After 1 year, isn't it pretty well month to month anyhow? I mean what you are signing one year for is the rental rate for upcoming year. Surely within the contract/agreement, there is like a 2 month notice either way if circumstances change and they want to leave or you have a 'relative' moving in. Either party can still get out of contract on the 2nd year with the stated term of notice.

Can you write into the contract, no overnight guests or put some conditions on? Eg. no more than one guests for one night and any other specific particularities that might prevent what is happening.

Why does someone having some guests over every couple months bother you so much? That seems perfectly normal to me.

We just do month to month from the beginning as, far as I know, there's really no meaningful difference between a year long lease and month to month beyond the "breaking the lease" problem and in this rental market it's no problem to find new tenants. We've had tenants ask why we don't do a year long lease and our answer is that if they're not happy then we don't want to force them to stay. For rent increases we just do it once a year and we do it every year.

As for the guests - I don't find the frequency you describe as unreasonable for my own tenants but that's a matter of opinion. For example, I'd be fine if I had a tenant have their partner stay over a couple times a week and I wouldn't be bothered if there's a weekend guest once a month. OTOH, my elderly, losing his mind, dad is going crazy over his tenant's boyfriend staying over a few times a week.

Offtopic: does anyone have any suggestions tech to service a bosch boiler. My previous guy only does viesseman and some other more common brands so cant help me.

Really depends on if you want to kick them out within 1 year, do you even want them to stay? And yes at these times I would jack up every year since why does the city and strata get to milk you 10%+ annually and you can't cover your costs.

I run month to month after the year, i would like to do a year...... but i prefer to treat others as i would like to be treated. (I rent)



Exactly what "expense" are you incurring...... 2$ in water and 5$ in electricity over a weekend?
Stop being nice guy and jack up the rent by that wholesome 2.5% so you feel better about losing 7$
Also, you should give rental notice increase at 8.5 months, not 12, as technically the tenant can pull the "legally i need 3 months notice" card

If you dont like people staying over at your tenants place a few days a month, you should not be a landlord.
Technically they can have guests over for WEEKS, and theres nothing you can do about it

You can put in an extra occupant clause for future rentals.
Ex: you sign a single occupant, but 6 months later their parter moves in, then the clause can ask for more money or whatever...

TLDR: stop being a nosy landlord, and let your tenant live his life, jack up rent yearly so you dont lose 7$ a month

My house is old, the water thank capacity is able to only handle the current number of household members. The tenant is inviting over an entire family with their kids, so every time I shower the hot water is gone. So should I be going to upgrade my hot water tank to show I'm a good landlord?

Also every time random people show up, my neighbors are OCD/nosy and ask me whos this and that, to make sure these are people I know. Every time I have to explain (I don't want to come off as being a dick neighbor and tell them to mind their own business and get lost).

End of the day, there is an inconvenience on my end. Of course, other people situation may be more favorable to them, but for me, it isn't when guests come over. Each to their own, no right or wrong.

^ These tenants are your friends? Why not just have an adult conversation about your concerns?

Old house: if you want hot water once a month, then upgrade the tank. (Im sure that 10-20k year you made from being a landlord for x-xx years can pay for a 1500$ water tank.....)
If tenants are complaining, tell them house was built for x people, not xx people,

Randoms: its time you tell your neighbors to mind their own business, rude or not, needs to be done

Inconvenience: you signed up for this the day you became a landlord dawg, these are very minor inconveniences on the landlord scheme of things

A good landlord would have built the suite right by installing a separate water heater for it.

Spending 2.5K for a 50 gallon tank is not a lot in the grand scheme of things...

Month-to-month vs. 1-year lease - I don't think you can make your tenants sign a 1-year even if you wanted to, and as a tenant, there's not much benefit to signing the 1-year. I offered it to my tenant but expected them not to take it, and they didn't.

I'll be honest, fretting about overnight guests for a weekend every 2 months seems kind of nitpicky and as a tenant that'd bother me. I would expect the average person to have guests once in a while. When I rented my place, we added an addendum about overnight guests staying more than X days in a calendar month must be added to the lease and tenant insurance, but the intent was really if my tenant had his partner move in with him or something - I.E. if there was a new permanent occupant. I didn't care about his partner staying over a day or two a week or the odd guest crashing at his place...

Similar situation in a house with a basement suite and a water tank that is probably a bit under capacity for more than 3-4 showers in a row, but we manage. If it was really so bothersome to me I'd cough up for an on demand system or higher capacity tank and would chalk it up as a cost of business.

I just did a portion of gas and electricity as part of the rental agreement, go nuts until they pay $150 of the $500 dollar hydro bill.
:lol

If you don't have a water tank sufficient enough to supply a unit with guests downstairs, maybe you shouldn't be renting it out then, and if you can't afford your mortgage without being a shitty slum lord, maybe you can't afford a house.

Imagine telling a renter they can't the occasional guest over, or a spouse sleep over, that's fucking nuts, and peak Vancouver :lol

If you're charging market rate (or near there) then I think it's on you to upgrade the hot water tank (or any other system) so that it's of a "reasonable" standard. If you're not charging market then it's on you to be have been explicit with your tenant about what they can reasonably expect out of the rental (eg. "The appliances are flakey" or "It gets real hot during summer..."). There are some horrible suites out there and, IMO, if people are honest about what they are getting then it's their business.

Case in point for me - it turns out that the GC who helped put my suite in did a pretty shitty job with the electrical and it's causing the fuses to trip sometimes since he didn't wire it up in a way to support all the load and didn't do dedicated lines when he should have. I could tell my tenants to be take more care and rearrange which outlets they use to avoid the issue but we spent $2k to get it redone ($2k is almost what the original electrical work cost). $2k is what I charge for rent so I've cost myself a month of rent with work that I didn't HAVE to do but it's the cost of being a landlord.

Just take a shower before they do. Then when they complain you can tell them your original agreement was for X people but the house cannot handle the constant guests.

We went to Seattle for the Family day long weekend. First time we've been to/thru Seattle since 2019 when we went for a babymoon to Portland. Maybe we've never been through the residential areas outside of downtown much but holy shit the city feels run down. We stayed in an Airbnb in Columbia City (East of Seatac) and the house we were in was built in 1907(!)

People overall doesn't seem to have changed much compared to the last two decades of hopping down to shop. Still overall much friendlier than Vancouver.

Driving is where it really shows. People let you in holy shit what is going on. You signal and they'll make space. And we were driving in a BMW douchemobile as well. Maybe I've just been jaded by the overall stupid shit that happens in Vancouver but drivers and people are overall much nicer except this one Chinaman who complained that we woke his daughter. Fucking Chinaman giving a bad rap no matter where we go.

When I first started driving 20 years ago, friends would remark how much nicer it was to drive in the states as the infrastructure is better, roads are clearer, and things well marked. My only gripe back then was that they used concrete slabs for the Interstates whereas we used asphalt and asphalt is just nicer/quieter to drive on.
Now more of the I5 is paved in asphalt or my X3 is better insulated than my Highlander, but holy shit the roads are worn down. Random potholes everywhere, residential streets are beat to shit.

The city itself, lots of closed storefronts and abandoned buildings mixed with new condos. I don't get the feeling that people are "poor" but the city is not being taken care of or the money is being spent elsewhere. We saw that some deals are back as I think due to Covid the influx of BC shoppers just stopped and never really came back. We are seeing restaurants being different as well as they serve more "deals" now whereas before you just order off the menu.

Anyways rambling. Long post but really just to bug Hondaracer, where would you move to in the world right now since Vancouver is so shit? Seattle is being rundown, with Portland (I haven't seen it myself) being even worse. The only city that I've been to that I would seriously consider moving to in North America is San Diego, and that's the most expensive city in terms of living costs in NA. England is a wreck due to Brexit, France and Italy is falling a part.

Interesting, i had the same perspective about Seattle as I had just come back from a weekend trip late January.

First time I've been to downtown area, the usual touristy spots, areas in and out of the city core in the last 5 years. The city is definitely more run down than i remember it to be. More visible signs of homelessness, roads and even public spaces were poorly maintained.

For some reason I had this notion things were just bigger and better down there. After all, a couple buddies who are in software engineering are making a great paycheque. But maybe it's just that - the income disparity and recovery after COVID is very much K shaped. Rich get richer, take the money and go where they please, and the poor just keep getting fked.

Ended the trip with some conversations with said buddies. They wouldn't want to raise their kids in America. But ask them if they'd give up the paycheque to come back to Vancouver; that was the more real response.

Which raises the thoughts: international money, international income is so strong here. We compete with people who are paid and live in COL cities that are double, triple what we make / pay here.

Overall people seem to be doing ok in Seattle, there's some homelessness and random drunk people but we have those in Vancouver too, so it's just the whole feeling of things being rundown, the whole bit where it's rundown houses and cramped streets on one block, and then brand new condos with Whole Foods clone on the next. One trend I noticed though is a lot of the new builds are lease only which is quite interesting.

I have friends who are in Seattle in tech as well. One who's single and one who's recently had a baby. The single one said once he has kids he'll be coming back but the first step is finding a gf first. We met up with the family with a new baby today before heading home to Vancouver. They aren't sure what they want to do moving forward because obviously the paycheque is nice but they aren't sure about the 60-80k/y tuition for private school, but the cost to move to a good public school area is also in the millions. They have 5 years to figure shit out, the current up and coming problem is finding affordable daycare.

Actually car related content, I don't think I can survive in Seattle in a lowered car, at least not in the neighbourhood I was staying at. I would hate to give up my manual but as a two car household, two SUVs as daily drivers seem to be required to navigate the streets.

I liked the Seattle Uptown area where the Climate Pledge Arena, Fountain, Children's Museum, Armoury is located, that was a cool neighbourhood that seemed safe.

Waterfront is not bad in the summer.

Pike Market, just walk it once for fun to see what if anything has changed (ans is no), grab a snack or a bowl of clam chowder, fight your way through the part where all the tourists need to go into THE Starbucks.

West Seattle has some nice views of the city and an area similar to White Rock. Only go if the bridge is back working.

But yah, the damn shitty highways!

If you think Seattle has changed (which it did), go to Portland and report back…

They have security guards with counter strike gear at Targets.

I always split the bill and never include full gas and electricity anymore.
As soon as the tenants are forking out even a portion of it, it changes their mindset of abusing it.

I used to include everything at my old place and they would be blasting the heat while leaving all the windows open for fresh air. I gave them friendly reminders to not be wasteful, but at the end of the day, not their problem.

Until one day the tenant forgot to close the window when they went out since they always left it open by habit. Then their suite got "broken" into since the window is on ground floor and an easy target. :facepalm:

That's true in Seattle downtown too... pharmacy and Target by Pike market come to mind

Seattle has always been a dump imo.

I remember going to Seattle on family trips in the 90’s and thought it felt run down then comparatively. It’s just an ugly city to start and then the struggles places like it have gone through in the last 10 years amplified the problems

What I don't like is the huge massive industrial, port area by the water, around the airport. I mean we have ports by the water but nothing the size of theirs! They need to revitalize it but I'm sure they don't have the money to.