As much as I hate to admit it
(being a UNC guy), Duke
University Durham . Many of them were so good that they only
played one year at Duke and then left early to play in the NBA for millions of
dollars.
But, for others, it didn’t work
out that way.
Point guard Derryck Thornton was
one of those Duke recruits. He was an
esteemed 5-star recruit who was finishing his junior year of high school in
2015. Duke was thin at point guard for
the upcoming season and they convinced Thornton
to “reclassify”; this allowed him to graduate early from high school and join
the Blue Devils for the 2015 season.
It was a great honor. The defending national champions needed him to come early and play. He was only 17 years old! So he said “yes”, enrolled at Duke early, and
was starting at point guard. It seemed
like he had the world at his fingertips!
But, YDKWYDK (You Don’t Know What
You Don’t Know). A year later (when he originally
should have been starting school at Duke), Thornton was transferring out to play basketball
for the USC Trojans. It was allegedly a
combination of factors he could not have seen coming: his freshman year didn’t
go as well as they had hoped, certain Duke players inexplicably didn’t go pro
(that would have made more playing time available to him), and other more
heralded recruits joined the 2016 team.
He went from being really needed to being really expendable. So he was gone.
YDKWYDK. By definition, it’s hard to protect yourself
against the unknown. This is especially
true in property
management when there are so many variables; renters (people) are
complicated and they are all so different!
It’s best to have someone who might know what you don’t know because
they’ve been there before. Experience
counts!
I know I’m biased towards using a
property manager, but I understand the self-management side of it as well; I’m
all for saving money! It’s cheaper if I
fix the sink, as opposed to my plumber, but what about if I miss something and
it causes a leak behind my wall? Then
I’ve got a bigger, much costlier problem.
YDKWYDK
And if property management is merely
a hobby, it’s really tough to know what decisions can be costly down the road:
“My friend/co-worker wants to rent the property. He seems like a good guy. Should I rent it to him?”
“Should I allow any pets in my rental home? If so, which ones are okay?”
“Is it important to do credit checks?
If their score is low/high, is that an instant denial/approval?”
“Do I need to do home inspections?
If so, what am I checking for?”
If Thornton had been told in 2015 that he would
be transferring to another college after his freshman year at Duke, he probably
would have had a good laugh. But it
happened. The same can be said of many decisions
being made today by landlords who dabble in property management; the unforeseen
long-term costs of seemingly innocuous choices might make the expense of having
a property manager seem very reasonable!
YDKWYDK. Happy Landlording!
Brett Furniss is a property manager at BDF Realty (Charlotte Residential
Property Management), the trusted real estate advisor for Charlotte
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