Thursday, November 13, 2008

Tenants And Happy Thoughts

I am thinking happy thoughts because I don't want to think about my tenants. Today I told them that the house will no longer be available to rent starting January 3. She seemed ok with it. She also told me that she has health issues that keep her from working and that she had started a program which will pay for part of her rent. Well, any rent is better than no rent at this point. I told her about some other rental options in the area plus I told her about the very affordable $28k manufactured home set up in the park nearby. She said she was looking at renting some land so that they could put buy a manufactured home and set it up there. That would be great for them. I wish them the best and hope they can find something more managable than $950/month.

People keep telling me that my tenants aren't going to leave and I will have to evict them. Why are they so negative? I don't want to hear that. That would be the worst case scenario. I'd have to take a vacation day and file paperwork with the courts and I probably wouldn't have enough time for repairs before my next tenants arrive. So, I'm not going to dwell on that right now. If I consider this rental experience as a whole instead of month to month, I have definitely come out ahead so far. I want to believe that they will find a nice new home and move out early.

Since I used my extra November money for a giant shed (ok, ok, I spent the money before I actually had it) I don't have anything to put towards the mortgage this month. If my renters pay me, I will be able to scrape up around $500 extra for the mortgage from various sources (cancelled life insurance, checking account bonus, cash back rewards, etc..). If they don't pay, I will have to use that $500 for the regular principle and interest payment. Then, if they don't pay next month, I'll only be able to put $200 towards the extra mortgage payment after I pay the regular payment. I worked this bad (but not worst) scenario in to my spreadsheet and I will still be able to pay off the mortgage in 1 year and 10 months. I think I have been stuck at 1 year and 10 months for about 3 months now. It cheered me up to think that I am on track again regardless of whether my renters pay. WHEN they pay, I will be able to add the money to my payoff plan and maybe shave another month off the end. The first column is the extra money towards the principle. The second column is the mortgage balance. The third column is the interest that I have paid so far. I also took in to consideration that it might take me a month to find another renter so I did not include as much extra money for March. I am still undecided about moving back in myself. I'll just see how things go.


So, for now, I will think my happy thoughts...1 year, 10 months...1 year, 10 months...it makes me smile.

4 comments:

Sharon S said...

Hi there-well done for incorporating a bad case scenerio into your spreadsheet, definitely the way to go!! Keep up the good work!

Over the Cubicle Wall said...

Very cool to see everything detailed out like that. Keep it up!

Daizy said...

Thanks sharon rose, it makes me feel more in control if I am prepared for bad news. Now, hopefully, it will get better.

Gee, over the cubicle, if you liked that one, I should show you the other TEN spreadsheet scenarios!

Over the Cubicle Wall said...

Well, I have always used spreadsheets a lot at work, so they do sort of fascinate me in their own way. The work related ones tend to be less interesting though.