At what point will you evict the J.O.B. tenant if they don’t pay? Personally I think I’d start the eviction proceedings as soon as they were one day over-due (and tell them its nothing personal, if they pay what they owe I’ll stop the eviction).

I like the idea of providing affordable housing (lower cost to buy the properties, you help people find decent housing at a reasonable price, etc, etc) but I think the reality of having people stiff me on a regular basis would get me down (and if you built this cost into what you charged people, you’d then get accused of being a slumlord and exploiting the poor).

My condo is a non-luxury, decent working person’s place to live. I’m hoping that’s a good demographic to target.

Another tenant just started a new J.O.B. and is having trouble getting paid, so he can’t pay rent.

argggh.

Tell your wife you’ll support investing in real estate if she finds the properties, does the repairs and deals with the tenants. If she’s willing to do all that, start with a condo (lower cost of entry and you can sell it off again more easily if you find real estate investing isn’t to your tastes).

Its *FAR* more work than buying stocks (and FAR, FAR more work than the “gurus” claim), but if the return is even a little bit better then my dividends I think I’ll look back and feel its all been worth it.

This series should be required reading for all those people (like my wife) who think that rental income is “easy money”.

Mike