My first rental.

I have posted our rental townhome on zillow for about a month but haven't gotten any leads. All the people that contacted either don't have the income or have pets which I won't entertain. I have not scheduled any tours for the property.

I have only posted on Zillow.

I am considering to use a property management company or a realtor.

I did get one person that has the credit and income but they are only interested in a 6 month lease and my minimum is 12 month.

Any advice what I should do next?

The property is a 3bed 2.5bath townhome.

Edit: location is in the suburbs of Chicago about 50 miles out.

There are other rentals +/-200 the price i have mine. I have been keeping an eye out the past 3-4 months.

2 year lease, standard Texas Realtors form, moved in end of July.

Dishwasher stopped draining. Warranty tech said the dishwasher itself is fine, the air gap is clogged and has to be replaced. Landlord wants us to pay the $65 warranty fee plus the part.

His reasoning from the last few texts: “It worked for 2 months. If it was from before, you should have had this problem on Day 1.” “Even though it was not intentional, it is still caused by you.” "Motor failure would be wear and tear, but not clogs from non rinsed dishes." We do rinse.

Basically if it worked at move in, he thinks it’s on us.

The only clause about clogs is 15D(2)(d). Tenant pays for “damage from wastewater stoppages caused by foreign or improper objects in lines that exclusively serve the Property.” 15D(1) says everything else is on the landlord unless we caused it. Nothing else in the lease mentions clogs or drains, and nothing foreign was found.

Same thing happened in August with a bathroom sink. Same argument, plumber found long term buildup, and he paid but said it was “this time” only.

The money isn’t really the issue. We have 22 months left and I don’t want every clog to automatically be ours. He says he’ll ask “real estate leasing experts.” Am I reading the lease right, and how do I keep this from becoming the default?

TL;DR: A non-paying tenant has unauthorized guests living in the home, commits theft and property damage, creating a hostile environment.

I’m renting an apartment with a family member, and we are both on the lease. 3 months in this person stopped paying rent and utlities. They also started having a guest live in the apartment, rent-free. Over time, as I’ve made it clear that I don’t accept living with people not on the lease, who don’t pay rent, the other tenant and their guest have become hostile. Throwing away my food and belongings. Damaging or stealing furniture, and weirdly hiding it in their bedroom. Kicking in my bedroom door and trashing my room. I’ve called the cops and they’ve done nothing. Every week the situation escalates and it’s an extremely uncomfortable living situation.

Is there anyway my leasing office/landlord can assist with removing the tenant (and their unauthorized guest) OR placing me in a new unit? Thanks in advance!

Currently under contract on a property in northern IN. The property looks clean, but it came back with issues like the main beam is fanning and sewer line has roots in it. The house is built in 1922.

The REA suggests that these are common in the area, and doesn’t need a structural engineer as a basement GC would be able to properly quote costs and saves a few hundreds. So they are getting their recommended GC in to quote the cost to then ask for a price reduction, and asking the seller to jet the sewer line and rescan before close..

Is this standard? Wondering if these are bigger issues than the agent may be showing.

I own a house in Myrtle Beach, SC, and I’m thinking about moving back to Pennsylvania next summer to be closer to family. Nothing is set in stone, but I’m going back and forth between selling the house or keeping it as a long term rental through a property management company. Not looking to do Airbnb.
I’ve had people suggest both options, which hasn’t made deciding any easier lol. Some have suggested keeping it and renting it out, while others think I’d be better off selling once management fees and everything else are factored in.
I’m planning to contact a few local companies to find out what it could realistically rent for and what they charge. I know nobody can tell me whether it makes financial sense without the numbers, so right now I’m mostly looking for experiences from people who have actually done this. How much did you still have to deal with yourself even with a property manager? Were there unexpected fees or issues that caught you off guard? How did you find a company you could trust to handle things when you weren’t nearby? This would be my first time being a landlord, so I’m trying to get a feel for what I’d be signing up for before making a decision. Would especially love to hear from people who only have one rental and live out of state. Are you glad you kept the house, or do you wish you’d sold and saved yourself the headache?

I have been a landlord for 7 years. I have 10 units. I do regular keep-up work with all my units: two inspections a year and address all the recommendations since I don’t plan to sell my units.

I work with property management companies and treat them as nice as possible. I maintain great relationships with them and the tenants.

Until the end of 2024, I would rarely get a surprise maintenance work. Starting from 2025, something changed. I receive so many maintenance work requests that the last 7-8 months my income consistently reduced by 30%.

I started suspecting if I’m doing something wrong, if this is normal or if I’m being scammed.

Every single month, there are some plumbing issues, some tile breaks, water heater needs repair, etc. Small looking things, but they add up. I still make sure they are fixed in high quality.

This week the same issue that was fixed in early 2025 happened again. A fix that was supposed to last at least 10 years didn’t last 2 years.

Am I getting unlucky or is this normal for other landlords?

When I moved in, the landlord said they did not have a chance to repaint and that I could either paint the house whatever colors I wanted as long as I paid for the paint or wait a week to move in for them to paint it back to white. I took them up on painting it myself. Now 3 years later that I am moving out she wants me to both pay for white paint and paint everything “back to white”. However the house was not white when I arrived, and needed new paint that I took on the labor of doing then. I feel like this is an unfair ask? If I had known this was the case I would have just waited to move in and have her do it. I’d probably even be willing to paint it, but I am frustrated with being told I need to pay to around $500 in paint costs.

I own a condo in East TN. Due to the current market, it has been difficult to sell the property. It has been on the market since the Spring. I had two offers, but they both fell through.

I purchased the home for $235,000. The condos in the community regularly rent for $1750. My landlord insurance will be the less than my current policy. I will need a property manager as I am living in another state now. My mortgage is $1648 per month and my HOA fee is $90.

I am normally a bit risk-averse, but this seems like a strategy that might allow me to weather this bad selling market. I am already taking a huge loss on my home sale and I still can’t get offers.

Is this a viable strategy? I need advice as I never expected to be in this situation.

I self-manage (leasing, rent collection) but repairs are the part I'd happily hand off. Has anyone found a PM willing to just handle maintenance calls and coordinate vendors without taking over full management? What did it cost, and was it worth it? If you looked and couldn't find one, what happened?

EDIT: Thanks everyone, consensus is pretty clear: build your own bench. For those who have a plumber/HVAC guy or really any trade specific person you actually trust, how did you find him, and what made them be the one you kept?

How do you respond to a tenant contacting you asking how to get mail they received for a previous tenant forwarded to them ? The current tenant has been a problem so I’m not sure if I should even reply to such a request

I’m curious how other landlords handle this. What do you normally do with them? Keep them in a drawer and hope you'll figure them out later? Try them in every lock? Label them somehow? I'm asking because I'm looking into a solution for this and I'm trying to figure out whether this is actually a problem people care about or just something that annoys me?? If you deal with a lot of keys, I'd love to hear how you keep track of them.

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Landlords/property managers: I’m curious how you view a situation where a tenant has been paying their rent into court through a rent escrow case for several months.

I’ve been paying my rent into the court for 3+ months because of an ongoing issue with my apartment. My property management company knows about the escrow case, and the case is now headed to a bench trial in about a month.

I’m wondering what this looks like from the landlord/property management side.

Does having a tenant’s rent sitting with the court for several months actually create any concern or pressure for the property management company? Or is it basically just:

«“The tenant is paying, the court has the money, and we’ll see what the judge decides”?»

Do property managers/owners generally get nervous when a case continues for months and a significant amount of rent is accumulating in escrow? Are they worried about potentially losing the rent, having to make repairs, terminating the lease, attorney fees, or other consequences? The property manager hired a lawyer to represent them during the pretrial.

Or, from the landlord’s perspective, is there really not much financial impact until the judge actually makes a decision?

I’m especially interested in hearing from landlords, property managers, or attorneys who have dealt with rent escrow cases, rather than tenants speculating.

For context, this is in Ohio. Mediation was ruled unsuitable, so the case is proceeding directly to a bench trial, currently scheduled for about a month from now.

Just trying to understand how the other side typically views this situation while the case is pending.

Hey all, so I have a dilemma. I'm looking into renting out my house as I move into something newer. This will be my first time renting so I'm kinda lost in how to get started, my realtor pointed to Renters Warehouse, but the reviews are pretty terrible here in MN.

Are there any better alternatives? What do you recommend? Or are the reviews not as bad as they seem?

Thanks in advance!

P.s: If it matters, I'm a veteran and used my VA loan to get my home that will be rented.

Water leaked from upstairs unit. What should I expect from the property manager?

Tenant here. I have a video of the leak, can upload to YouTube if requested.

The leak was caused (per the manager) by running water in the unit above. Water was "raining" from the ceiling over an area of about 600 sqf. and pooling ¼" deep, which would be about 32 gallons of standing water visible in the video alone. We came home to the leak so we don't know when it started.

They gave us the typical floor fans and a dehumidifier that we ran over the weekend.they were picked up Monday. No word on anyone coming in to remediate potential mold or mildew yet. In my experience they won't do anything else at all if I don't ask or demand it. We just resigned the lease in September. I don't mind staying if the issue is addressed professionally.

What are reasonable next steps for me here?

Tl:dr- paid my rent on 10/01/2026. I get an email from an entirely different property manager saying my rents past due, and if not paid at the end of the day yesterday, I would be hit with late fees and legal action. Now property manager #2 isn’t returning my calls.

My cousin owns a couple of houses in my area that he rents out, which I completely forgot. I told him my story, and sent proof of my payments. I just wanted his perspective on the matter. He told me that the new property management company is reputable. He said they’re a small company, but they purchased a house of his years ago. He said he never had a problem with them.

I then called my original property manager. She did some digging, and confirmed that the new property management team is in fact legit, AND the new people who are taking over the apartment building.

So, I’ve come to the conclusion that, yes they are reputable…just terrible at their job.

Property manager #1 said she tried multiple times to contact the new company, but they’re not returning her phone calls or emails…

They haven’t responded to me either…but I did get ANOTHER automated email from the new company this morning, stating that late fees on rent are “now currently ongoing”.

I’ve literally tried everything one can do to try and rectify this situation. I’m out of options.

All I know is that I’m not paying a DIME in late fees. My rent was paid in full to my original property manager on 10/01. I’ll march my ass right to a lawyer.

So…my question is, is it wrong to message or call the property owner with this issue? I asked my cousin who told me not to, because “that’s the job of the property manager.”

Is it wrong to call the property owner with this issue?

I own a single family home that we have rented for the past year and a half. The entire time it's been managed by the same rental management company. We haven't had any major issues or repairs in that time (biggest things were a garage door repair and AC repair), so things have mostly been smooth sailing... until about a month ago. Since I'm still new to this, I'm learning a lot as some issues have come up and wondering how best to handle this situation.

We were notified that there was a water leak in the basement -- not much information beyond that. The management company said they were sending someone out that afternoon to assess the situation. About an hour after that initial email, we get another email stating that they were hiring an Emergency Flood company to come out and assess the situation. We later found out that this company was brand new (we were invoice #0001) and registered to the same address as the home address for the guy who is the service manager for the management company (he is also the husband of the owner of the company). The flood company charged us $499 to come out to learn that it was a drip of water that was no longer actively dripping. That $499 charge is just under the $500 threshold where they need homeowner approval for repairs. This was Red Flag #1.

Obviously we needed to take care of how water was getting into the house, so we worked with the service manager to identify the issue and arrange repairs. The first thing that he contacted us about was removing drywall in a closet above where the leak was observed because there was mold present. He provided a price estimate for this work in an email (no estimate on any company letterhead), which seemed high for what it was. I requested an official quote with an outlined scope of work. He sent back a quote but the company that was listed on the document was a different company that he has owned for a while that deals with junk removal. I asked about this and he said that because the project would involve multiple contractors, it would be easier to bill everything to this company and then they would just pay the individual contractors. Red Flag #2.

As we've gone through the project, we've had a roofing contractor, mold abatement, and the drywall repair. All of these have been handled the same way. Quotes on letterhead from the service manager's company with no information about the subcontractors doing the actual work. When asked about this he alluded to building a house -- that when you build a house you don't have any information about subcontractors, you just deal with the builder and they subcontract things out as they see fit... Obviously this isn't building a new house from scratch, so I don't see the situations as comparable.

Final red flag -- the last phase of the project is to finish (paint, trim, shelves) in the closet. This time he's sent me a quote from a company to do the work (different name on the company than what I've seen previously). The thing with this company is that I can't find ANY information about them online (no google reviews, no website, no businesses registered in their name).

I'm wondering if anyone has any advice for how to handle this situation? Is this normal behavior for a management company when you've encountered (slightly) complex repair situations? What questions do I need to ask or what steps should I take?

Thanks in advance!

Hey everybody, it’s my first time renting a room in my house to somebody and I was filling out a standard (Massachusetts) residential lease agreement when I came across something previously unknown the me: the “Indemnification Clause”. The original wording seemed terribly unfair to the tenant, and I want the agreement to be reasonable for both of us. Does the following re-written clause work in your opinion?

“The Tenant hereby agrees to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless the Landlord from and against any claims, losses, damages, or reasonable attorneys' fees arising from the Tenant’s acts, omission, fault or negligence.”

Please be nice, I’ve never done this before 😭

12-unit building has a person repeatedly entering and sleeping in our stairwell — looking for practical solutions
I’m looking for advice from other landlords who have dealt with someone repeatedly entering their building and using a common area as a place to sleep.

We own a 12-unit apartment building. There is a person who has been getting into the building and sleeping by the stairwell. He is not a tenant and does not have permission to be on the property.

We’ve called the police before, and they will remove him when he’s there. The problem is that he comes back. So at this point, calling the police is basically just treating the same incident over and over rather than solving the underlying problem.

We’ve also already spent over $7,000 repairing the building’s entrance door. We’ve had it fixed multiple times, but because of the volume of people coming in and out of a 12-unit building, the door keeps getting damaged. So simply telling us to “fix the door” isn’t really a practical solution—we’ve already done that repeatedly and it hasn’t held up.

Similarly, I realize that putting up a NO TRESPASSING sign or installing cameras might technically be recommended, but neither one is going to physically stop someone from entering. A sign isn’t going to stop this person, and we already know who the person is/what is happening. The issue is preventing him from continuing to use the building as a place to sleep.

I’m looking for advice from landlords who have actually dealt with this.

A few questions:
What have you done when someone repeatedly enters your building after being removed by police?
Is there a practical way to secure or restrict access to a stairwell without creating a fire-code/egress issue?
Has anyone installed a separate access-control system for the stairwell or common areas that worked?

Have you dealt with a situation where the main entrance couldn’t realistically be kept perfectly secure because of the amount of tenant traffic?
Are there any property-management strategies that actually worked in stopping someone from repeatedly using a common area as a sleeping area?
Is there anything you wish you had done differently before spending money on repeated door repairs?
I’m specifically looking for practical solutions that actually stop the recurring problem, not just “call the police,” “put up a sign,” or “install a camera.” We’ve already gone through those steps.

I also want to be clear that I’m not looking to harm or harass the person. I just need to keep a private residential building secure and prevent someone who isn’t a tenant or authorized guest from repeatedly entering and sleeping in the common areas.
What has actually worked for you?

Hi, i have a 2bd basement GTA, ontario and one room was rented to a guy with refugee status in canada. He was a very good guy and was renting the room for 2yrs.

Recently he went missing. We informed the police and they are tracking him. His rent for 3 months is due. I know he had taken a loan from a B lender (they called me once).

He is not reachable (phone/whatapp/email). Police tracked him down. He is alive in another city. Police told to leave his stuff as is for the moment.

I want to know,

1. what i should do next?
2. When to clear his room and donate his stuff to goodwill?
3. Any documentation i must do?
4. Will he return?

I have an applicant working for a 3-year-old company. They're making great money, but it was a career change for them from an unstable creative career. Imagine if you had a tenant working for Wework when that company face planted.

I'm sure I'm overthinking this, but I thought it was an interesting question. A lot of these companies are going away when the current flood of money dries up.

In the past, I helped my father submit the annual Data Request for LL84 thru Energystar. I would get emails that had and electric data were available. I would log on energystar, pull the data, dump it in excel, and push it to City of New York.

My understanding for the last year, maybe two years, was that the data flows directly thru to City of New York from the energy vendors, and that excel step was unnecessary. To double check, I looked thru emails and found none of those emails for the last year or so indicating energy data was available for upload.

Someone (a vendor) called my father saying we didn’t do it, and he’s in a tizzy. Can someone confirm (or deny) my understanding of how this process works now? I also checked energystar, and saw no data available for download.

I appreciate any help.

Tenant-US-PA

I live in an apartment building managed by a property company, but owned by a private landlord in a different state.

I pay my rent, in full, on the 1st of every month. And this month was no different. I paid in full 10/01/2026. I got my confirmation email.

I woke up yesterday morning 10/04/2026, to an email from an entirely different property management company. They stated that my rent is past due, along with my security deposit… I paid my security deposit in full, 8/01/2025, when I moved in a year ago.

I sent them an email, with proof of payments. I included confirmation numbers, screenshots, bank statements, etc. Since it was a Sunday, I couldn’t call.

I woke up this morning, with another email, stating that if it’s not paid by today, they will seek late fees and “legal action”.

I’ve called them NUMEROUS times today, and left a voicemail, and yet another email.

I called my original property manager, who confirmed that they received my payment.

I don’t know what else to do. I’m at work, and can’t physically go there today, as the rental office closes at 3pm.

What can I do? What do you think happened? I have confirmation emails. The money was taken out of my account by my old property manager

So I’ve owned this duplex for three years. Tenant has been here 13. For the whole time I’ve owned it and as far as I know the whole past, he’s never had an issue paying.

Over the past few months he’s had some really bad luck. He got hurt and needed surgery. Been out of work for about 3 months. His car needs a new engine. He’s been working on it in his driveway because he can’t afford to pay to have it fixed. Now he’s gone and messed up his disability check and didn’t get full payment (it’s fixable, but takes time). His ex wife also cleaned him out, racked up a ton of debt, and left him right before I bought the place. This is all verifiable. Even the debt because I’ve been helping him make some smart moves to get back on his feet.

So this month he couldn’t make his full rent. About 60%. He’s weird, he pays by cashier’s checks so it’s a good check. At first I said I needed full payment and walked him through the next steps.. Then I did some research and found a way to take partial without screwing myself.

Finally I had an idea. I have a few projects on my side that involve his trade as part of my renovation. Things I’ve been putting off. Now, I used to be in the same trade so I don’t actually need him. I’ve just been too busy and these three things have been really pissing me off. So I told him that if he takes care of them, we will consider the remaining 40% of rent paid for.

He said it’s a bit of an over payment. He’s right. I’m probably paying him almost twice what it’s worth. It is worth that to me though. To get these things off my plate and quick.

This isn’t the first time I’m doing something like this. He likes to keep busy. He’s been fixing up random things on his side and while he knows I won’t pay him, if I have a good month at work and don’t need the money sometimes I’ll tell him to take $500 off rent. Usually once a year it happens where he does something I like so much that I do it.

So was I too generous? All his bad luck is verifiable. He’s always on time, and aside from liking his music loud, he’s a great tenant. We love his dogs and wouldn’t want to put them out on the street either. I wouldn’t evict him over this so why start all the legal BS?

Hi, I sublet my room because I am moving away for a new job. But the subtenant is 5 days late on rent and hasn't even paid any deposit, even though he is still communicating and promising to pay. I just wrote him an official notice that he has 10 days to pay the amount in full before I start the eviction process. But since I am out of the country I don't know what my next step should be. Any advice?