“a UCSD staff or postdoc or other fulltime employees would be preferable”

this thing called financial reality has a way of squashing our preferences

my first rental properties were all apartment type units – common walls, etc – then I bought some single family houses and assumed I would be dealing with a higher class of tenants

the houses were nice but the ‘nice young family’ that I preferred as tenants had gone and purchased their own house because, as long as they could fog a mirror, they were able to purchase their own starter home instead of renting mine

so instead of renting to nice small families I ended up renting to room mates and dealing with the related issues

my point is that the nice things we think of while sitting around our kitchen table don’t always work out in reality – as a potential landlord I believe you would be better off thinking about how you will deal with real tenants instead of your ideal ones

what will you do when you realize your tenant has a cat although your lease says no pets? what will you do about the pad under the carpet that is now ruined and smells like cat urine?

what will you do at move-out time when the tenant is leaving you a unit that you will have to spend several hours cleaning?

what will you do on Thanksgiving day when the tenant calls and says the sink is backed up?

what will you do when the tenant gives you some BS about why they can’t pay the rent on time? (“my grandfather died” is the lamest excuse I was given – I didn’t bother asking how this affected their ability to pay rent – just handed them a 3-day pay or quit notice …)

what will you do when the tenant doesn’t pay last month’s rent and tells you to take it out of the security deposit?

what will you do when the unit has been vacant for 5 weeks and there are no good prospective tenants on the horizon?