If you own a rental property but had a tenant trash it when they leave then make sure you read this article because we’re addressing the all-too-common problem that landlords have when they say, “Help! My last tenant trashed my Washington Township house!”
Do you own a rental property in Washington Township? Did you have a tenant leave it in less-than-perfect condition? As professionals, we know that this can happen.
A lot of times this can only be avoided by your screening process when choosing tenants and even with a perfect screening process it is still very possible that if you do this long enough then you will deal with this situation. Maybe this is your first property and unfortunately, you are dealing with this situation, we get it, this is hard – did you know that you could still turn your property into mailbox money and you could avoid tenants – find out how by reaching out.
It happens! In fact, it’s an experience that probably every landlord has faced at least once. If you looked at your empty rental property and said, “Help! My tenant trashed my Washington Township house” then here are some things you can do about it…
Is it worth going after the tenant?
You need to first assess the damage and decide if it’s worth going after the tenant. Unfortunately, it often isn’t worth the hassle because it may be a time-consuming and even expensive effort to get the tenant to pay you back. However, if the damage is significant enough, you may choose to do this.
You’ll need to weigh this for your specific situation – it will be vital to weigh the facts. How likely are you to win? How long will it take to win in court – how backed up are the court systems in your area? Is it worth it to pursue?
Is it worth repairing the damage?
From holes in the walls to missing toilets – we’ve heard of just about everything you can imagine! Sometimes a bit of drywall and paint will fix the problem, in which case you may want to fix it up and rent it out again, and then just accept the inconvenience as the cost of doing business.
Depending on the current state of your rental in Washington Township, it may or may not make sense to move forward with this property as a rental. There are other things to consider – how has the market appreciated or depreciated around you? What changes are coming to the area?
However, if the damage is not worth repairing yourself then you might be interested in a couple of other options:
You could rent your house to a handyman
One little-known option that is actually really helpful is to find a handyman who wants to rent the house. In exchange for a discount on rent (or even free rent), they can fix up the house for you to make it a nice rental property again.
Make sure you have a timeline all spelled out, though, to avoid then staying too long without a lot of work getting done. Paperwork is key in this kind of situation, but even with the best paperwork, it is still possible that things don’t go just as planned. This is very common if you decide to take this route, but it is also possible that this works out perfectly and you end up with a picture-perfect house.
You could sell the house
Another option is to sell the house and move on from owning a frustrating rental property. However, be aware that if you try to sell the house on the open market, you may have to fix it up first in order for the agent to list it. Another option is to sell privately to a house-buying team like ours. (We buy houses in as-is condition and we’ll fix them up ourselves).
We prefer to purchase houses via terms, which means that we’d upgrade you from the landlord to the lender, and that allows you to collect monthly cash flow without any of the headaches of tenants. If this is an option that you’d like to explore then reach out to us.