Friday, September 6, 2013

Opinion ~ What Do Renters Do To Neighborhoods?

Talking with a friend yesterday about Real Estate. Should they stay in their neighborhood and remodel or should they sell and buy something in a different neighborhood?

Right away she commented on the fact that 'There are so many Renters on my street!' And, then I read a particular article this morning that generated this blogs' subject matter.

The Real Estate market had tons of investors buying up undervalued units and turning them into rentals or flipping them for profit. Due to so many homeowners losing their homes via Short-Sale of foreclosure, there have been a large pool of tenants to pick from to keep those rental units occupied.

Does a large number of rentals bring down the neighborhood?

Quite honestly, I've been a landlord twice now. The first time with two separate tenants over an 8 year period. This second time one family for the last 2 years. Did they bring down the neighborhood? Nah. Did they keep up the home the way I did? Nope. Were they friendly to the neighbors? Yes...and No.

Each person is different, each home is different, each neighborhood is different. If you have 3 rentals in Beverly Hills on a street that has 10 homes will that bring down the value? Doubtfully. People that can afford rent in Beverly Hills aren't going to let their home, albeit a rental, look shabby. There's a reason they want to live there.

A condo complex in any low income area will be quite different though. That's just a statement of fact and statistics.

But, there is also the mentality of owners vs. renters. Renters are nice people too, just they have chosen to rent instead of own. For many reasons. If they aren't keeping the home up, there are avenues to follow. But, it truly isn't the renters that are the problem....it's the owner of that rental that is allowing the upkeep not to be maintained.

Case in point. My current rental was to have the tenants take care of the rear yard. Things changed, they had another baby, he's always traveling. We decided to pay for a gardener to come in weekly rather than have our neighbors disappointed with .....renters. No, we didn't raise their rent. They have been there for 2 years and it's worth it to us to pay the small gardener fee rather than have them have to move. Besides, my old neighbors like them!



And you? What's your opinion of renters? Really, didn't we all start out that way?

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