What Being A Slumlord Taught Me About Entrepreneurship

Two weeks ago I received an angry email from the tenant in my rental house calling me a slumlord, and it’s precisely why I’m now an ex-landlord. We’ve owned a rental property for a few years. My wife and I purchased it as a passive investment. We planned on holding the property for decades and enjoying the fruits of other people paying our mortgage.

The first two years breezed by without any major headaches. We had renters that paid on time, only reached out with valid needs, and most importantly — they were polite humans. As nice as they were, I dreaded seeing a text from our renters. A text meant something was wrong that would require my time and attention. I had to stop my real job to take care of something over at my passive investment.

But like I said, they were polite humans and they only reached out with legitimate issues. I would suck it up and address their concerns each time they asked. Unfortunately for us, that nice couple decided to purchase a house so we had to find new renters.

We put the house on Zillow and Craigslist and received more than 20 inquiries in a day. Demand for the property was high and several people were anxious to get their application in our hands. Sounds great, right?

One particular couple was ready to act as soon as they came in the door. They visited the house, said they loved it, and asked if they could put down a deposit. I ran the standard credit check, background check, employment verifications, and everything else in my trusty landlord manual. All seemed wonderful.

They called and texted me their excitement. Signed the lease and paid deposits with a smile. During their third tour of the house, they even shared all the grand ideas they had for the place.

When they took possession of the property different people seemed to crawl out of their skin and take control. The appreciative texts and emails turned into lists of complaints. Even though I had no obligation to do anything based on the lease they signed, I offered…

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