4 ms·

Flipping burgers and making french fries is a lot of labor. When you aren't up to your elbows in grease you are up to your elbows in some cleaning up between ru

Flipping burgers and making french fries is a lot of labor. When you aren't up to your elbows in grease you are up to your elbows in some cleaning up between rushes and the pay is low so if you want to live you better have a second gig. Your check between your 2 jobs only says 55 hours a week but in reality between community and preparing for work and lunch breaks you are out of the house at least 65 hours a week or about 3400 hours. It eats your entire life! Conversely being a landlord isn't even really a job. Once every 3 years you spend a few hours overseeing the skilled labor needed to do any repairs and updates and a few more hours interviewing 2-4 tenants and in between you mostly cash checks or fire off a few angry letters if the tenant gets behind. Spending less than 20 hours per year per unit. An average mom and pop owns 1-3 units and works less in a year what a low wage worker works in a week.

RHSeeger 2y ago
I currently own a house. I spend a fair amount of time and money on the maintenance of that house. When I rented, my landlord spent that time and money. Now, admittedly, the (normal) money came out of my rent.. but the time sure doesn't. And when the boiler went in the base of one of the place I rented, the landlord had to have it replaced. That type of thing, major expenses, is some of the risk that landlords take on in exchange for collecting rent. There is more risk in being a landlord than there is in owning a house, because you have to deal with all the risk of owning a house AND the risk of your tenant being a problem.
- drewcoo 2y ago
  > And when the boiler went in the base of one of the place I rented, the landlord had to have it replaced. That type of thing, major expenses, is some of the risk that landlords take on in exchange for collecting rent. Boilers go out. That's expected. It's predictable. The only risk involved is landlord-created risk, playing Russian roulette with the boiler, hoping it won't fail yet because that means earing more money now and not spending it on upkeep yet.
- asdefghyk 2y ago
  RE "....That type of thing, major expenses, is some of the risk that landlords take on in exchange for collecting rent....." What is the $$$ cost of this risk? that is the question that property owner and tenant have completely different perspectives on.
- michaelmrose 2y ago
  Many homeowners fancy themselves a jack of all trades and do many sorts of work on their own homes often unwisely. A landlord earns enough to pay for actual tradesmen to work on their homes. Owning say 1 home and trying to save money by doing all your own work is generally ill advised. You would do better to invest the proceeds in purchasing a second rather than trying to pinch pennies. Done properly there isn't much risk that isn't trivially insurable.
  - RHSeeger 2y ago
    The risk I was talking about wasn't "I did the work myself and caused a problem", it was "oh sh_t, I need $20,000 in repairs this year".
    - michaelmrose 2y ago
      Those 20,000 should either be an unfortunate accident covered by your insurance or expected costs of doing business whereby you should either have saved for it or financed by virtue of your equity in the property.

RHSeeger 2y ago

I currently own a house. I spend a fair amount of time and money on the maintenance of that house. When I rented, my landlord spent that time and money. Now, admittedly, the (normal) money came out of my rent.. but the time sure doesn't. And when the boiler went in the base of one of the place I rented, the landlord had to have it replaced. That type of thing, major expenses, is some of the risk that landlords take on in exchange for collecting rent. There is more risk in being a landlord than there is in owning a house, because you have to deal with all the risk of owning a house AND the risk of your tenant being a problem.

drewcoo 2y ago
> And when the boiler went in the base of one of the place I rented, the landlord had to have it replaced. That type of thing, major expenses, is some of the risk that landlords take on in exchange for collecting rent. Boilers go out. That's expected. It's predictable. The only risk involved is landlord-created risk, playing Russian roulette with the boiler, hoping it won't fail yet because that means earing more money now and not spending it on upkeep yet.
asdefghyk 2y ago
RE "....That type of thing, major expenses, is some of the risk that landlords take on in exchange for collecting rent....." What is the $$$ cost of this risk? that is the question that property owner and tenant have completely different perspectives on.
michaelmrose 2y ago
Many homeowners fancy themselves a jack of all trades and do many sorts of work on their own homes often unwisely. A landlord earns enough to pay for actual tradesmen to work on their homes. Owning say 1 home and trying to save money by doing all your own work is generally ill advised. You would do better to invest the proceeds in purchasing a second rather than trying to pinch pennies. Done properly there isn't much risk that isn't trivially insurable.
- RHSeeger 2y ago
  The risk I was talking about wasn't "I did the work myself and caused a problem", it was "oh sh_t, I need $20,000 in repairs this year".
  - michaelmrose 2y ago
    Those 20,000 should either be an unfortunate accident covered by your insurance or expected costs of doing business whereby you should either have saved for it or financed by virtue of your equity in the property.