Tenant management 101: My experience with tenants and rental properties

My tenant failed me in big style.

He hadn’t paid rent for three months and didn’t answer the phone.

In the first month, I emailed. He replied saying he’d got some incident and will pay in the next month. In the following month, I still didn’t receive any rent. I emailed, texted, and called. None of the channels worked. He was avoiding me. I was worried, disappointed, and mad.

The tenant earns hundreds of thousands of dollars a year as a managing director of an well-known investment firm and was a perfect tenant in the eyes of many landlords. Despite his impressive earning, he was not my ideal tenant. Income is never my main criteria for tenants. This managing director has credit score below 700 which is a red flag to me.

I ended up renting the house to him because he provided me with a few documents justifying what he claimed the reasons for the temporary lower credit score. The first year went ok but things turned sour in the second year.

The rent payment started to be late since April. And the rent completely stopped from August. The tenant had the same job and didn’t lose any income. I was upset without being provided with explanation. I couldn’t sleep well and had been trying to reach the tenant every day. It was stressful when you had to deal with tenants who ignored you.

One day, a thought came to my mind. I asked myself - have I lost anything other than rent? Not really. My life has been ongoing as usual. I didn’t eat less. (In fact I probably had eaten more due to stress) I have a home to live. I am surrounded by family and friends. And most importantly, I am healthy. Other than this incident, I have nothing to worry about. What about the tenant? Whatever reason he has got, it must be a hard time for him to avoid me due to debt.

After I realised it, I stopped reaching him every day. I decided to cool things down for half a month before any further action.

Life became much better since then. I was no longer haunted by the unpleasant situation.  I did what I should do by emailing the tenant a reminder about the overdue rent on weekly basis without any emotional words. I did what I should do by reaching out the eviction department to standby for service. That’s it. I moved on.

After ten days, the tenant sent me a message - “all the overdue rent will be paid on November 17th. Do you want me to deposit the check or hand it to your property manager?”

It was the best news of the year on my landlord experience.

He paid the rent, asking me whether I wanted to find a new tenant? I deliberated for a minute, and responded:

“As long as the rent is paid on time and the house is up-kept, I have no bias to you as a tenant. I respect every individual including you and your family and my only goal is to work things out.” 

The response gives him some level of assurance that I am not kicking them out in the cold winter. 

I can choose to expel the tenant with justice but I’ve decided to give them another chance. We all learn from things. People are human, and it means imperfection. Sometimes people don’t know the right way to communicate when they fail to deliver. I hope my experience has given you some inspiration as I do grow into the person I want to be out of this.

If you need any rental property recommendation, you can reach me at elleninwa@gmail.com or check out my facebook page for more information about Seattle property: https://www.facebook.com/USProperties/.