hotjag1 wrote:
I had 5 rental houses for about 15 years. Everything went pretty well during the years that I was working because I was close by and always in the near vicinity of the rentals.
When I retired, I informed my renters that I would be in the southwest during the winter months. I was amazed at how many of the renters started having "hard luck" problems and were going to be late on the rent when I was gone for the winter. They knew I wasn't going to drive 1500 miles to try and collect the rent if they were late, or try and do a long distance eviction.
I started selling the houses one by one until I got rid of all of them. In other words, being an out of area landlord didn't work for me. I've heard every excuse in the book concerning hard luck stories and being late on rent. It tripled when they knew I was out of the area. I would suggest getting a property manager, or sell them.
