I just filled a vacancy with a (hopefully) good renter. It has been 4 years since I had a vacancy. Before posting my ad on CL, I spent an hour looking at ads in my area to see what is renting and for how much and the current tenant pool in my area.

I spent a few minutes looking at the ad for "rooms wanted". I was floored and shocked to see multiple ads from young millennials that were request to rent sofas to sleep on for little to no charge in exchange for cleaning and other duties that millennials seldom do. Again, they were asking to rent sofas in homes to sleep on, not rooms or apartments. One ad had a picture of a millennial requesting a sofa. He called himself a "sofa surfer" and looked totally useless as a productive human in society. Times have changed over the last 10-15 years and not for the better.

John

They just got through filming about a months worth of walking dead episodes across the street from one of my properties. You think sofa surfer is bad... you ain’t seen nothing yet! It will get worse. Before it gets better.

Well one thing for sure, these kids have absolutely NO goals in life and no future. They are going nowhere quick. As socialism is quickly evolving (Sanders and AOC) are we going to have to rent to these parasites of society if the system changes? I will burn down my house or sell first!

JohnnyC

Ha! Just scanning again CL. Amazing. Aside from sofa renters I am seeing adds like the one below. Imagine someone wanting to rent a ROOM for a woman, her boyfriend, a newborn and 2 dogs. Just crazy. It is actually comical. How do people get so low in society. A ROOM for a family and two dogs.

---------------------------------

Room Wanted

Looking for a room rental for 2 quiet dogs (under 50lbs) my boyfriend and newborn baby.

The rental would be short term until we can save money for a bigger place. My boyfriend works full time, and we would both be gone majority of the day. Just looking for an opportunity to save money and have a roof over our heads.

Sadly our younger society has more feelings for animals than family, and work ethic has been reduced to mere fractions of what happened when I was working during high school to save for college.

John, you are right of course. After a generation of mollycoddling the youth (everyone in our colleges and schools) they come out as young adults with no direction and no purpose. Work is for the ignorant and enslaved. Why would they do it? There is too much free stuff that is owed to them to ever expect them to have to earn their own way. They would rather make a "statement" by protesting everything about our society and what has made it great in the past so that we can make sure we never have it in the future.

This is simply not true. The young people that I work with are motivated, smart and goal oriented.

Increase your sample size.

You guys might as well be yelling "Get off my lawn."

JB,

Teachers Union is responsible for the USA downfall

now we have :

Microaggression and other new words of wisdom

social justice warriors

College scholarships for GAMING

Facebook does not create a single widget yet is valued in Billions

socialism worshiped

Thank God I am old enough to not care as much as I won't be around to see the squalor

The people I interview for my rentals are often as you describe. The people I end up renting to are not.

I think there are two ways to avoid this downward cycle for landlords - upgrade your existing properties to attract better tenants or purchase properties that attract better clientele.

I'm with Hubbahubba on this one. I have nicer units (one and two bedroom multis) that have higher rents for my area (suburban Pittsburgh). Nearly all of my tenants and most of my prospects are in the 25 - 35 age group, gainfully employed and are on a path to a fruitful and productive lives.

"ask the next kid you see what 12x11 is and you will see a blank stare"

I had a prospect show up (un-invited) at an open house I was having for one of my rentals...and I asked how soon they would want to move in should they be approved. She said "right away, we're living in my car currently".

My properties are B class...so doubtful she would meet the requirements. She didn't even turn in the application I gave her.