I've had a couple applicants ask me if I'd be willing to include a grass cutting option in the rent. Usually this is either elderly or single parents that work many hours.

think the way it would work is to estimate total annual costs from an outside vendor, then split that amount by 12 and add to the rent. I suppose other option would be simply keep rent the same and give them the name of a few local lawn cutting services.

Any thoughts on this?

Interesting.

After reading your other post: if you have extra time because work has been reduced, if add the value of doing this and do it yourself to fill the time and capture the money for yourself.

Or maybe get the wife to do it? Ha Ha! Good luck on that

A long time ago I would cut grass but then grumbling about the kids favorite toys went missing, grass clippings too close to the door type stories repeated so after adding a clause about adding government imposed fines getting added to the next rent cycle I no longer cut grass or clean snow.

If you find a lawn service add the cost in at 150 percent, and this might inspire the tenant to find someone, pay a neighbor or cut it himself, some of my single mothers have the best looking lawns.

I have a yard guy cut my grass for my house, the renovations that aren't working yet, and the turnovers that are temporarily vacant. I always pay by check, so it's an easy thing to flip through the checkbook and find out how many grass-cuttings are in a season (March-November). In my area, I can expect to have 13 cuttings in a calendar year.

So if I know how much my yard guy is likely to charge for a certain size lot ($30 for a small one, $40 for a larger one), I'll multiply that times, say, 15. So let's call it $40 x 15 = $600. Then I'd divide that by 12-- and I'd have to charge an extra $50/month just to break even on having my yard guy handle it. (Roughly $40/month for a small yard.)

In my area, it's very hard to keep grass green. The burning sun, water shortages, the poor soil - tenants want to move into houses with green grass and return the house with no grass.

For years I struggled with this...but no more. I am in the process of switching to desert landscape - stone, multi style and color gravel, cacti and other draught tolerant plants. This year I will be 50% done.

Let's get real. Tenants have issues. They're aren't the greatest managers of time or money. If us landlord leave the up keep of our rentals in the hands of tenants, then it's curtain the property will deteriorate. Instead I offer all of my tenants basic weekly lawn service as part of their rental package.

I just add a few bucks into the rental amount before I list a property for rent.

A tenant wanted to plant a garden in his private back yard of my apartment complex. So I lent him an electric roto-tiller and some hand tools. It's now been 2 years and still no garden. I have to pay my weekly gardener to go into each tenants private lawn area and trim the grass and scrubs.

Richard, I retired for a reason! LOL...

I want to work LESS.

I have a ton of hobbies and want to spend time on those. We have saved hard and have enough money...I want FUN TIME. We had 6 vacations last year, and are having 6 more this year...one of which is 2 weeks in Ireland. I don't have time to cut grass LOL.

We charge 200.00 for the front and 200.00 for the back. We get 55.00 per plastic bag for picking up yard trash. The only mowing done by us is when the tenant refuses or turns the house over to us without doing it. (They agree to the charge before move in)

I've been looking at this for the past few days...

www.husqvarna.com/us/products/robotic-lawn-mowers/

Looks like a good idea. You could automatically mow the lawn. Would pay for itself in 2 years.

I'm trying to justify it. Looks like I'd have a 1.5 yr payback on one depending on the price to trim and blow yard.

Whether tenants mow, landlord mows, or it is hired out, I encourage everyone to plan out the lawns to reduce mowing. Put beds with mulch and low maintenance bushes, ornamental grasses, perennials in the awkward corners that take extra time to navigate. Reduce the steep slope of those awful front lawns when you can. I try to make the mowing so I never have to back up to turn.

Doing this has greatly reduced my time to mow and maintain nice looking yards at my little houses. Used to take two tanks of gas in the mower to get all my properties done, now I can do them all on the single tank of gas, and, even counting a few minutes to tidy up a bush or flowers, less time. If you don’t know what type of bushes and other plants to use, go with what I call gas station plants. Look for well-maintained businesses, like a nice gas station in your area, in my case better areas than where my properties are located, but in the same climate, and see what they are using. Doctors offices, office parks will have professional landscapers doing the design. They know what works in the area, and they want easy to maintain.

I hate mowing but it's not enough to farm out. Tried a hs kid but he flaked, tried a neighbor to the largest lawn, he had no motivation. I have multis so can't make it a tenent req. Though I do have one tenant that mows their house.

BTW, Hoosier, this has become fairly popular in my city, lawn mowing included in rent. I did half, year before last, went to doing all last year. Don’t regret it. Of course, different situation than you. I very much enjoy any outside work, am not retirement age, and there are grandkids who will be conscripted when the time comes.

Lawn mowing issues ( or is it a problem, oh, I’ll never keep that straight, Jeff.) were taking up a lot of my time before I went to mowing myself anyway. Certainly not as much time as doing the actual work, but, MUCH more annoying than doing the actual work. I have a couple of neighbors who take great interest in the properties on their street, and would call me, or stop me to question everything my tenant was doing outside. Definitely micro-managers. And I really don’t care to hear the neighbor complain one week my tenant cut the grass too short, the next week the tenant isn’t watering enough. Blech!