Making money with your crap hole? Man, that takes me back.

It's too bad there's no I, Anon blog CotW, because Todd would win it for the above. Then again, there is a regular Blogtown CotW, but Alison keeps slacking in her duties, so no one's won it for weeks.

"I just want to rent a decent house with my husband, not get fucked by you!"

Right, because THAT would be a lot more expensive than the rent. The landlord must be really hot.

I, Anon has a Hell of a point here! It's a real goddamned scandle, what's going on in the housing/rental market. It's so bad that the A.G. in some states should get involved. Probably in Oregon, too.

I can tell you, someone just moved into a place on 34th and Morrison and may NOT be aware what a structurally UN-sound house they're living in!

I'm new to the business, but the theory I'm starting with is that if I keep rents fairly low I'll have a better shot at picking good tenants. That seems more valuable than squeezing an extra few dollars a month out of the place.

The counter argument that I hear from other landlords is that higher rents help to ensure better tenants, because people who can't afford high rent tend to move more often and do more damage.

They might be right - and it'll take years for me to learn for sure. Plus it can be very hard to 'pick good tenants' without violating one of the fair housing laws.

How about "property taxes are high and I need X amount of dollars to do the two things I'm trying to do -- a) maintain the house so that it attracts people who want to care for it; and b) defray a piece of the mid-2000s mortgage on the house I bought to live in so I don't get foreclosed on myself if I lose my job." Those don't seem like heinous motives.

@5, I was thinking the same thing about the house I just moved out of, and it was a married couple who moved in....

If you can pull off mrksp's a and b while still setting a fair price for rent then sweet but I would never go for the landlord slummer. I do my best to thoroughly look over the place I'm thinking of renting and find out if it's a reasonable price for the quality/size/area. If it isn't I simply don't rent. There is absolutely no reason to settle; Portland is big enough that if you look hard enough you can always find your perfect situation...

So where in Portland did you settle at last?

Goose Hollow this most recent time. It's actually a lot nicer than my last apartment and much cheaper...

Fuck SE Portland. I'm moving East of 82nd into a nice ranch house that i'll own for less than a 500 sq ft inner SE shithole for $1000 per month.