From: Mary Shafer 
Newsgroups: misc.invest.real-estate misc.invest.stocks misc.invest misc.consumers.frugal-living misc.consumers.house
Subject: Re: Pay off the mortgage?
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 20:19:54 -0700

On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 02:22:13 GMT, "Gary Slusser" 
wrote:


> In addition to the 'net' interest paid over the years, there are many
> things that someone owning a house do to it that they would not do to a
> place they rented. Those things over 5-20 years can add up to many
> thousands of dollars and depending on the house etc. tens of thousands.
> Depending on the income, hundreds of thousands. The lost return if any
> on that money must also be calculated as an expense. The lost return on
> the downpayment, closing costs etc. must also be included as expense. It
> seems those things are forgotten when "profit" on the "investment" is
> calculated. A gallon of paint here and there, a few brushes, packs of
> sand paper, the larger lawn mower/tractor, snow blower etc. that the
> rental wouldn't require, the extra oil and gas and spark plugs along
> with service on them etc.. Every dollar spent or otherwise gone has to
> be included and compared to what a rental actually would cost; plus any
> return it could have made. 

We've been landlords for a lot of years and we have never provided
lawn mowers or snow blowers to our tenants.  We have, however,
required them to maintain the property appropriately.  Furthermore,
you'd better believe that our tenants have paid for our closing costs,
cost of money, upkeep, expected vacancy rate, turnover, etc.  They'll
have paid more than that in the long run, actually, because we expect
to make money by renting out our property.  And we get to keep the
profit when we sell the unit.

I should probably point out that while we've owned a lot of rental
property, we haven't lived in a rental since we got out of grad
school.  And we've never owned a snowblower or a ride-on mower.

Mary

-- 
Mary Shafer   Retired aerospace research engineer
miliff@qnet.com