Why It’s So Hard to Landlord in the Silicon Valley
Managing tenants is way harder than you think
About a year ago, I plopped down a good chunk of my savings to buy a brand new corner unit townhome by Google. I work at Google, so this makes my commute a mere five-minute walk. I’m not too fond of driving, and the idea of being walking distance away from work sounded terrific.
The downside of being a homeowner in Silicon Valley is that it is a substantial financial burden.
Being single at the time, the weight of mortgage, property tax, insurance, and miscellaneous maintenance costs falls squarely and entirely on my shoulders. For this reason, I had to be incredibly logical in what I choose to buy. I have to make sure that I can easily rent out rooms so my future roommates can help on the cash flow side.
You would think that having a beautiful home at a prime location means I would be able to attract high-quality renters. Indeed, a lot of renters in the area are well educated with a high paying job, but it does not mean these people are easy to manage.
What I’ve found is that some Silicon Valley people are super entitled. It comes across as a combination of pettiness over money, wanting something for nothing, unwillingness to shoulder responsibility, and a general lack of people skills.
The old Chinese saying, “One drop of rat feces spoils the entire pot of congee,” is correct. All you need is one unreasonable tenant to make your life as a landlord hell.
The saving grace is I had the forethought of putting together a set of rules and make it a part of the lease. Everyone had to sign it before moving in. For example, I have a rule that covers thermostat settings:
The Eco temperature of the house is set solely by the landlord, and the landlord reserves the right to set the thermostat temperature to conserve energy.
I had to invoke this rule when the guy living upstairs wanted to turn on the heater, while the guy downstairs wanted to run AC. I forced a compromise, so the guys don’t use the thermostat as a weapon in their tiff.
We lived in relative harmony for a while, three male tech roommates, and me. Then I got married and moved out of the house to live with my husband. This is when all hell broke loose.
While I was living in the house, I was the Cinderella doing free cleaning for everyone. It wasn’t a big deal for me since I love listening to audiobooks, and I consider cleaning a workout while I read. However, once I moved out, and the guys didn’t pick up the slack, the house got filthy.
I have a rule on cleaning too, which I was hoping would settle this situation.
At the sole discretion of the landlord, the landlord will hire professional cleaners from time to time to clean the house. The cleaning fee is shared equally by all tenants that have active leases.
But then one guy took issue with paid cleaning. He believes he should not have to pay for cleaning since he mostly stays in his room, and his room is relatively clean. I offered to let him end the lease early, but he insisted that he loves living at the house, and does not want to leave.
We reached an impasse, with the discussion spiraling endlessly. I felt incredibly frustrated — this guy is wasting hours and hours of my time arguing over his share of the cleaning fee, a grand total of $24 bucks a month. The whole thing is completely irrational and illogical to me since his hourly rate as an engineer far exceeds this amount, and he signed the rules for God’s sake.
At the urging of my husband, a veteran Silicon Valley Engineering executive, I wrote a manifesto “The Why Behind House Rules” to share the reasons behind the rules with my tenants.
Had I known that I would meet my wonderful husband soon after I bought the house and marry him a year later, I might not have purchased the home, and I certainly would not choose to rent out rooms one by one. Renting out rooms vs. the entire house results in more rent, but it is also a lot more work.
I know some of you look at what I was doing from the outside and think it’s a great idea. Before you decide to do the same, you might do well to think through whether you are ready for it. It can be a huge time sucker, and you could get unlucky and get a bad tenant.
Instead of telling you story after story of how hard it is to manage a bunch of highly paid engineering guys living under one roof, I’ll share the manifesto with you. I figure you’ll be able to see the challenges yourself.
The Why Behind House Rules
Given some of the recent discussions we’ve had, I want to share the “Why” behind the house rules, as I think it would help us better understand each other and communicate better.
Pulte is the house I bought and lived in for roughly a year before I married and moved in with my partner. I loved Pulte the first time I visited it — it is a corner unit with lots of light and views, and it’s right next to where I work. I then upgraded it professionally to reflect a peaceful, Zen, and minimalist design ethos to make the living experience even more pleasant.
I envisioned creating a place where I would live with thoughtful people that are mindful of us sharing a space and willing to invest in keeping the home clean, tidy, quiet, and peaceful.
For a significant stretch of my life, I lived with people. For the most part, these are great experiences, so when I have the option, I generally choose to live with roommates because I enjoy human interactions.
Living with others taught me that when conflicts occur, it is generally around a few things — shared resources, noise, cleanliness, and tidiness. With these learnings in mind, I designed the house rules to minimize areas of conflict, and when necessary, step in as the owner and landlord to mandate a solution.
I also want the house well kept so that it is pleasant and safe for everyone to live, preserves the value of the home, and attractive to new tenants so we can acquire high-quality roommates.
“Shared” resources This applies to store spaces (frig, shelves, cabinets) and energy use. The rule asks that everyone be mindful of shared resource use, and conserve energy since roommates collectively pay for it.
Noise I specified a quiet period, which aligns with typical work hours to allow people time to rest and relax.
Cleanliness Keeping the house clean is a must. If the place is not clean, mold, mildew, and bugs will creep in, causing health problems for everyone and damage the home.
While I was living in Pulte, I spent around 15 minutes a day cleaning common areas. About half of the time is for vacuuming and wiping surface areas, and the rest is mopping floors. The roommates helped too, but once I left, it became apparent the place got dirtier.
I understand that some of you prefer to self-clean to save cleaner costs as much as possible. I am ok with that, but you have to spend the effort to clean. We cannot have a situation where the house is left dirty.
If you rather not clean to save time, or can’t agree on who’s cleaning what, then as the owner, at my discretion, I will call the cleaners and chargeback per the house rule.
On this note, as you know, I have been voluntarily paying an equal share on the cleaner costs even though I don’t even live in Pulte at the moment. I want to demonstrate by action that I do not call cleaners just because I felt like it.
For now, my partner and I will check the common areas (i.e. areas outside of rented rooms) for cleanliness anytime we enter the house. This includes but is not limited to scheduled cleanliness check times, and we will call the cleaners to clean the entire house if needed.
The idea of a cleanliness check is that roommates keep the house clean at all times, not just right before we check.
We use the cleanliness of the common areas as a proxy for the entire house. The idea is to afford everyone as much privacy as possible by only examining the common areas. Of course, if inspecting the common area turns out to be insufficient as a proxy for the cleanliness of the house (ex: bad smell coming out of a room), we may have to enter the rooms with notice.
Elisa currently charges $120 each time for whole-house cleaning, and she cleans the common areas plus all bathrooms.
My partner and I have spent too much time already with one of you on this topic, and we will no longer entertain debates.
If this continues to be an issue, we will switch to the cleaner coming every two weeks to clean the entire house.
The cleaner the house, the less often my partner and I will need to come for cleanliness checks, and we will taper the check frequency accordingly. We also prefer to save a trip.
You have all signed the house rule, and I expect that you will honor your commitment. Dishonoring house rule commitment constitutes lease violation and is grounds for eviction.
If this is a source of frustration for you, please refer to “Early Termination,” and let’s talk about having you move out early.
Tidiness: This hasn’t been an issue, as you have been mindful of keeping shared space tidy.
Protecting the Home: This includes not eating in the rooms (to prevent bug infestation), turning fans on post-shower to remove moisture, and other similar clauses.
My Value System
On a different, but also an important topic, I want to share some of the values I hold dear, as I think it will help you understand how I make decisions.
Fairness
I strive to be fair regardless of my relationship with the individuals involved.
Holding to fairness is why I vetoed a proposal that everyone vote on the idea of having one person pay the entire internet bill (minus Google’s reimbursement).
The person that proposed this argued that I should be good with this scheme since I get the full payment anyways. However, as I made clear before, and I will state again, this goes against my principle of fairness because it is not only a skewed election, but also violates the lease agreement.
I do not want to create an environment in my house where people feel singled out, cornered, or bullied, nor do I want people in the house that are nickel and diming everything to try to gain an advantage for him or herself.
Being fair also means that at times, I will have conversations with people that violate rules, and in some cases, early terminate a lease.
At one point, we had a tenant who violated the rules by cramming furniture from his previous house into our shared space. We had to terminate his lease early to return the space to everyone.
Transparency
I believe transparency is crucial to building trust. I am a direct, open communicator, and as such, I put my expectations in the House Rule. It is also why I am writing this manifesto.
Transparency means that I will NOT do side deals. A side deal is where supposedly I promised one person something that impacts others, but the promise is not in writing or communicated to everyone. Side deals are, by nature, hidden, opaque, and creates an environment of distrust that breeds politics. I do not do it.
Recently on our group Slack thread, someone claimed that I “agreed that we want the cleaners to come at most once every three months.” I heard that this individual has been spreading other rumors along these lines in person. This very much concerns me.
In this particular example, the supposed side deal directly contradicts the House Rules. It also contradicts my actions, which are consistent with the House Rules. No wonder you are confused upon hearing the rumor.
Here I make it clear that I do not do side deals. I encourage you to report any talks that are inconsistent with this.
Empathy
I value empathy in myself and the people around me. When I hire, I always add it to the requirements section of the job description.
People that lack it cannot understand other people’s needs or point of view. It is almost impossible to reach a compromise with a person who lacks empathy, as this person cares only for him or herself.
It is almost funny if not for the fact that it is so infuriating to review anything proposed by such individuals. Due to their lack of regard for others, such personalities often do not see the absurdity of what they are asking — he or she would never agree to the deal if the tables were reversed.
Suffice to say it is a pain to be around such individuals, especially in a shared living environment. I do not want people that lack empathy to live in my house.
A Team of the Willing
As a people manager, it is important to me that you are on my team because you believe in my vision as a leader and choose to stay.
I am proud of the high manager rating I got at Google and Microsoft, and this philosophy of genuinely wanting people to be where they want to be so they can be happy is a core part of it.
If you feel that my rules are too restrictive, or that you have a different philosophy of how you’d like to run a house, you are certainly entitled to your opinion, and let’s talk about early termination.
For those of you that have longer lease terms, I will do my best to backfill your room so that you can be relieved of lease obligations as soon as possible.
Involved Property Management
I am an involved landlord — I chose not to rent out the entire house, so I retain free access to the house outside of the rented rooms. There’s always the possibility that my family or friends will need a place to stay, in which case this gives me the flexibility to house them.
Out of courtesy, since I am not living there at the moment, I generally would provide notice before entering the house unless it is an emergency. I will always give notice before entering a rented room.
Because I chose not to rent out the entire house, the burden of filling vacant rooms falls onto my shoulders. I need the place to be kept clean and tidy, so it is attractive to tenants.
From a cost perspective, I pay roughly $10k/month between mortgage, property taxes, insurance, and maintenance. The ongoing financial burden is heavy, even with the house fully rented.
Besides being more pleasant to live in, keeping the house attractive for new renters could benefit you as well. We had an international student who had to leave a few weeks earlier to continue his Ph.D. studies. I was able to end his lease earlier and minimize his financial loss because someone backfilled the room a week after he left. Had the house been dirty and messy, it would be harder to backfill.
Communication
Lastly, though my partner and I both have busy lives, we try as much as possible to over-communicate. The notification of yesterday’s maintenance and the need to enter rooms to repaint was done via calendar invite and repeated over Slack text and email.
Please make sure that you monitor these communication channels, so you don’t miss notifications. I know that some of you have preferences for her channels, but we cannot accommodate specific ask given the wide variety of channels.
It may be helpful to integrate calendars if you’re mostly checking the work calendar at work. I do this personally, but we are all adults, and you should do whatever you need to do to manage your life effectively.
