The bonus of being a house owner

 and here I am, eager to share the abundance of lessons learnt from numerous house owners in my existence as a karmic tenant.

Being a house owner in a  country where the rules are more tilted in favour of power and money is a bonus, a privilege and a blessing. In short if you are not a house owner strive to be one. Your life will rock in many ways. 

To start off you will have an additional income without having to hustle too much. Once you establish a solid connection with a decent tenant you are all good to go. They will pay on time, ensure to keep the premises in a decent way (or should I say live as civilised human beings?) 

You can influence your lawyer to formulate the lease agreement that can bring in more benefits for you. This means when its time for renewal you can elevate the value of repairs and renovation done by the tenant and keep your side at a lower end indicating only major repairs and renovation. So in reality there is no likelihood that the premises are going to come crashing down any time soon, or be broken down all of which are on the likes of major repairs and renovation. which means the benefit is on you.

The minor ones would be break down of utility tools such as taps, hand bidays, loosening hinges over wear and tear which is what the tenant has to bear. All fine and dandy because if the tenant is living then of course its better to have things working than deal with leaks and broken tools. But just think, after the tenant pays for all of these and ensure everything is working, repaired and running, when its time to leave the premises they make it very easy for the next one who comes in. So how does the tenant benefit by repairing and renovating another person's house and then moving on to do the same thing in some other house ?

When its time to renew the lease agreement there is no standard rule which the owner abides by, for increase in rentals. It is increased in the percentages which suits the whims and fancy of them. In case the tenant has had some disagreements even in a subtle manner, it can mean two things, either an open door is shown or the increase in rental would be such that the tenant would naturally opt to find another place. Its best for the tenant to keep developing diplomatic skills to be able to handle shrewd house owners and learn to maneuver tricky situations. 

If the occupancy involves sharing of utility bills,  the tenants are likely to bear the bigger part of the cost as there would be enough baseless justification to prove that the consumption cost increased after the arrival of the tenants. How does the tenant challenge this while standing on the grounds of the owner's premises ? 

I say this through past experience where we ended up paying for the consumption of 2 adults and 1 kid. Its an obvious fact that the consumption is likely to be more if there is a kid or kids.  The prized lesson we learnt from this episode was never to settle for shared payment of utility consumption. The huge difference was startlingly visible when we did start to pay for our sole consumption.

House owners can come in all shades and movements. I say this because there could be that oddball who will take an interest in female tenants in the most unusual way. Most of the time as always the case in good old SL, they are old, fit to be your grandfather. 

The episode that I had to deal with was a drunkard, an old dude who was probably bored with his spouse and wanted to try something adventurous, He used to 'hit on' his maid but reversed his sleezy behaviour when she showed him the largest kitchen knife and threatened him. His attention then turned to me. He used to wait until I return home from work and voluntarily open the gate probably wanting to lean on me. He could not go very far when one day I opened the gate with extreme force that made him fall down to the ground.  It took a while for him to pick himself up all the while I watched in glee as he struggled to rise and go back to his house.

Then there is also the cribber who would make it a habit to say that the rentals outside are way higher and that the only reason the increase cannot happen with them is because they are more empathetic to the tenant. I wonder why they even crib in the first place if they think so.

Then there are some house owners who are pretty decent for the most part but their kids, siblings would not let them be that way. They would constantly be influencing the owner to think otherwise in terms of getting an increase or scare the daylights out of them claiming there is always a possibility the tenants could own the place forcibly. I wonder if that is possible at all in a land where the rules are tilted towards those with money and power ?

If I talk about the key money or the advance taken at the time of occupancy. Being an owner pays grandly. You could dump this entire stash of 3 months or 6 months or 1 year of rental in a high interest fund and keep building on the accrued value. At the time of the tenant's departure you will only need to give the initial x number of months rental back to the tenant. All the accrued interest is yours to keep. Nice eh ? build interest on tenant's money without any sweat. Now who said you got to hustle to keep going ?

If you are planning to construct an apartment, house or compact unit to rent or lease, you really do not have to give priority in ensuring you use the best of construction material. You can always use thinner density slabs ad cheap fittings and material because the dwelling is not for yourself, its for another and you will charge enough to cover your costs and construction expenditure ensuring you will gain what you spent in a short time. What other business can bring in such short term rewards ? To top it all there are no clear policies or rules that govern proper acceptable standards of constructing a dwelling for rentals or lease. You are the boss and you can construct it the way it suits you to reap the richest rewards.

After leasing out your dwelling, if the tenants complaint of issues you only have to be sly and pretend to be surprised. You can also let the tenants go on complaining until some day they will decide to vacate the premises and you can once more dupe new tenants at a higher rental, doesn't matter if there are issues in the dwelling. A new coat of paint will cover up and make it look all nice and dandy.

Now try and do the mental mathematics for a house owner that has several such dwellings rented/leased out in the suburbs of the city ? Ah and then remember to also guide your tenants on how to handle invading Tax Officers should they any time turn up to dig about you as the house owner.