Their tenant stopped paying rent for 10 months. Here's what being a landlord in Ontario actually costs

Earlier this year I helped clients sell a bungalow in Scarborough. It was their investment property. The plan was the one everybody has. Tenant pays the mortgage, the place goes up in value, one day you cash out.

Here's how it actually went.

The tenant stopped paying. My clients filed with the Landlord and Tenant Board and then waited. And waited. By the time they got the property back, they'd gone about ten months without a rent cheque.

The mortgage, taxes, and insurance kept coming out of their account every single month. That's the part nobody puts in the brochure. The income is optional. The costs are not.

Once it was empty, they cleaned it up and we decided not to renovate. Reno money rarely comes back at the price you hope, and the next owner usually wants to do their own thing anyway. We listed just below market.

Three weeks of steady showings. No offers.

My clients were done. Ten months of carrying a property with no rent had drained them, financially and emotionally. So we cut the price hard, bumped up the commission for the buyer's agent, and within days the offers came.

They got out. But they got out tired, and they left money on the table because they didn't have it in them to wait anymore. I didn't blame them one bit.

And before you think this was just one bad tenant, a colleague of mine rents out a one plus one condo for twenty three hundred a month. His tenant is a dentist. The dentist stopped paying too.

You can't screen your way out of this. Anyone can stop paying, and the process after that is the same slow process for everyone.

Three things I'd want you to take from this

1. There's nothing passive about this income. Repairs, vacancies, and the real chance the rent just stops. If your plan only works when every month goes right, it's not a plan.

2. Know the worst case before you buy, not after. Ask yourself if you could carry the full cost of the property for ten months with nothing coming in. If that breaks you, it was never as safe as it looked.

3. The exit is part of the investment. A lot of landlords end up selling after a bad tenancy, which means selling worn out and motivated, in whatever shape the tenant left it. Worst position, worst timing.

I'm not saying nobody should own a rental. I'm saying the version where the tenant quietly pays your mortgage while you sleep is the best case, not the normal case. My clients are okay now, and they're relieved. But relieved isn't what anyone pictures when they buy an investment property.