Tuesday, November 17, 1998
Dear Gramma,
For almost twenty years I have been a real estate broker in Honolulu, specializing in residential rental management. My work is not complicated. All I have to do is select good tenants—there’s not a whole lot more to it than that. Oh, sure, I do a bit of bookkeeping and paperwork every month, and minor maintenance from time to time, but the key to successful property management is choosing tenants carefully.
Tenant selection is a science, not an art. I’ve written about it in a book called “Mom & Pop” Property Management, which helps small-time landlords (and big-time realtors) handle the details of residential renting. In “Mom & Pop” I describe exactly how to verify the information on an application. I suggest what to ask when contacting a would-be tenant’s employer, landlord, and personal references.
Here, for example, is what I always ask the applicant’s most recent landlord:
Did the tenant pay on time?
Was a rent check ever returned by the bank?
Did the tenant take good care of the property?
Was the tenant considerate of the neighbors?
Did you hear complaints of noise or anything else?
What can you tell me about the children and the pets?
Can you tell me the tenant’s reason for moving?
Did the tenant give you proper notice and pay you the last month’s rent?
Can you recommend this person as a tenant?
Would you rent to this person again?
Is there anything else I should know about this person?
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It takes a few minutes to get through that list, but let me tell you, it’s well worth the time!
I wouldn’t mind selling my book to all the landlords on this island, but I would not want them all to read it. If everyone practiced what I preach about choosing tenants, I would never get rid of the occasional “bad apples” I acquire. Those bad tenants would have no place to go.
I remember—how could I forget?—a retired woman whom I shall call “Mrs. Webster.” I did not originally rent to her; I “inherited” her when another property manager went out of business. The owner of Mrs. Webster’s one-room “studio” condo decided to sell it and asked if I would handle the sale.
I phoned Mrs. Webster to make an appointment to meet her and to look the place over. A few days later, at our agreed-upon time, I arrived, on the fourth floor of a nice-looking high-rise near Waikiki. I knocked. A cheerful voice called out, “Bud? Door’s open! Keep your shoes on!”
I slipped my shoes off, anyway. (Here in Hawaii we follow the Japanese custom of removing footwear when entering a home.) However, I was able to take only about three steps into the apartment before I cried out in pain—the shag carpet was alive with sewing needles! “Oh-oh!” Mrs. Webster said, sympathetically. “Did you take your shoes off? Put them on again!” She explained that she was nearly blind, but she liked to sew. When she dropped a needle, she had to leave it where it fell and simply thread up a new one. She, I saw, was shod.
Now, wait a second, Gramma. Did I say the carpet was “alive” with needles? Well, it sparkled with pins and needles, that’s true, but what it was alive with was cockroaches. The floors, the walls, the tablecloth, the bed—they were all in motion. Roaches, roaches, everywhere. Food wrappers lay about. Something foul flowed to the floor from the little refrigerator in the kitchenette.
“The apartment,” Mrs. Webster said, sincerely, “was like this when I moved in.” Then she added, “I was desperate at the time, but I will say, I don’t put a high priority on the place I live in.”
Not long later, the condo was sold to someone with a good imagination and a barrel of bug spray. The buyer wanted to completely renovate the apartment, so I gently gave Mrs. Webster notice that she would have to move.
In a few days, a landlord called me, saying he had received an application from my tenant. “What would you like to know?” I asked.
“Did Mrs. Webster pay her rent on time?”
I answered truthfully: “Yes, she did.”
“Thank you,” said the caller, and he hung up his phone.
A few days later, Mrs. Webster called to tell me she was all moved out and all moved in. She was ready to return her keys to me, she said. Oh, and one more thing. She was wondering whether I planned to refund any of her security deposit.
