Absentee landlord
Pros
The location and neighborhood are great. If you're young and don't mind fixing things yourself, then you can remake the place to your liking, especially if you live on the first floor with its access to the backyard.
Cons
The landlord lives in New Jersey and does not keep this property up. It was cheap when I lived there just after college, but the landlord was always trying to get more money out of us. The landlord's inability to effectively find new tenants gave us leverage to resist some rent increases, but it still wasn't great having to ask to not pay more for a place that's only worth living in if it's very cheap. Every time you asked for something serious to be repaired, you knew it would come back to you next time the rent was to be discussed. The place was simply in terrible shape. Some of the apartments are better than others, depending on how handy the previous tenants were. As for the property on the whole: there were certain steps in the stairway that you learned not to step on. We could store stuff like bikes in the basement, but, given the way the house worked, that meant the basement became a bit of nightmare with so much accumulated junk that archeologists could likely date layers of it by decade.
Advice to the owners
Maintain the property! If you treat your building poorly, you'll get tenants that don't care and will move out at the first opportunity.
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