Crushed by Cumulativeness: Rent Increases and Why the NFL Player Didn’t Sign Your Kid’s Football

 

“What a jerk!  All he has to do is just sign his stupid name to ONE football and it would mean the world to Little Johnny.  But instead he needs to hurry to the locker room to recount his millions of dollars!”

(Reaction of many parents after their child’s autograph request is snubbed)

 

I was talking to a local college football player (a kicker, if you must know) about what he was doing after he graduated in May.  He said he was starting to figure that out being that he finally had some time to think about it.

 

Some time?  He’s in college!  I was thinking of how wasting time was sort of what my friends and I did during our undergraduate tenures…

 

“You don’t have any time?  How did you get so scheduled out?”

 

He pulled out his team-issued iPad.  “Do you see this?  I had to look at this every day for the last five years; it told me where I was supposed to be and what I was supposed to be doing every hour of every day… Now, honestly, I’m adjusting to doing life without it.”

 

Wow!  That sounds pretty demanding for a college kicker at a small-time football school.  If I were him, I think I would have opted for intramural soccer.

 

Now let’s think about NFL players.  There are even more football activities than college.  They are travelling for training camp and games.  If they don’t do well, they can be cut at any time.  If they want to get better, they need to take the time to practice, lift weights, and study the playbook and game tape on their own.  Then they have family, faith, friends, financial, and other real-life commitments- and everyone likes them and wants to be near them because they are wealthy and famous.  They are super busy! 

 

And then there are constant, on-going demands for their time.  Want to be on a weekly talk show (aka NY Jets quarterback, Aaron Rodgers)?  Make sure you cut an hour or two of every week for that.  Endorsements?  Autograph shows?  Dinner with your wife?  Your kid’s basketball games?  Team functions?  Mailing back football cards kids send them to sign?  Your college wanting you to come back to accept an award on an off-week during the season?

 

If it was signing one football, that would be one thing.  But it is signing one football in addition to an overpacked schedule.

 

So how does football player busyness fit into rent increases in today’s world?

 

A landlord may be heard muttering, “If a tenant can’t come up with an extra 5-10% for rent every year, maybe they shouldn’t be in the property in the first place!”

If it was just $100.00/month extra for rent every year, that would be one thing.  But rental increases are not happening in a vacuum.  Tenants have been absorbing increased rents in addition to increased costs for almost everything else they consume.  Food, gas, car prices, car insurance, plane fares, restaurants, NFL tickets (another 4% increase in ticket prices was just announced by the worst team in the league, Carolina Panthers), etc..  Netflix just went up by another $2.00/month, for goodness sakes!  Like small papercuts that keep happening, the bloodletting becomes very real eventually.

 

Cumulativeness can be crushing! 

 

Property managers and smart landlords need to balance potential rental increases with killing the golden goose.  Good tenants are an asset that maintain the property and pay down the underlying debt.  Dumping another increased expense on them can be detrimental to both parties, especially if the tenant moves and the property needs to be repaired and put on the market again.

 

Good news!  The college and NFL players don’t hate your kid.  If they had an iPad with lots of empty time slots and/or few other commitments, I’m sure they would happily sign footballs most every time!  And if rental increases are measured, good tenants will be able to absorb them and continue to be a reliable monthly partner.

 

Happy Landlording!