Our rentals are in Orange County. They are quite high compared to the rest of the country but not compared to San Francisco, where my daughter rents an 8 by 11 apartment with a small bathroom for $1800/month!

Opposite of your experience, we do get upset at our tenants on occasion for failing to notify us when there is a small problem that then becomes a big one… like a small leak that could have been fixed if done right away… but it didn’t trouble the tenant until it got bad and then we had to do a $40k environmental remediation job because of mold risk.

So it is interesting, your complaint is that landlords don’t fix things right away and our complaint is that tenants don’t notify us when things need repairing. In fact, we told one tenant this year that failure to notify us of something that needs fixing could cause us not to renew. We take having a safe rental property very seriously. And I think other landlords do also.

I do agree with you that when you rent from a small investor like us, you can develop a relationship with your landlord that works for both parties. In the past, we donated hundreds of dollars to fund the funeral of one tenant’s mother, who we knew just did not have the money for a decent funeral.

We (mostly my wife) manage 51 single family properties mostly for other investors. Some are quite expensive at $15,000 a month (ours tend to be at the other end of the rent spectrum). Often wealthy tenants leave behind hundreds of dollars of good stuff that we make available to our poorer tenants including furniture and clothing to help save them money. Anything no one wants of value, we then donate to charity.

Our rental strategy which either the owners of the properties we manage buy into or we eventually part ways is that we look for good tenants and treat them well. We spend more keeping the places in great shape, but that avoids expensive repairs down the road like the one I referred to above and it increases the renewal frequency which reduces the vacancy rates. We have come across other landlords for whom your comments seem appropriate.

But my point is, I hate to see a “rent strike” take off… I believe if someone has a bad tenant or bad landlord then its time for a change. But not abiding by the contract for either party is wrong. When hard times come along, like now, we can only help those that need a little help, if those that can pay the rent do.

Congrats on buying your own condo… welcome to the world of HOAs. You may find things have changed less than you thought… yes, you can maintain the inside of your new condo as you wish. But assessments can be brutal (many of our rental properties are condos). All of the issues, you have with an apartment are the same you have with a condo, except instead of a “faceless” owner, you get to go before the Condo board and plead your case if the property manger does not get requested repairs done.

Don’t take my comments the wrong way… it is wonderful that you will be building equity in a property… but it is not nirvana… a condo is really halfway like renting and halfway like owning, so problems outside the unit are a lot like dealing with an apartment management company and problems inside the unit are yours as a “homeowner”. Hopefully, you checked out the property manager before buying… good luck.