For 16 years as a landlord, I have always been friendly with my tenants but I have also kept them at 'arms length'. That being said, I have a husband and wife couple who I rented to 4 months ago. They are great tenants, pay rent before the due date and they are just nice and friendly people. I feel blessed to have them as tenants.

I am now getting the impression they want to get closer to me than just 'arms length' and become personal friends with me! They text me more frequently than most of tenants do. Most tenants only text me when they have a house problem that needs to fixed but this couple (mostly the wife) texts me just to B.S. with me in a friendly way. This married couple is now hinting they would like me to come to their house and have dinner with them. Yikes.

Now, I would like call 'time-out' here and just ask my basic question,...how would you deal with this situation? Also, has anyone here ever became personal friends with your tenants? What is the worse that could happen?

I would not do that. Renting to friends and family is never a good idea.

Then again I am guilty of doing it, so that’s why I have this opinion. It just makes it very uncomfortable if/when they become less than what you’d hoped for and you then have to become firm.

Once you become friends with them you will become a sounding board for all things not related to the biz.

Have a family that I have rented to on and off for years. Four generations of them have been under my roof. I hired him to do lawn work, she was my cleaner for years.

Tried to guide them toward financial security more than they had. No use. Tried for years to get them to buy a place, even on contract, but no luck.

Has gotten to the point that I do not deal with them. No problems but they don't want to learn and now I don't have to hear about the problems with the kids, parents, jobs or marriage.

Have a few others that want to be friends. I don't have many friends for a reason, I don't want them.

My last place in the hood (as I said) grandma was there 25 years. They called me "Uncle". Got invited to MANY graduation, b-day, BBQ parties.

Roy, my pal, have you never been schmoozed before? Sounds like that is what's happening.

The answer is simple: NO!

Any time there is a power dynamic such as within family member peers, parents and minor children, among professional associates, etc. the advice is the same: Be friendly, but never a friend. You won't want to evict your friend if/when the rent is late or the dogs poop all over the carpet.

"What's the worst that can happen?" Do you really want to find out? My guess is friends would share some information that others shouldn't know, and if/when your friends get upset, they will share that with everyone who doesn't need to know it and act like a deranged ex-girlfriend who wants revenge. If you've ever had one of those, you know what I'm talking about.

Page 47 of Maturity in Landlording

by Steve Growaset,

Roy, do you want to be friends with these people? Do you need more friends? Then by all means be friendly with them.

I have made it clear to tenants, friends and family that we are a business - that any income derived from the biz is how we live - that any money owed to us becomes a loan we didn't agree to and won't forgive.

I am going to be renting soon to a friend of the family - young lady getting started in life - she has been staying with us anyway but will move to our furnished apartment for a few months while we work on it - then on to a studio when available.

Tell them the truth.

Nothing to add to the advice above, except to point out that they have only been in place for four months. Many tenants don't start to show their true colors until after the first year when they get settled in.

You need to know where to draw the line. Often I will do something for a tenant, nothing to do with a rental. Such as fix their TV, Vehicle or power assisted bicycle (Make a replacement Lithium Power Pack while theirs is discontinued).

Then they want to socialize, cook me dinner, etc. I thank them and say I still have places to go, things to fix and rent to collect. So they stop asking.

WMH, I admire your thoroughness and communication.

I can't make myself do it again. We rented to a young woman who was my uncles niece, but of no relation to me. This was particularly sticky because my uncle was also partners with me on the property in question at one time, though we had bought out his interest a few years prior. He's a great guy and never gave me any indication that he expected any favors for her, but I still felt uncomfy when rents were late...then late again...then late again...then the property inspection....eyew, gross. Dried dog poop all over the carpet.

We reached a deal where I moved her along. Talked it over with my uncle, who was very gracious as always. He seemed a bit surprised at first, but agreed I had made the right decision.

My wife's side of the family had a huge blow up when her Grandmother passed away without a Will. Up until then, everyone had been super cordial and even friendly, though they live about 40 minutes away and we only saw them at weddings, anniversaries, graduations, and holidays. today, they barely talk. Those relationships were ruined because assumptions were made and everyone took their own side as the aggrieved party. Her estate was worth less than $50,000 as best I can guess.

I get it Sid, I do. This girl is a friend of my granddaughter's and my son has really drilled it into both girls that I will not forgive and I do not forget...debt.

But in these tough times of virtually NO HOUSING (where I live) we are able to "share" our wealth by at least allowing her (and her dog) to pay rent on one of our studios! We will collect 2x the rent in SD, and sign a lease, and do everything we normally do.

Business courtesy and arms length is the same approach I use. I minimize the Text/emails, because text or emails is easy to misunderstand.

This is only marginally related, and I think I had posted about it years ago when it happened.

In recent years I have had many visits to doctors at the hospital I have used. I was waiting at an elevator at the hospital. Then suddenly a woman walking nearby saw me and rushed over and gave me a big hug. I had no idea who this was and was searching my memory for former renters and such. She then said something that made me remember who she must be. Some years before she had rented a house from me - and I had evicted her. She went on about how nice and helpful I had been. I always tried to be decent to persons I evicted, and my guess is once she got over being angry about the eviction she realized she was the one who had been in the wrong.

Another time for a different house I had taken the renter to court and had a time set for the actual eviction. The day before the eviction time she saw me and almost knocked me over when she threw her arms around me. At first I thought she was starting to attack me and then I realized this was instead a big hug when she began to thank me. In some ways this was probably a repeat of the other woman I mentioned. I think this woman realized she deserved to be evicted and was appreciative of my still treating her decently. The main thing I remember I did was take her a large number of big boxes and trash bags for her to use to pack her things in. I didn't want to have to deal with her junk at eviction, and she appreciated having a way to pack up her things.

We are friendly with our tenants. Altho some try to be friends, I've only become true friends with two previous renters that are close to my age. I've been invited to visit and if we get the opportunity some day we will.

I've never had a tenant attempt to hug me. I don't set up any circumstances where they'd be comfortable doing that. I almost never engage in small talk or any discussion outside of issues related to the rental.

Generally, although I present a friendly exterior, I'm very wary and am aware that folks will try to study and assess to find a weakness to exploit. I provide no openings by keeping it business.

I detect some regional and cultural differences here. The hug that the wife gave Roy when he agreed to owner finance the home would not be at all surprising or shocking to me. But then again, I grew up in the South and hugs of joy are not uncommon.

Small Potatoes and GKarl, some years ago I worked in a company with offices in NC and NY. A man from a NY offices called and asked the office admin in NC to perform some task. In her customary way, she said something like "Okay, Sugar, I will take care of it." (Perhaps considered a verbal equivalent of a hug over the telephone.) The NY guy immediately called her manager and said she was inappropriate and implied that she was hitting on him. That was the laugh of the office for weeks. This was a prim and proper grandmother who wore dresses buttoned up to her neck. The response to the idea of her hitting on him was "in your dreams, buddy." Many of us thought that the NY guy had a stick up his behind, or needed to get out of NY more often.

I'm not going to get into regional opinions of what is considered appropriate or not. That would be just as fruitful as arguing whether Dems or Republicans are right or wrong.

I will say that, half the time, when you think that someone is thinking about you in a particular way, they're not. And when you think they are not thinking about you, they are.

After seeing Roy's post about the hugger being a 9.5 on a scale of 10 in a different thread, I amend some of my comments. While I still think that the wife is simply being Southern friendly, Roy could use a bucket of cold water dumped over him to cool him down. It might be a good thing if Ally was right and the couple was trying to fix him up. :-)

Is owner financing really a good idea? My husband did that once on a trailer he owned. The people skipped out after a few months. He got stuck with cleaning up the place. I would never owner finance.

We try to be friendly while keeping it professional. We want our tenants to know that we are the owners and we are in charge. If you get too friendly, they will think they can walk all over you & get away with things. On the other hand, we want our tenants to feel comfortable telling us when there is a problem as soon as they notice it and that we will take care of it. We also don't rent to friends or family for all the reasons mentioned above. It's not good business and you can lose their friendship when things go wrong.

See they DID have ulterior motive. They did want something more from you. Hey it's fine if you want to sell owner-carry. Owner-carry can be a great way to go, with higher rent along the way, it can work out well.

I feel in relationships with tenants the landlord has more to lose then the tenant. So we keep it "friendly business".

I will say I've tried it out and have learned my lesson.