The Landlord Lens - Most Landlords Are Making These 13 Mistakes in 2026

Episode Date: April 17, 2026

Most landlords don’t fail overnight, they make small mistakes that quietly eat away at their profits. In this video, we break down the biggest pitfalls property owners are running into right now and how to avoid them before they cost you time, money, and peace of mind. These 13 mistakes could sink your rental business if you’re not paying attention.Whether you’re a new landlord or scaling your portfolio, this is a practical look at what’s actually going wrong in 2026 from screening and leases to pricing and management decisions. If you want to protect your cash flow and run a smoother rental business, this is what to watch out for.

13 ways to sink your rental business in 2026. You can end up with a real nightmare situation that's going to cost you. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Landlord Lens. Today we are going to discuss something that we talk about on pretty much every show, but we're going to make it into a list. 13 ways to sink your rental business in 2026. And why 13, John?

Well, it just felt like a very unlucky number to pick, and we don't want you to sink your business. You certainly don't. So we're going to count backwards starting with number 13. And John, what is juicy number 13? Juicy number 13 is mishandling security deposits. It's actually pretty easy to do with 26 states having very specific limits as to how much of a deposit you can charge. And then returning the deposit itself ranges anywhere from 14 days, which is our friends in Alaska and Arizona, all the way out to 60 days for states like Alabama and Arkansas.

Okay, so you're saying that you're required to get the security. deposit back with an accounting of how much is being deducted within a certain amount of time, and you have limits on how much you can charge for security deposits. Absolutely. And in some states, you actually have to pay interest. Yes, and that's the one that always got me surprised, that you have to put it in a special account. It's got to be separate account. You need to be able to prove that. Yeah. What's number 12?

Not staying on top of your bookkeeping. Ooh, what's bookkeeping even? That's a good question, and it's one that many people with failing rental businesses ask. The reality is, even if you have one unit, it is a business. And so you've got to keep track of your expenses. You can log your mileage and then keep track, obviously, of your revenue, which is rent and make sure that it's coming in on time and you're on top of it. Gotcha.

So keeping on top of your expenses, seeing that's growing or changing over time and revenue, with your rent. So that also would help us then avoid number 11, which is wasting money. Ah, a lot of people probably waste their money without even knowing it. Yes. And some of the ways they do that is using a property manager or using a bad property manager and not negotiating those property management fees, which we see anywhere from 10, all the way up to 14% for single family home, which is incredible. A couple other ways to waste money is not getting multiple bids when it comes to things like your insurance provider, your lender, right, your service providers, the plumber. Make sure you get multiple bids and you're picking the most cost-effective

option going forward. And then the last one, which is going to be really important, I think, in a couple of years and was really important a couple of years ago, was watching those interest rates and refinancing when you have the opportunity. Sweet. Okay. Now let's flip from the bookkeeping and the management of our finances and get into the real world. What is number 10? is being flippant with how you represent yourself to your tenants and not having a strategy. Gotcha. Not having a strategy. That's interesting. So there's no one way to do it, just pick one way and stick with it? Yeah, there's a couple of different ways people attack it. One is they try to, they want to appear very professional, right? And so they'll actually even act like they are a property manager when interacting with their tenants. So you might have the John rental group, right? and really it's just you, but you have your polo, you wear it over there, anytime you're

interacting with the tenant so they know they're dealing with a business. The other side is taking the personal, I would say, extreme kind of customer service approach, which is actually what I do with my rentals. So if I go over there, it's likely I've got one of my kids with me and they're helping me hold the flashlight on maintenance, do a terrible job, but they're at least part of it. And then we also try to be extremely personable with our tenants doing things like holiday cards, making sure that when they move in, there's flowers there. We've even brought over dinner from time to time to reward on-time rent payments. What I guess is important to call out here is being intentional about this strategy,

the main purpose of the strategy in any case is to make sure your tenants pay you on time and are respectful to your property and aren't going to go do a bunch of lease violations. Absolutely. And I think it just, it's a matter of your personality, the kind of property you own and the kind of tenants you have. Cool. That's number 10. What's number nine? Nine is a big one. It could probably have been moved up the list, but it's violating fair housing. Oh, okay. That sounds serious. And everyone knows about the large, egregious elements of violating fair housing, but where people can step in it unknowingly is some really simple ones, like adding in your listing description that a property is family friendly. Wow. Really? Another really simple one is saying no smokers as opposed to no smoking.

Wait, but I don't want anyone smoking in my rental. That's fine and that is perfectly allowed. But you can't categorize someone as a smoker and then say they're not allowed to live in your rental. But you can absolutely tell a tenant they're not allowed to smoke in your rental or on the property. This is also one of the first ones in the list where a loss, this one can generate a meaningful lawsuit that could sink your business all in one go. Yes, absolutely. And it can sink not just that unit. but if you have multiple units, it can impact your entire business.

So super important to not only be up to date on your local fair housing, but also make sure the tools that you use, things like your application, your lease agreement are fair housing compliant. Got it. Okay. What's number eight? Number eight is ignoring those small nagging maintenance issues. The small nagging ones in particular.

Why? Well, because one, they're easy to ignore. In our own primaries, we probably actually have lots of those if we looked around and see them. But there's two big reasons that this is going to cost you. One is they could be creating long-term damage. It's going to be very expensive to fix, right? And two, it can be creating frustration for your tenants, right? And just a little thing that they have to live with that slowly deteriorates the relationship, leading to them being less respectful for the home, as well as less likely to pay you on time and leave on great terms. That makes a lot of sense. So keep on top of

small maintenance issue so they don't balloon into something very costly and also score a bunch of points with your tenants by staying on top of it. A hundred percent. The more proactive you are, the more they're going to appreciate you and the rental is going to feel like a home to them. So speaking of maintenance, this one is one I'm always surprised that I hear landlords don't do very often. And that is condition reports. Could you speak a little bit about that? Yeah. Understanding and having the tenant sign off on the condition of the property when they move in is so, so vital, especially as it relates to move out and secure deposits, right? You want to have proof that you are withholding funds, if you are, due to damage to the property that happened

while the tenant was actually there. It's amazing how many landlords just completely skip this process at move in, and then even we'll skip it at move out. It is also very appropriate. I would heavily suggest that all landlords have their tenant sign those condition reports so that there's kind of proof there in case you ever have to go to small claims court or eviction court. Yep. And if you're in Washington, you're legally required. How wonderful. How wonderful. Okay, what's next up here? We got rent pricing, huh? Yeah, so rent pricing. It's the old finger in the wind trick, right? Or just leaving rent the exact same price it was since your last vacancy. The reality is markets change. There's tools you can utilize to get a rent analysis report or go to your favorite listing site

and just see what people are charging for like units nearby. You may be missing out on money or you may be extending a vacancy because you're charging way too much, which is going to result in a lot of lost rental income while that property says vacant. Yep. And I think in the past, this was really easy to do if you were comfortable with the cash flow at the previous rate, right? Yes. But now the actual changes in the country's rental market seem to be depressing rent in some areas. So if you don't revisit your rent pricing and strategize around it, you could be sitting on a vacant unit for 45, 60 days. Absolutely. And a lot of landlords built some really strong muscles around raise rent, raise rent, raise rent, right, over the last

five-ish years. And that's flattened in most places. Or like you said, it's even dropped. And so you have to recognize that. Okay. Number five, bad leasing. This one will we see a lot, huh? Yeah, I love this. You know, the old generic copy paste lease, the one pager, right? Want to keep... For my realtor 10 years ago. Yeah, I want to keep things nice and simple and readable, right? Readability is important, but also having an updated lease with the correct laws and then understanding them enough to enforce that lease agreement is super important. That is the contract between you and the tenant that should govern the relationship from both sides, right? It should be something that they can utilize to make sure that you're fulfilling your end of the bargain and something you should, as a landlord,

utilize to ensure that they're living up to their responsibilities. When I rented from a mom and pop landlord in my early 20s, they lost their copy of the lease. They didn't tell me until the end, but I didn't realize that they had no way of knowing what the actual agreement was between us. I had my signed copy in my unit, and they lost theirs. They didn't tell me until the end. Yeah. No, I beg our audience out there. Use a digital copy. Get it E-signed. Make sure that your tenant has the copy. And please make sure you retain the copy for your own records. Absolutely. So a shared document governing the relationship, but the relationship itself. So what's number four? Four is poor communication. Poor communication. That can mean a lot of things.

Well, in this contact, it's failing to set expectations and communicating through them, especially as it relates to those elements of being a landlord that may have some additional friction. So making repairs, for example, communicate the timeline very clearly to the tenant. Make sure you live up to that timeline. If there are any changes, be really proactive on that communication. So they know exactly where they stand on getting those repairs made. I would suggest the exact same thing with due dates around the, condition report that you want them to fill out and sign, right, around the move-out process

and your expectations for them in their move-out as well as the timeline around the secure deposit. Okay, awesome. So we've got clear communication, but it's also persistent communication, isn't it? Yes, and the reality of being a landlord is you might go four to six months without ever talking to your tenant because there's no problem. Everything's working really well. I always suggest that landlords check in with their tenant at the time of the tenant paying rent. We do that automatically within turbo tenant, just to make sure things are going well, that the tenant's not sitting on any lingering maintenance issues

that they've not told you about. Gotcha. Okay. So that makes a lot of sense of all these different ways you can do poor communication and alienate the tenant or lose opportunities to be a good landlord and good business owner. Absolutely. And John, as we go into the top three.

Yeah. Ooh, top three. Can you get us going here? Okay. So number three, and this is when we harp on a lot, It is the core problem in a bad rental business, and that is bad tenants. Placing bad tenants is one of the worst things you can do for your rental business. Because it's really the relationship you have with your tenant is the thing.

That is the thing that determines the success of your unit over some period of time where that tenant's in there. You pick a bad one, and it's really hard to do anything right. Absolutely. And in some states, it's really hard to get them out. Yeah, right? And we've done a lot of videos around the eviction process to highlight that. But reasons people move in a bad tenant, failing to do proper screening, right, criminal credit eviction, failing to do landlord reference calls, right? Picking your cousin's cousin's cousin and just saying, sure, Benny, move on in and riding on that relationship or the social pressure you think is in place, right?

not being very clear with them as to any stipulations that may be abnormal inside the lease agreement before they sign it, right? If they're going to be responsible for lawn care, make sure they know that, right? Make sure you're calling those things out. And so due to that and people trying to take shortcuts to fill that vacancy fast, you can end up with a real nightmare situation that's going to cost you. So not only do you not want to skimp in terms of the time it might take to screen a tenant, but you also don't want to, you know, if there are opportunities to screen them deeper

than the standard way, you should do it, even if it costs some money. Yeah, being thorough is super important. And there's tools out there that are going to allow you to actually check the documents uploaded for fraud, right? Is that actually a W-2? And verify that income, which is super, super important because their ability to pay is essential. Absolutely, yeah. And we should note fraud is on the rise on the documents people are using to prove their

income and prove their ID and things like that. Thanks AI. Thanks AI. Yeah. And there's headlines about Atlanta in particular. There's just brutal fraud there. And income verification is becoming more and more important. We can't just trust that a tenant says they work at, you know, they're a remote worker

from Google. Yeah. And there can be verification on the documents and the upload, but there can also be verification in just calling their employer. Cool. Okay. So that's number three. Hard to imagine what's bigger than that.

What's number two? Is there anything more important? Well, looking at number two, it turns out it's moving in a bad tenant. Oh, wow. Wait. So there's a number one that's different? Yeah, number one is also moving in a bad tenant. Don't move in bad tenants.

It makes everything easier if you have a good one. Moving in a bad tenant can really screw your business for the rest of that year. Yeah, absolutely. And for those of you out there that have a single unit, it screws your business entirely, right? Because you're not bringing in, you're not bringing cash. So those are the top 13 ways we identified of how you might sink your rental business in 2026. Did we miss anything? Leave a comment.

We're happy to respond to them. I'm definitely curious to see what you guys think would ruin your business. As always, please like and subscribe. TurboTenant is the all-in-one platform for landlords to manage their rental properties. From vacancy to tenancy, we have you covered with industry-leading tools and expert advice. landlord better from anywhere for free at turbotenant.com.