Adventures in Condo Management

Apparently, it's time to roll up our sleeves and once again take on the Unsellable Condo In Vinings.

New readers here may not recall the UCV, as we've successfully managed, if not to sell it, at least lease it for the past 10 years.  But after a full decade, our cherished tenant has finally decided to move on and once again we are forced to have to deal with it.

Even deeper back story: Way back in 2000, we bought a condominium just outside of the chic Vinings community in Atlanta.  It was our first real estate purchase, and nearly everything went wrong from the get-go - the closing was delayed multiple times and after we finally did get to move in, the developer made multiple alterations to the property that improved his value for the other unsold units, but at the expense of the quality of our unit.  On top of that, we were completely incompatible with the Cobb-County, young-Republican, yuppie residents and they with us, and it never really felt like "home," just a place to sleep and for which to pay condo fees.  After a few years, we took a job on the other side of town and wound up buying a more appropriately located house, the home we're still living in now, lo these 14 years later.

We couldn't sell the condo due to those developer alterations and to the fact that after we purchased, that part of the city got flooded with new pre-Great Recession condominium construction.  It was hard to compete with all the billboards advertising "New!" and "Build To Suit!" and "Financing Available," and then the real-estate and financial collapse of 2008 occurred.  We had the UCV on the market for literally years, and finally even our real-estate agent conceded that it was time to throw in the towel.

So we began leasing the unit out to at least break even on the mortgage payments and condo fees. After a few sketchy tenants, we finally found a nice couple - she was a schoolteacher and he was a cop - and they settled in and made it their home for 10 years.  No drama.

They're gone now. They moved out on Sunday the 16th but it wasn't until last Friday that I finally got the keys and remotes (it's a gated community, don't you know) from them and got to inspect the premises.

What a mess!  They literally left piles of garbage on the floor, and odd bits of furniture and other things they apparently didn't want anymore were left in place.  The carpet, almost 20 years old now and admittedly overdue for a replacement anyway, was completely soiled and shot.  On top of that, they had two large dogs that clawed and gouged woodwork all over the house.  And that's what we could see.

The worse part - and we hadn't thought of this - was that they had the electricity turned off when they moved out and we couldn't see very well and certainly couldn't begin a proper cleaning or evaluation, much less get any contractors in.  We called the power company Friday to get the juice turned back on, but it was probably the worst day of the year to request new service - they don't reconnect on weekends, and this coming Monday (tomorrow) and Tuesday are apparently some sort of big holiday. The lights won't come back on again until sometime Wednesday.

Which is fine - we didn't really want to spend our Christmas holiday cleaning out a filthy condo anyway.  And there's actually good news, light at the end of the tunnel - we've already found a new tenant.  Word-of-mouth spread quickly, and the manager of a nearby restaurant where our tenants used to eat emailed us to ask about renting the unit.  We're doing the credit-check thing now.

And there's more.  We had brunch with Britney this morning, and she told us that a friend of hers runs a cleaning company that specializes in turning over apartments for leasing companies.  She doesn't do carpets or painting, but knows a lot of good contractors who do and can help out.  As we're not very good at that sort of thing anyway and as the costs would be deductible expenses from our rental income, it wouldn't make sense not to hire her for help. 

So no big point here - just a slice-of-life story and update for those of you curious about the condo.  If there is a moral, a lesson that we're taking from all this, it's that we shouldn't dwell on the negative, down-side of adversity - more often than not, things have a way of working themselves out, and a little patience and some optimism are better than frustration, rage, and despair.