**warning:  I’m about to make some sweeping generalizations**

I live in a cul-de-sac of 11 houses.  Of those 11 houses, four are rented and one is empty.  Yesterday Budgets are Sexy wondered aloud if it’s better to have renters or empty houses in your neighborhood.  It depends on the renters and if anyone is maintaining the empty house.

In my situation I would rather have empty houses.  Here’s why…

1. Our front yard landscaping is maintained by the association.  So even if the house isn’t being maintained, they yard still gets mowed, the bushes get trimmed, ect.  Someone is checking on things.

2. Renters suck, no offense.  I consider myself a good renter.  I would give myself an A- as a renter.  I paid my rent, kept noise levels down, and didn’t damage the property.  But I still take way better care of my own property than I ever did as a renter.  And I care about more than just my own house and yard.  I care about the neighborhood as a whole.  I care about how the common areas look.  I care about litter that drifts around.  I care about the speed at which people drive.  Stuff I never cared about as a renter.

Out of the 4 renters in my cul-de-sac one lives next door to me and they are good renters.  Never had any major problems with them and the minor stuff was taken care of right away. No problems and if all renters were like them, I wouldn’t mind renters.

Two houses down from them are the worst renters in the whole world.  Parties all the time, broken windows, cars parked all over the place, shady characters coming and going, and an untrained pit bull.  Bad. We refer to them as “The Idiots”.

Three houses down from them are ok renters except for one thing.  They have a big dog that spends the night barking at the the pit bull I mentioned above.  Luckily, I can’t hear that from my house, that’s just the word on the street.  But other than they I guess they seem ok.

Next door to them is an empty house.  No problems here.

Next door the empty house is our newest renters.  They seem to be like “The Idiots” but on a lesser scale.  We’ll see, maybe things will settle down but so far I’m not impressed.

So there you go.  Four renters and only one doesn’t cause problems.  Empty houses don’t have parties.  Empty houses don’t have guests leaving their trash in my yard.  Empty houses don’t have barking dogs.  I understand that owners can do all those annoying things too.  But usually they have a bigger interest in maintaining a postive relationship with their neighbors.  Homeowners want their neighborhood to be a nice place to live and get that by getting along with their neighbors.  So you can usually talk to an owner and work out a solution.  Renters, on the other hand, generally don’t care if you have a problem with them. They are probably moving in a year or so anyways.

I’m sure there are reasons why empty houses are bad.  I can see how if the house fell into disrepair it would become an eyesore and drag down everyone’s property values.  I don’t know how that works when it’s bank owned and there is a homeowners association.  I would think if there was a broken window or something of that nature that the association would notify someone.

Pic by: JohnHallAssociates

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