when they are all at home? Renting for two months in the summer must be difficult?

Getting the rent out of them is no issue - there's usually 2 people per flat/plex, splitting the rent (so only 350$/month per person) - student loans and working part time allow them to cover that easily.

The summer months are hard - but usually average 60% for summer sublets, and some students keep their lease year round and pick up summer courses, or summer jobs in the city. Much easier to get a job in the city, than in their hickstown that they grew up in for some.

Students are good people - especially when they're on their own in an appartment - they know that if they get evicted, their school could be fucked over.

Thanks for the insight. I had thought about something similar here in Toronto. Guess I'll look a little deeper.

Toronto's a hard market to enter for real estate - I've been out of the Toronto for a few years, but feel free to ping me if you're going to get into it, I might still have some peoples names lying around