As we all know, the landlord is someone who rents real estate to a tenant. This role is very flexible in the way you manage it and it comes with many different responsibilities, again, depending on how one decides to manage the responsibility of a landlord. Some landlords may maintain the property a lot better than others while others completely neglect it.

The landlords who maintain their properties in good shape choose to take on that extra responsibility towards their role, while others decide not to. This is just one example of how the role of being a landlord can be very flexible. Other landlords may decide to delegate the responsibility to a property manager.

So we know what a landlord is and how differently they can manage but not much is discussed about how the landlord’s age influences the way they manage the role and what challenges, if any, are directly related to their age. A young landlord in their late teens or early twenties may face these fears.

Entering and committing to a foreign set of responsibilities because you don’t know what those consequences look like and how they will impact you

Becoming a landlord is like enlisting in the army. When you sign up you agree to take on certain responsibilities and its almost always long term, unless you sell your properties or delegate. You’re not sure what you are getting yourself into really because you have never done it, but you have heard or seen stories so you have a basic idea of what it’s like to be in the army and what to expect. You will wake up early, you will train, you will follow orders, you will march, etc.

During your last days before actually becoming a soldier, you will fear the mental transition occurring. The closer you get, the worse it gets. This is very typical because we know that with great responsibility comes risk with potential consequences.

The fact that we don’t know what those consequences look like and how they will impact us brings about fear naturally. When you decide to become a landlord for the first time, you agree to take on certain responsibilities and again, its almost always long term much like the soldier. Although this point is not really impacted by the age as much as it basically applies to anyone just starting out as a landlord. Regardless of age, it’s always going to occur for the young investor and knowing what fears to expect is a huge advantage.

Getting ripped off doing business with other people & not being taken seriously

As a landlord, you will typically interact with several types of new people you are not used to and know how to best deal with, such as your tenants, contractors, lawyers, etc. As a young landlord, one typical fear is thinking that other people are going to rip you off for the services you need from them because you look new to the scene and probably don’t know what you’re doing.

We have all heard stories of people taking advantage of others new to the business so that fear can definitely exist. Like the attractive woman who walks into a mechanic shop describing her car problems and the mechanic sees an opportunity to take advantage and make more money by overcharging her because he believes she won’t know any better to question or dispute the proposed charge of repairs.

This is just one mild example. Knowing who and creating a team is your number one fear solver for this point. However, it is an inevitable fear as you will run into this while you are just starting to build your team and as you continue to do business with other people.

Non-compliant tenants

If you decide to manage the property yourself then you may find yourself dealing with this also very common fear mostly affecting the younger landlord. This fear typically impacts the younger investor more than anyone else. The chances of the tenant being older than you are high and the age difference can cause turbulence to the landlord/tenant relationship which is the relationship that determines the comfortability of your investment.

Let’s face it, by nature no one likes to follow rules from someone who is younger than them, especially if they look like someone who doesn’t know what they are doing or who they are dealing with. The tenant may feel privileged to have more slack to the rules than what you can tolerate and when you take actions to address the slack the tenant may not react well to the fact that they have to follow the rules of someone younger than them.

The bigger the age defense gap is, the more sensitive it becomes. One way to combat this fear is to never present yourself as the landlord to the tenant, rather present yourself as the “property manager”. Keeping the landlord role and your own identity separate is your number one fear solver for this point because the tenant is automatically more compliant knowing that your job depends on it and you have no interest in the property outside of managing it and getting paid.

Regardless of which fear is being experienced the most by the younger investor playing the landlord role, the key is to understand and accept the fears and even welcome them. You can think of fears as a method of determining that you are taking action for the first time and making things happen. As they say, fear makes you stronger so embrace it.