Thursday, June 16, 2016

Replace the Butter with Margarine and Nix the Washer & Dryer Please




Americans demand to have their food made-to-order.  We no longer live in a culture where you eat what’s put in front of you; rather if you don’t like an ingredient and would prefer to have other ingredients instead, it is deemed socially acceptable to make the food preparer bend to your individual whims.  Burger King based a multi-million dollar advertising campaign on (and trademarked the phrase) “Have It Your Way,” and now every restaurant does the same.  I feel for the workers in the restaurant industry who have to put up with all of us creating our own menus.

I read an article about how the French chefs despise American tourists even more now.  We walk into their 5-star restaurants, look at the menus (which we expect to be written in English), and have conversations like this:

American Tourist: How’s the escargot?

French Waiter: Magnifique!

Tourist: What are the snails cooked in?

Waiter: Excusez-moi?

Tourist: I mean, I’m trying to cut down on butter, so I’d prefer the chef uses low-fat margarine… butter is bad for the heart, you know.  And garlic gives me gas, so let’s cut that out too if it’s in there…  Try to keep the salt to a minimum.  And were these snails bred and treated humanely before bring cooked?

Waiter: Sacre bleu!

This thinking has permeated into real estate as well.  At BDF Realty, we were selling a house for one of our Charlotte property management clients.  An investor came on to the scene who loved the house and wrote a contract to buy it.  It was a great offer and we wound up accepting it with minimal negotiation.  However, the investor did have one demand that caught me off guard and was not negotiable- the washer & dryer needed to be out before closing.

Now, if the washer & dryer were on their last legs, I’d understand.  But our client had bought these about a year ago; it was a nice set that worked perfectly.  But the investor was adamant that they needed to go.  So, it made me ponder: why wouldn’t the investor want these as an asset for his future tenants?

I thought about the prospective Charlotte tenants who contact us to rent our houses.  Not many of them ask about a washer & dryer.  I don’t think we’ve ever had a deal fall through because a house didn’t have them.  We’ve had conversations with prospective tenants about the issue of moving the washer & dryer that was already in the house so they could use their own that they were bringing (that’s a pain!).  And having a washer & dryer in the house didn’t allow us to charge more rent.

Furthermore, I recall the repair requests we get from tenants who have washer & dryers our owners provide.  We send out appliance repair people that, at times, have cost our owners hundreds of dollars.  Sometimes the washer & dryers are not repairable and have to be replaced which costs our owners even more money and drains their ROI. 

So, if tenants don’t act like they want washers & dryers and it costs our owners money to have and maintain them, maybe this investor was on to something?  He makes a compelling case to get washer & dryers out of rental homes and let the tenants fend for themselves. 

Maybe it is smart to “have it your way” when you’re buying.  Experts do say that too much butter is bad for the heart!


Happy Landlording!

Brett Furniss is the head property manager of BDF Realty (Charlotte Residential Property Management), the trusted real estate advisor for Charlotte landlords & Home of $100 Flat Fee Property Management.   BDF Realty utilizes their innovative Pod System for exceptional customer service in residential property management, home repairs, and home sales for single-family homes, Uptown condos, and town homes in the Charlotte-Metro Area.  Contact Us Today!