By Linda Wienandt
Real estate investors are not held in high esteem.
Personal Real Estate Investor Magazine has commented on this many times. Rather than being recognized for their contributions to helping fuel a healthy economy, they’re often seen as vultures, swooping in and devouring homes in markets that have been hard hit with foreclosures and plummeting values. The assumption is they are voracious short-term traders with no care for long-term asset value.
SHOOTING OURSELVES IN THE FLIPPER (FLOPS)
By and large, that’s not the case. In America there are around 40 million rental households with over 21 million of these housed by hard-working average Americans with investments in rental houses and small apartment buildings. That’s the positive, but sometimes we do not help ourselves.
It irks me greatly to see investors’ actions – or inaction – perpetuate the mischaracterization.
Case in point: a couple I have known for a number of years had to put their longtime home up for sale when the husband’s health deteriorated. They have since moved to be closer to family in a different state. They had always taken a special joy in the upkeep of their landscape, a lush lawn and a flowerbed that bloomed beautifully year-round. That’s called pride of ownership. It’s why home buyers – whether they’re resident-owners or investors looking for responsible, paying tenants –choose a particular neighborhood.
Since the purchase of my friends’ property by a local investor, though, the yard has become not just unkempt, but dry and ignored, with weeds providing the only splotches of green.
The reason I’m sharing this story is not so much to show outrage at the “mistreatment” of this formerly well-loved yard or to point fingers. The investor could just as easily have been from out of state and not even aware of the situation.
But whether the lease specifies the owner, tenant or property manager maintain the landscape, the ultimate responsibility is the investor’s. So to the other neighbors on this street, the bad guy is this investor – and, by association, ALL investors – for failing to exhibit their same pride of ownership. And, it could be argued, for driving down home values with such curb UN-appeal.
The lesson here is that just as good fences make good neighbors, so too do tended landscapes. It’s a small price to pay to prevent further besmirching of personal real estate investors’ good name.
0 Comments