I sold my investment property because I couldn't deal with tenants any more

Having become an accidental property investor over a decade ago, and just about to pay the 10 per cent capital gains tax that follows selling said house, I have experiences to share that pop the picture of the fatuous, fat-cat, winner-takes-all, lucky investor stereotype.

My accidental co-investor* sister and I sold last year. Not because we’d made a motza, but because we couldn’t stomach dealing with tenants anymore.

Of five tenancies in our tick-all-the-boxes, neat, affordable little house in an easy-maintenance garden and walking distance from schools, bus-stops and shops, only one was a happy experience.

Unhappily, the woman in that elderly couple died suddenly, and, with her husband moving out, we were back in the “for rent” lists. Before proceeding, we gave the grieving family three rent-free months to deal with their loss and clear the house.  That time we were fine about taking the financial hit.

With the other four tenancies — two single mums and two couples with babies — no matter how glowing the presenting references all put us through bewildering scenarios that we never could have anticipated and ultimately cost us money and dented our innate belief in human goodness.

The first undertook extensive renovations. We’d agreed that she could repaint a room, use the garage for workshops for her home-based practise. We agreed to install a glass door in said garage to bring light in: Ka-ching! Two weeks’ rent.

We didn’t agree she could render and paint the garage interior, build and plaster stud walls, rewire, subdivide and paint one section purple and sublet it as a secondary business premises.

Having discovered this big girl’s cubby revamp with the insurance-busting electricals, and the sub-letting intent, we could have voided the lease. But we didn’t. As with all tenants, we even gave back the bond.

The apprentice tradie son of our second tenant begged and promised that if we let his mum and younger sister move in, he would ensure the rent was always paid. For the first 12 months, it was. Then he moved out and payments became so erratic we gave his mum notice to quit.

“It’s been hard… you don’t understand… I’m trying…I’ll make it up.” The marshmallow landladies let her off for $2000 and took the humiliation of receiving one month’s rent check from the Salvation Army. But with rent late yet again, we went in person to investigate and found she’d gone on holidays – to America!

Tenancy three came in the form of a professional couple with perfect credentials, a European car, a request to cable the house for satellite TV, and a promise of a crisp year’s residence while they built their new house up the road.

All was good until the final inspection and bond sign off day when we found the house better than new and we were presented with a Centrelink form to sign saying they were eligible for rental assistance for all the money they’d paid us. No, they weren’t. They couldn’t believe we wouldn’t sign. We couldn’t believe how disgusted we felt.

Tenant five: Quibble about the first week’s rent, allergies to cats … could we shampoo the carpet again? Problems with some light fixtures. They’d get a mate’s rate job done which turned out to be a wholesale $800 bill for replacing all the light fittings not to their taste, etc, etc.

When they gave notice because the neighbours were too noisy, the other accidental co-investor and I decided we’d run our race and it was time sell, off-market, to a local kid looking for his first viable home purchase. The neighbourhood agent found out and rang to tell us we were idiots for not going to auction because we’d potentially lost uncountable thousands!

Yeah, we already knew that.

Hopefully, this is a rare unfortunate cautionary tale that could be entitled: Investor-buyer beware. Tenants follow!

* Both being self-employed, in the early 2000s my sister and I began discussing property investing as a way of growing superannuation. One day, I dropped a flyer advertising a little house on her kitchen counter and thought no more about it until 20 minutes before the auction the following morning.

My brother-in-law rang: “I didn’t think you could buy properties for that price anymore. I’ll meet you there at 10.45.” He put in the last bid and signed the deposit cheque that we, the blinking new owners, would shortly repay.

His wife and I then had to go cap-in-hand to our banks to sign up for the gig as rookie landladies. The interest at the time was 6.45 per cent.