Advice to Property Owners You, as a landlord, get to provide a code-habitable (or better) place to live for your tenants and in return, you get to collect the rent to pay the mortgage and expenses for your investment.
The best advice I can give to a new landlord is to develop and maintain a good relationship with your tenants - but keep it strictly as a business relationship.
Experience Pays Off
As a landlord myself, I owned (10) four-unit buildings at the same time. I can confidently state that I know all the ins and outs of owning four units buildings and have experienced almost every possible scenario and problem that landlords encounter. That allowed me to find the solutions needed to deal with tenant relations, L.A. City Rent Control laws and annual Code Enforcement inspections.
Reward
In my 26 years as owner of these properties, one of my most rewarding experiences was facing the L.A. City Rent Control Board with a justifiable "reasonable rent increase" request. After providing the necessary paperwork and jumping through their many hoops, I was finally given permission to increase the very low rents on an income property that I purchased in 2004.
