Home-ownership, race, and household type in the United States

[opebo]

Memphis makes an excellent point here - oftentimes at a given economic level, landlords keep properties up better than homeowners, due to knowledge/skill levels and deeper pockets.  I can verify that all my family members who are landlords (mainly my now deceased father, but several others in the family have a few houses/apartments/small trailer parks here and there) all keep up their properties much better than would be (I think) the automatic assumption regarding slumlords.  Then again, their tenants are working class whites, not blacks.

For someone like my father to oversee a crew of semi-skilled henchmen to slap on a coat of paint or re-do a floor, ceiling, roof, a toilet, what-have-you, was tremendously cheaper than for a working-class home-owner to have professionals do it.  Dad kept those henchmen around pretty much continuously for next to nothing (typically $10-15/hour 20-30 hrs/week), while any professional contractor would cost far, far more per job.

However, it is obvious that upper-middle class homeowners will maintain their homes better than either the landlord or the owners of working class housing.

[opebo]

I'm also curious how you and Torie and opie's families find good tenants. Hardly needs to be said that it makes all the difference in the world. So many people are destructive or unwilling/unable to pay rent on time. People with higher incomes overextend themselves and fall into financial traps just like everybody else. I don't anticipate having the funds to become a landlord. Just nosey.

Haha, the way my family find renters has traditionally been - effortlessly.  As far as I know they never advertised or anything like that.  They only rented through extended networks in the community or simply people who dropped in.  As far as I know my father never even owned a 'for rent' sign. 

Several factors probably helped - 1) he was always enormously cheaper than the 'market rate', 2) he kept everything up much better than average, and 3) he had a curious personal reputation - a rather complex one, but one which was quite attractive to most renters.