I wouldn't know - our previous rental was a holiday rental and all you needed to book it was a valid credit card. Our current rental has only had 1 tenant so far; didn't enquire about his race, all I was interested in was his previous rental history. Maybe I shouldn't have rented it to a single male?
Do you take race into account when making decision on tenant?
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I wouldn't know - our previous rental was a holiday rental and all you needed to book it was a valid credit card. Our current rental has only had 1 tenant so far; didn't enquire about his race, all I was interested in was his previous rental history. Maybe I shouldn't have rented it to a single male?
Yep.... they trashed our carpets, destroyed the cooktop (literally), had 4 people living in the place (supposed to be 2), broke 3 cupboards in the kitchen, covered every wall in filth, and got 1 month behind in rent before their lease expired and we moved in (for fhog). All of that in 5 months.
Sure, they were lovely people, and never complained about anything... but werent good tennants.
I got over it, because it was really our PM's fault for being a crap PM - not doing enough inspections, and not screening the tennants well enough. We got a new PM once we moved out, and have been happy ever since
Not sure if it is a good idea to get involved in this thread......but
thinking unemotionally and logically:
We want 3 main things from our tenants:
1. Respect/care for other peoples (our) assets
2. Pay bills(rent) on time
3. Reasonable expectations-(eg. don't create drama over every paint chip/scratch etc)
To say that all racial groups, with their different traditional and cultural backgrounds would be equal on these 3 issues isn't logical.
Would the differences be big enough to worry about? Don't know. You could draw up a matrix giving weight to each issue and give a rating for each racial group if you really wanted to
As I mentioned in another thread some time ago, we all discrimate all the time. Discriminate means to discern differences. Anybody who has a place up for rent, and doesn't want to discrimate at all, should hold a lucky dip for all who are interested in the place. I think most owners will instead go with there gut feeling though.......
In the 50's - 60's, Greeks & Italians wwere thought of iliterate when it came to cooking- errr, they use olive oil you know (further stories & examples available if you like), now, Italians, Greeks & Germans are a-ok according to a previous poster, and weren't even offended back when they were being discrimmintated against (?)
They were also thought of as untrustworthy, wog was not the only name used against them....
Now, though, they are ok and olive oil sells at ridiculously high prives as does octopus and a host of other foods.....how sophisticated of Jimmy Barnes to speak Italin selling pasta sauce on tv...... Same thing happened with the average asian food,. now we have wok burners on aussie bbq's...
People get used to it and see, oh, hehe, it's not that bad... ohhh, I might try one of those things to eat....
Then the discrimination shifts toward a newer more different group....
If we agree that this has happened, and like cycles continues to happen, but we are determined to discriminate so strongly anyway, what does that say
No one said take on anybody / everybody as your tenant despite everything, the amazing thing for me was WHAT people think are issues - ooh, they smell funny....
end of input form me on this (thank God you all say (well those who don;t have me on ignore yet)
I also dislike the assumption but consider an analogy. Car insurance companies discriminate against young people on the basis of evidence that they are more likely to have accidents - hence higher premiums for them. Pity for those conservative young drivers who have to pay high premiums because of the behaviour of some of their contemporaries but them's the brakes... are insurance companies discriminating on the basis of age? Well... yes!
They can't discriminate on the basis of race because it is against the law. When you answer all those questions they ask you on the phone they are plonking you into different buckets so as to work out their risk of a claim and therefore your premium. They would ask the race question if they could, purely based on evidence that if you belong to bucket "X" you are more likely to claim, hence changing your risk profile through no fault of your own. The number of buckets they already use is pretty impressive!
Personally I like laws that prevent that type of behaviour on the basis of race - they put our values above purely economic decisions to the extent they can be. Our values should be more important - life is not just about the money.
In the case of our tenants, we exhaust every other avenue to distinguish between prospective tenants to give everyone a fair go. If all other things are equal (and they never are so we haven't had this problem), then we would use whatever means are available to reduce our risk - if there is nothing else to go on this would include race, again through no fault of their own. Like it or not there is evidence associating different groups with different outcomes - you have to make a decision somehow.
So in that sense we would practice "equal opportunity" but not "affirmative action" with our assets. Hope this helps clarify some of the issues...
Good post HiEquity.
Above is what I believe a lot of people are focusing on in this thread. Whilst I agree in theory, an investment property IS about money, for me anyway - it IS a purely economic decision. Why risk cashflow by renting to one group over another if it's not necessary?
I haven't built up a number of investment properties to provide fair and equitable social housing for all and sundry - again, this is the govt's job. I'm in it to build a better life for myself and my family - and bad tenants put this at greater risk.
Again, this thread was referring to people and their IP's, not society's evils and how unfare a place the world can be.
This was the topic of the thread:
Not "should there be racism in society?" etc.
MAte, I think you saw my answers we to pple who said asians stink up kitchens etc... quite a stereotypical remark, not a logical one based on evidence, As I said, wogs were thought to stink in th past, now they are no big deal, pple pay $30 a plate for spaghetti drowned in smelly cheese & cooked in stinking olive oil.. some pay that much for asian food too.. what does that say for the "they stink" evidence ?
why continue the stereotypes when you have seen that we get past them was all I was trying to say
Hope this helps clarify some of the issues...
See, I think this is the crucial point, and one I agree with - the "all things being equal" thing never is. However, I am not aware of any actual (as opposed to anecdotal) evidence of how "good" a tenant is likely to be based on race as a single distinguishing factor. If you have already sorted people by age, income, job, education, single/married/family, rental history - I'm not entirely convinced that race is going to be statistically significant after all that. I think the thing is that people might be tempted to take race as a proxy for some or all of these factors, which may or may not be justified. I've never known what race my tenants were until my annual inspections - but that's why I pay a PM.
I am not racist. I'd buy a new heart, lungs, or kidneys from any race...
Hmm..
If you structure it this way, what emotions are envoked
I would rather a white/yellow/red/green person with a job than a black person on welfare
PS:
I'd rather a non-smoker than a smoker
Hmm..
If you structure it this way, what emotions are envoked
I would rather a white/yellow/red/green person with a job than a black person on welfare
PS:
I'd rather a non-smoker than a smoker
No emotions at all actually. You could structure it any way you like. My criteria for a tenant is 1) they must have a job, 2) they must have a good rental history and good references. If they meet those two criteria then I don't care how old they are, what gender they are or what race they are or even if they smoke or don't smoke (as long as it is not in the house). If I had two applications one a white person with a job or a black person without a job then I would pick the white person (provided they had a good rental history). If I had a black person with a job v a white person without a job then I would pick the black person as long as they had a good rental history.
I wouldn't actually have a clue what race my current tenants are apart from the one who was already living in the house when I bought it because I pay a PM to sift through all the applications and by law they are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of race. Whether they do or not is another thing, but never have any of my PM's said the applicant was of a certain race including anglo.
The fact is that any group of people can be bad tenants depending on your past experience with certain groups. Judging people on the smell of their cooking or if they wear shoes or not is a bit ridiculous though - especially considering that in all the horror tenant stories on TV the tenants are always white australians.
our former PM said something that shocked me a little while ago...she said she would never let a house out to Sudanese people...i can't remember what the reasons were but i was a little shocked she was so open about it!
we've rented our homes to alot of asian students in the past because they tend to not wear shoes in the house and also we've never had a problem with arrears.We've also rented to german, indian, iranian and from our experience only, we have found the indians to be the fussiest and complained the most.
but having said that, there are good and bad people in all races so to pre-judge a person because they are of a certain background i would feel to be wrong. certain races have a really bad reputation but i'm sure there's just as many good people in that race...its just the media like to highlight it when something goes wrong.
so we wouldnt judge someone based on their race when renting out a house....their stable income, employment history and references would be the determining factors for us.......
we've rented our homes to alot of asian students in the past because they tend to not wear shoes in the house and also we've never had a problem with arrears.We've also rented to german, indian, iranian and from our experience only, we have found the indians to be the fussiest and complained the most.
but having said that, there are good and bad people in all races so to pre-judge a person because they are of a certain background i would feel to be wrong. certain races have a really bad reputation but i'm sure there's just as many good people in that race...its just the media like to highlight it when something goes wrong.
so we wouldnt judge someone based on their race when renting out a house....their stable income, employment history and references would be the determining factors for us.......
Yes, yes and no. In that order.
The Indigenous Aussie was a great tenant. No problems, paid his rent, kept the place reasonable.
The Islander's, well, I have experienced the house keeping, not from one family, but from a few of them, and (only through experience) will not rent to them at all anymore.
I'm posting this article because it highlights the need to always limit your risks. Would you lease your property to previous housing commission tenants.
http://www.jenman.com.au/news_alert.php?id=95
http://www.jenman.com.au/news_alert.php?id=95
Well after that link probably not! I wonder if under freedom of information laws you could check their history with the department of housing - they should have all sorts of records about the tenant and how they keep the house and treat the neighbours etc.
I wouldn't be renting to them unless I could see their complete rental history for myself.
I wouldn't be renting to them unless I could see their complete rental history for myself.
They would be a come across as a normal applicant who has rented fom Dept of Hosuing, remember they may have rented privately already before coming to you, but rented off dept of Hosuing in the past... Their rental history woudl show they rented from Dept of Housing for xx long and that's it.
Makes you worried. But not eveyone is like that either. If they looked like trouble, I'd go with the gut & want to be more thorough in checking, or decide for no reason not to take them
Makes you worried. But not eveyone is like that either. If they looked like trouble, I'd go with the gut & want to be more thorough in checking, or decide for no reason not to take them
