Story

There was a person living on the eleven acres I bought, which I learned at closing

I was buying the land. Eleven acres, decent road frontage, the kind of parcel I sit on and don't touch for a decade. There was a house on the corner of it, a small one, and in my head it was a shed with plumbing. The listing said "improvements" and I read that as a problem to demolish someday.

At the closing table the seller mentioned, in the same tone you'd mention a mailbox, that his cousin Ray had been living in that house since around 2016. Paying four hundred a month, cash, sometimes. No lease. No deposit. Nothing in writing anywhere.

I'd asked for a rent roll on a land deal exactly zero times, because why would I. So I signed and then drove out there with no plan.

Ray was on the porch. Sixties, worked at a feed store for a long time, has a dog with one ear. He assumed I was there to throw him out and said so before I got out of the truck. I said I wasn't, mostly because I hadn't thought that far.

We sat there about an hour. The house is 900 square feet, two bedrooms, a well and a septic system I now also own. It's tighter than it looks from the road. Ray had put a metal roof on it himself in 2019 and the seller had never paid him back for the materials.

We ended up with a written lease at 750, which is under what the area gets, and I ate the roof money by knocking it down for the first eight months. He pays on the first now, by check, and he mows the front three acres because he likes doing it.

So my patient land hold has a tenant. I own a septic system. I did not plan any of this and it's the only part of that parcel making a dollar.

9 replies

hannah_west29 Get yours

750 a month on a house you assigned zero value to is 9,000 a year against a basis you allocated entirely to dirt. Whatever your acreage cost, your yield on that parcel just stopped being zero.

The part I'd want to know is the septic. What's the age and when was it last pumped? That's the one line item that can turn 9,000 a year into negative 9,000 in a single weekend.

derekj19SB1B

The dog with one ear is doing a lot of work in this post. I like that Ray assumed the worst before you were even out of the truck, that tells you what happens to people in his position most of the time.

mitchell_ray4 Get yoursPRO6

A man who puts a metal roof on a house he doesn't own is a man who intends to stay. That's a better tenant signal than most of what goes on an application.

ledger's right about the septic though. Find out the tank size and the last pump date, and if Ray's been there since 2016 he probably knows both.

stephen_ok9CO2CPRO6

What surprised me is that a land deal wouldn't surface an occupant anywhere in the process. Is there really no step where somebody checks who's actually standing on the property?

paulgrant17PassivePRO5

meridian, that's the thing I got told to do before I ever screen anybody. Go look at the property with your own eyes before closing, and if there's a structure, knock on the door.

orchard, I'm curious whether you ran anything on Ray afterward, or whether nine years of him living there was the screening. I've been reading about screening for months and I honestly don't know what I'd have done with an existing occupant.

nicole_adeyemiPassivePRO5

The document you wanted at closing is a tenant estoppel, basically a signed statement from the occupant saying what the arrangement is and what he's paid. With a cash handshake there'd have been nothing to estop, but asking would have surfaced Ray a month earlier.

And whether a nine year handshake counts as a month to month tenancy you inherited, or something else, is state law and worth an hour with an attorney where the land sits. Getting it into writing at 750 was the right instinct regardless.

priya_n21PO1C

This is somehow the most appealing rental story I've read here. One check, one guy, he mows the field for free.

mikeoconnell7SP2APRO6

marlow, until the well pump goes. orchard now owns a well and a septic on a 900 square foot house three counties from wherever he lives, and there's no super to call. That's the trade for the 750.

omar_haddadActivePRO11

The roof is the tell. Ray fixed the expensive thing on someone else's building with his own money, which means he's been treating it as his house for a decade. That works great right up until you need to do something he disagrees with.

orchard, when the bathroom eventually goes, price it before you promise it. A 900 square foot house with a well makes people say "it's small, it'll be cheap" and then the scope walks out to the water heater and a section of wall and you're at four times where you started. Ask me how I know.