Renting to a Friend
Hello, all. I’m about to close on a 4-family home in Prospect Heights (yey!). One of my best friends who really likes the neighborhood has asked me if she could rent one of the units. While I know that she would be a great tenant (during the 11 years that I’ve known her, she’s always…
Hello, all. I’m about to close on a 4-family home in Prospect Heights (yey!). One of my best friends who really likes the neighborhood has asked me if she could rent one of the units. While I know that she would be a great tenant (during the 11 years that I’ve known her, she’s always been very responsible), I worry about introducing the landlord/tenant dynamic into our relationship. She doesn’t understand why I think it would be a problem. Does anyone on this forum have any opinions or suggestions? Thanks!
Renting to a friend/family that wouldn’t qualifiy otherwise is a big NO NO. But if you say that she is a “responsible” person that you’ve known for years then consider it. Just be warned when it comes to rent increases, house rules etc. of the potential awkwardness, if you think it’s not worth risking your friendship then take the advice of the others and tell her to find somewhere else.
I’ve never owned apts as a LL but in my 20’s I owned a big house with an extra room to rent. I had 3 roomates over 10 years. 2 were good friends and both of them were awesome to have as my tenants/roomates. 1 was a stranger, a friend of a friend, and was a complete disaster. He painted the ceiling of the room black without asking, never cleaned up after himself in the kitchen, dragged an upright piano (also without asking if he could have it in the house) across my newly refinished hardwood floors leaving huge scratches, hit the neighbor’s car with his car and years later I learned he never followed through with paying for the damage. A friend may expect favors sometimes but at least you know a friend well enough to know they aren’t crazy. You never know if a stranger is crazy or not. This guy was a Princeton graduate, had money, seemed normal, but was a spoiled rotten brat sociopath. A credit check wouldn’t have shown that. It would only be by knowing the guy somebody would be aware how irresponsible he was.
Thank you everyone for your helpful and thoughtful responses. I didn’t realize how common and often positive this situation actually is. I’ll definitely reassess some of my thinking and have an honest conversation with my friend.
Thank you everyone for your helpful and thoughtful responses. I didn’t realize how common and often positive this situation actually is. I’ll definitely reassess some of my thinking and have an honest conversation with my friend.
Petebklyn- I am a perfect human being with almost no flaws so I make it easy for Montrose 🙂 (and if you believe that I have a bridge to sell you).
But seriously, everything you said is right.
I have 2 rentals upstairs I rent out. One is to person I met in college (35 years ago). So I see no serious problem.
My mistake has been keeping the rent too low.
I would say you have to have good sense of you and your friends personality – both good and bad – and being self-critical is tough. How demanding, entitled is the friend…when you go to restaurant are they often finding fault with food/service never satisfied?
How about you? Often critical of how other people keep their apts, kitchens, find most people irresponsible, and do friends consider you controlling?
I have rented to three friends and currently have one upstairs. I prefer having a friend in the building where I live for a number of reasons. All the silly things you might worry about like a friend expecting she can paint the walls neon green or never paying rent never come to pass. What does happen is that a friend takes care of your place, watches out for safety issues, will take the mail in and put the trash out when you aren’t around and generally doesn’t act like she has no stake in whether the building falls down or not. I also let my dog wander the halls secure that my tenants won’t complain and will watch out for him as he patrols.
The downside is that if my friends want to leave the building before a lease is up I let them go. But frankly, its hardly worth pursuing tenants who break leases in NY’s housing court anyway.
I have an acquaintance who said the water pipe in her building’s basement broke and the tenant just left a message for the landlord and went out leaving the basement flooding. That is my horror story of tenants.
howrealnyc- Gosh, maybe MM and I could get work in a candy factory together! 🙂
Oh, and I just wanted to point out that MM is also known as the Great EVLL whereas I am also known as “The Sainted Tenant.” Ahem….just sayin’ 🙂