Through clever property investing Eric Wu has transformed his initial deposit into nine properties.
It was when he discovered his landlady had been going through his bins that renter Steve Williams started thinking he might have made a mistake moving into an apartment block owned by the couple in the penthouse.
She’d presented him with a bag of prawn shells he’d put in the wheelie bin outside and told him he should be leaving them in the freezer instead until the bin men actually arrived. And, by the way, he’d left the window open the day before when it might well have rained…
“The difficulty is that it was a retired couple and the four apartments below them in the block were their super investment,” says Williams, 54, who runs his own Occupational Health and Safety consultancy.
Steve Williams lived in the same block of flats as his landlord. It was a big mistake. Photo: Supplied
“So they were terribly protective of them, and watched everything going on in everyone’s apartments – who was going in and out, everything. When I’d moved in there were notices left everywhere, like saying not to hang tea towels over the oven door handle as that would be a fire risk. It felt more like a hotel than my home.”
The difficulties when a landlord and their tenant live in the same building can be huge. Sometimes it can work out, particularly when the owner is helpful and keen to build a healthy relationship while preserving boundaries; but often it can be disastrous.
“A lessee is paying to use the property and they have the right to the peaceful enjoyment of that home, and that’s what the owners are getting the rent for,” says Adriana Dendrinos, the licensee of Richardson &Wrench Marrickville Hurlstone Park. “They have to remember that.
“Most people, tenants and landlords, do the right thing and want to have a good relationship, but often it’s all just too hard.”
For Williams, who rented on the eastern beaches, it certainly was. The final straw came when the owner let herself into one of his neighbours’ apartments to close a window because the weather forecast had predicted a storm. “When challenged, she justified it by saying she was protecting her investment,” he says.
“On the plus side, I had a great relationship with the other tenants, and we built up a real camaraderie in the face of adversity. But within six months of that incident, we’d all left.” He now owns his own house.
Samantha Dunn, senior property manager at LJ Hooker Inner City, says such situations always have the potential to turn out badly but sometimes, just sometimes, it can work.
“It’s important to have clear boundaries at all times, and everything should go through a property manager,” she says. “That way, there’s no chance of any miscommunication, and it can never become a ‘he said/ she said’ argument later.”
From the other side of the equation, Anna Washington, 47, bought the apartment next door to her so she’d have a say in who her neighbours would be. The couple who ended up renting it were delightful, but she always kept them at arm’s length.
“I was so keen for them not to know that I owned the apartment, that I went out of my way to avoid them,” she says. “They always dealt with the real estate agent and, although they invited me into their place a couple of times, I always made excuses.”
One time, however, they asked Washington, a travel agent, how her dishwasher was going. Theirs, it seemed, had been faulty for two months but the agent hadn’t done anything about it. She immediately called the agent and made sure a new dishwasher was installed.
“But when they were finally moving out after a couple of years, into their own house, we had a drink together and, to my horror, it turned out they knew all along I was the owner. All that effort had been pointless. We’re now good friends and laugh about it, but what a shame we weren’t such good friends when they lived next door.”
The golden rule for any landlord in a building where they own an apartment is for them to know their limits, recommends Dendrinos.
“It’s always important to have an agent managing the property who can act as an intermediary,” she says. “A landlord and tenant might get on well but then the landlord would like to ask for a rent increase, but it becomes difficult because of their relationship, or a tenant wants something done.
“It’s always better to have an agent there to talk about the rent, or so there’s a paper trail kept for any requests.”
Andrea Harrington, 26, an economics student, once rented in Manly in a building where the landlord of her ground floor apartment lived next door. After notes pushed into her letterbox about her hanging out her washing on the communal lines on the wrong day (different days were allocated for different apartments) and about having a friend stay overnight, she quit.
“One day, after I’d given my notice, I came home early from work to see my neighbour with her nose pressed against my window,” she says. “That was so creepy. I think they were just checking the unit, but no one can live like that.”
Dendrinos says sharing a block tends to be more problematic if the landlord has an emotional attachment to the property and wants to keep too close an eye on it. Similarly, she’s known tenants who have taken advantage of a landlord who kept calling around to do maintenance and repairs, making more and more demands.
“Of course, tenants shouldn’t damage the property but they’re entitled to their space and privacy,” she says. “Living in the same building can be problematic, but a good relationship can be beneficial to both.”