Episode 1: The “Rules” As A Landlord, Part 1
Welcome to My Life As A Landlord! Todays episode includes my top 3 rules that I follow as a longtime landlord! Like this show? Please leave us a review below – even one sentence helps! Post a screenshot of you listening on Instagram & tag us at @mylifeasalandlord so we can thank you personally! Enjoy today's conversation?
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Full Episode Transcription
Welcome to My Life as a Landlord, where we untangle all things housing and educate the curious. If
you're looking for some entertainment with some honest, awkward conversations, you've come to the
right show. I'm your host, Dr. Jennifer Salisbury. This is my life as a landlord. Welcome to It 1s Today's
episode, episode one for the first time. Hello. What better way to start the podcast than to just jump in?
And I'm actually recording five episodes today. For those of you new to the channel, we've got five
content buckets, and My Life as a Landlord is about tenancy. Landlording real estate development, real
estate investment, they're different. And then other adventures that my husband and I have gotten us into.
It's not going to be perfect, but that's okay. Landlording isn't perfect. Real estate investment in general
isn't perfect. But I'm hoping that this podcast will help guide you forward, educate you as you proceed.
And if you're in a pickle, hopefully this will help you untangle yourself. And if you're not in a pickle,
hopefully you will learn some of my lessons as we go through. So today's episode the rules. The rules of
being a Landlord part One I know. Darn right? Well, once I record this, I'm going to get comments on
what should be the next rules or what are your rules? And that's fine. These are my rules. That's why I'm
saying part one. So if you've got other rules different than mine, I encourage you, please comment. Let's
start a discussion. I want to hear back from you. What are your rules? But these are mine. I see many
landlords jump in with little or no help at all. They just jump in. They get nightmare tenants in. They
don't know what they're doing, and then they are stuck. They have no way to get them out, their units are
ruined. And then they're trying to figure out how to get money back if they can at all. 1s I've been a
landlord since 2007, and today we're going to go through some of the trial and errors that I've found just
on a very basic level, the rules of landlording. And they're very, very simple. One thing that I must tell
you, we do not bend these rules. After all, once you bend a rule, you just made a new rule. There's no
bending rules. We've over 100 tenants over the years and have had all kinds of encounters, awkward
conversations and crazy things happen. We've had unreasonable tenants, we've had amazing tenants. And
as a result, I've developed these rules. Now, if you use these rules, wherever you are, whatever province
or state or territory, wherever you are, I guarantee you, you will be way more prepared as a landlord for
success. You'll have a lot better sleep at night, you'll have a lot less anxiety, and you'll have a lot more
enjoyment. I will say enjoyment out of landlording. So let's jump right in. Rule number one know your
local residential tenancy code or residential tenancy act. I guarantee you there's a different name for it.
And in doing that, you create these safe, comfortable units for folks to live in. This rule is loaded with
stuff, so let's go through it. A safe unit. You're creating a safe unit, one that is lockable. And that security
aspect is usually right in the lease. If it's not in your lease, then you should add it quiet, safe, quiet,
comfortable space. Quiet. The role of quiet enjoyment is mentioned in most provincial or state housing
codes or act, and it's usually a governing principle for housing in general. In most municipalities is this
term called quiet enjoyment. And it also leads to city noise bylaws, for example. So you want your
units safe, quiet and comfortable. Now, comfortable varies by person. This could refer to clean,
renovated, updated, not run down, lots of light. It could vary. But the idea here is that would you live in
the unit? Is it comfortable for you? Even though you're scale might vary, it's at least something to go on.
So safe, quiet, comfortable space for your homes in accordance with your local Tenancy code or act.
Now, your local code or act is absolutely the bible for your state or provincial residential sorry,
residential housing that you're providing to people. You must know this. Now, if you have absolutely no
idea what I'm talking about, that's totally fine. Very simple. You can figure out what the rules are for
your area by simply going to good old Google, put in your state or province and then residential act or
residential code or residential housing. Any of those will work. So for example, if you are in Texas, go to
Google and type in Texas residential housing and the Tenancy act for that area for Texas will jump up.
Same with Alberta or Hawaii or New York. And they're all called something different. They're all got a
different name like Tenancy law or landlord tenant code. But. It will whatever it is, it will pop up right in
your browser. It will pop right up in Google. Now, further, how do you know if you've got additional
rules based on where you are? Let's say you're in Dallas. If you're in Dallas in the municipality, you
might have additional housing rules based on your county and based on your city. Now, don't want to get
too deep in the weeds here. We're only on rule one, but how can you play this game as a landlord
providing housing if you don't know the rules in which you're going to operate by? So this is the most
critical rule, is that you find and know your Landlord Tenancy Act, your Housing Tenancy Act, whatever
it's called, for your local area, you must have this. So this rule is all about what you're renting to your
tenants, and your tenants, of course. Are you're paying customers in this tenancy act? Very likely. It will
give you guidance, and not just you as a landlord to your tenants as well. That will say something like if
somebody's breaking a lease, if they're doing something that's breaking a lease, if you have a no pet
policy and you've got a pet at the unit, what do you do? There's usually guidance in there. What if you
want to increase the rent? How do you properly give notice to do that? How do you give proper notice to
enter? All of these items are very likely in your local Residential Tenancy Act. Okay? I'm hoping that
you've gotten how important this is. This is vitally important. It's like playing the game of soccer, but you
don't know the rules of soccer. Here are the rules for being a landlord. Okay? So that's rule number one.
Save quiet, comfortable space according to your local Residential Tenancy code or act. Rule number two.
This is Jen's rule number two. Here we go. We don't chase people for money. I don't collect rents. It's in
the lease on how to pay rent. It's the tenant's responsibility to provide payment for the unit that they are
renting. It's in the lease. I don't chase people for money. It's very simple. If they don't pay by midnight on
the first, each and every month, it's very simple. What happens. They get a late fee, then they get a notice
to pay or get out. And I don't lose any sleep in this. This is my business, and as a part of my business, I
do not chase people for money. I encourage you to know the same thing. Now, how do I do this?
There's all kinds of ways that you don't chase people for money. And honestly, I give it up to the tenants.
I give them three options, but there are more. They can walk into a local bank and they can put their rent
money right into our bank account. If they want to pay with cash, if they want to pay with check,
however they want to do it, they can send funds electronically. You can receive rents either through E
transfer or Venmo or Zell. There are other rent collection apps as well. And if there is an auto debit
function, sometimes you have direct deposit functions, depending on where they bank, where you bank.
You might want to talk to your banker about this. And then it will automatically debit and pay rent to
your account on or before the first. However you do that at your bank. Now, we don't accept cash, we
don't collect rents, we don't receive postdated checks, I don't touch the money, at least not for rents. This
is all on the tenant. And like I said, I do not chase people for money if I don't get my rent money. It's very
simple what happens. We simply go through the process and through this podcast, I'm excited to teach
you how we do all of this, including screen tenants, and how we start. We can start to see things go
sideways in tenants, and if they're misbehaving or not paying or any number of things, what do we do?
Right, so, very simple. Rule number two, we don't chase people for money. That's it. So segue into rule
number three. You've got your rules. According to your Residential Tenancy Act, we don't chase people
for money, even though these are your paying tenants. But rule number three is very simple. We treat
people the way we want to be treated. It's that simple. I'm not sure how to expand, but if something
occurs, when something occurs, I jump into the tenant's shoes and I have quite a bit of empathy in going,
if I was their landlord, which I am, how would I want to be treated? Is this an urgent matter? Is this
something that is a reasonable request? Is it an unreasonable request? 1s How do you figure this out?
And ultimately, we treat people the way we want to be treated. Because our ultimate goal in all of this
housing that we're providing, the goal is to create community. That is our ultimate goal. All of these rules
that we're talking about is about creating community, treating our tenants the way we want to be treated.
Very simple. If we've got apartment building and it's maybe a bit dated and we've renovated it a bit, can
we add a picnic table? Can we add a swing set? Can we add maybe a barbecue set? Is anybody even
interested in that? If that's something that your tenants might enjoy and would help take care of, great.
What about hanging plants in the spring? Maybe you've got somebody who's a gardener. Well, add some
hangers and make sure there's a hose working nearby. And see if the whole place would look better if
you added two or three hanging plants. It's amazing what you can do just with a little bit of
communication and treating people like other humans. 1s Now, I have had people in the past tell me, oh,
you're one of those landlords, you're a slum lord. I take great offense to that. I am not a slum lord. I do
not rent slums. I wouldn't live in a slum. I don't expect anyone else, certainly not a paying customer to
rent a slum from anyone, and certainly not from me. I'm a landlord. I'm a very proud landlord. 2s And I
would live, or I have lived in many of my units, and I continue to live in my units 1s again, we just treat
people the way we want to be treated. So this is part one. Rules of a landlord provide safe, quiet,
comfortable housing that aligns with your local housing or residential tenancy code. We don't chase
people for money and we treat people the way we want to be treated. At the end of the day, it's all about
creating community. 1s And this is the part of the podcast where I'm going to call you to action. If you're
a landlord listening to this, certainly listening to this for the first time, if you are not sure of your local
tenancy laws, local landlord laws, I challenge you to Google it, to find it. And if you have it, go back and
reread it. I guarantee you you're going to see something there that you didn't see before, that you didn't
know was in there. And it very likely will apply to you to something that's going on in your landlording
life now. Now, if you're someone who's wanting to become a landlord, this is a great way to set yourself
up to know in advance what the rules are before you get into providing housing. So that's it. Rule number
one, provide safe housing. Don't chase anybody for money. Create community by treating people the way
you want to be treated. That's it. Episode number one is a wrap. Thank you for joining us this week. To
view the complete show notes and all the links mentioned in today's episode, visit our website@www.
mylifeasalandlord.com. If you're looking for educational resources for getting into real estate investing,
becoming a landlord, or even a better tenant, then I have a page on my website to get you started looking
for a solution to the pickle that you're in, I've suggestions for that too. You can throw your situation on
my Facebook group, My Life is a Landlord, and let our community help you with solutions. Also, before
you go, make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you can receive new episodes right when they're
released. You can either subscribe right now in the app you're listening to this podcast on, or you can sign
up at www.MyLifeasaLandlord.com thank you again for joining me, Dr. Jennifer Salisbury, in
this episode of My Life as a Landlord. I'll see you next time.