Even with the criticism landlords receive, should Black people consider being live-in landlords?
The pros and cons of being a live-in landlord versus renting outside real estate
I still remember the time a skeptical Mexican man asked me if I was born in the United States. At the time, I thought that was such a peculiar question, but he couldn’t wrap his mind around why I hadn’t already bought a bunch of real estate and rented it out. In his mind, this was an obvious career path as soon as you reach America. In my mind, being a landlord sounded like it would mirror exactly what Arsenio Hall’s mother went through after acquiring a four-unit apartment building when his parents finalized their divorce.
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According to the talk show legend, “My mother likes the idea of being a landlord — for about fifteen minutes. … In addition to her other two full-time jobs, my mother now has to be the building superintendent twenty-four hours a day, dealing with stopped-up sinks and toilets, appliances that conk out, heating and air-conditioning units that shut off inexplicably, leaks in ceilings and floors, and most of all, tenants — those who pay their rent late, or not at all, and deadbeats who move out in the middle of the night, leaving their apartments filthy, piled with dirty clothes, broken furniture, old food, and all sorts of other disgusting crap.”
Recommended Read: “5 tenants who landlords should hold off on evicting ~ Mortgage companies want their money, too”
Although I’ve never been a landlord, I’ve encountered every type of tenant Arsenio Hall described above solely from being a prior condo board treasurer and condo board president. The only thing missing from his list was the tenant who stole a shopping cart, the tenant who wrote math problems all over her front-entrance wall and the tenant who tried to steal the stove while moving out. (Fun fact: This was the same tenant.)
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But multiple condominium owners have tried to convince me that buying real estate and renting it out is the way to go. And it wasn’t so bad when I rented out my parking space. There was a language barrier between myself and my tenant, but his son spoke fluent English and was great at responding via email and in person.
I’ve been a tenant for far more years than I’ve been a homeowner (15-1/2 years versus eight years), so I know the grief that tenants and owners go through with terrible property managers. My parents and paternal grandparents were homeowners. However, I initially felt much safer as a kid living in an apartment compared to a single-family home, mainly because the latter was burglarized during the first year.
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When you own a home, there is no one to call to “fix” the problem. From a broken fridge to a thief, the resolution is your responsibility. You are now the fixer. Although though my parents’ old landlord was African-American, four decades later, Black people (the second-largest minority group) are still least likely to own real estate — even compared to Hispanic homeowners (45% versus 49%). Not surprisingly, the three people who have repeatedly insisted that I should try being a landlord were all non-Black; two were born in Mexico and a third landlord is of Indian descent. (Asian people are 62% likely to be homeowners.)
I would normally push back and say to the first landlord, “Being born in America doesn’t mean you have the financial means or opportunity to own a home.” After all, White, non-Hispanic householders account for three-quarters of all owner-occupied homes in the United States and only half of all renter-occupied units.
In my case though, he was looking at someone with a mortgage, so my rebuttal wouldn’t have been as convincing. Being a landlord just seems like a headache to me, especially after dating a guy who talked about how his biggest mistake was renting his building out to family members who took him for granted and never paid rent — or would pay whenever they felt like it.
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I don’t know if he was a slum landlord, but the man started driving Uber to pay his bills while owning a multi-unit property. So either his family really didn’t take him seriously, or he was the type of landlord that got this kind of energy. (See image below.)
I definitely had a couple of property managers I didn’t like, but it never got this bad. I always paid rent on time. I was also a tenant who didn’t do any of the stuff Arsenio Hall’s mother tolerated (including organizing rent parties to fund her tenants’ rent). If I wasn’t a terrible tenant for any of the 14 years, that clearly means that there must be other decent tenants too (and not-so-bad landlords and tolerable property managers).
Additionally, the Airbnb hosting scene is astronomical, and renting out your home on Airbnb is not so different from being a traditional landlord — besides dealing with a steady rotation of people instead of one or more tenants.
So what is it that could arguably make Black people less likely to become landlords? What are the pros and cons of this profession, specifically when you live in the building you’re renting out?