The REAL Landlord Photos No Property Guru Will Want You To See

Nobody ever tells you in the beginning what hard work being a landlord can be.

Flick through the glossy property investment brochures and all you ever see are smiling faces.  Suntans.  Yachts and fast cars.

Being a landlord is a fast route to riches proclaim the gurus.

They are liars.

Being a landlord can be incredibly hard work and can cost you a fortune when shit happens.  And trust me, shit happens.

So today I have been sent the quote and the photos to sort out the property where my delightful scum-bag of a tenant pretended to be me and sub-let my house.

It’s not enough that he owed me thousands in rent, forced me to take expensive legal action to start eviction proceedings and then commit fraud by scamming someone off Facebook by sub-letting the property – no, to really put the boot in he has also wrecked the property.

But as I say, shit happens.

This is the reality of being a landlord.  Maybe you’ve been lucky so far – maybe your tenants are always angels; pay their rent on time, look after the property and return it to you in a better condition than when you gave it to them.

Well, that does happen sometimes, but as I say in the real world, where most of my properties and tenants are located, I tend to find shit happens.

If I am being honest, I can specifically pinpoint that shit happens more at the lower end of the scale – that is the cheaper properties which are let to people who don’t have much money and are most likely LHA claimants.  The irony of this situation though: they are the higher yielding properties.

In the long run do I think these cheaper, higher yielding properties turn out to be good investments?

It’s horses for courses.

Property investment is a personal choice and each of us have our own financial goals we want to hit.  Cheap, high yielding properties, while sometimes causing hassle, can provide healthy cash flow – and if you know anything about Business 101: Cash flow is king.

What your property is worth capitally and how much it may have doubled or tripled in value doesn’t matter a jot if you don’t have cash to pay your bills.  Without that money you’re screwed.

Equity is great, knowing you bought a deal which is worth X times more than you paid is fantastic – but it does not pay the bills.

That is why, despite the propensity of shit happening in my life, I still deal with the high yielding end of the market – because it pays the bills.

Anyway, here are the photos for you to feast on –  not a yacht, or a fast car in sight!