Posted on May 15, 2022

A Lesson in Real Estate

Anonymous American, American Renaissance, May 15, 2022

This story is one of hundreds Colin Flaherty planned to publish in a book before his death. American Renaissance will post one a week.

In the mid-2000s, my wife and I made the worst financial investment of our lives: We bought a cheap quadplex in Baton Rouge, hoping to supplement our income by renting out the rooms. Shortly after we bought it, we learned that the city fire department wouldn’t go into that part of the city without a police escort.

Several times we had prospective tenants agree to rent units then back out of their contract when they actually went to the neighborhood for the first time. One tenant went to prison for murder the day he was supposed to move in, and told his “brothas” they could move in, instead. They never paid rent, illegally hooked up the electricity, and tried to steal an air conditioner from another unit. We had the Sheriff come out to evict them. Another tenant would park her car on the lawn and let her teenage son run amuck, breaking into other units to spray graffiti on the walls and smashing up the mailboxes.

Our first property manager was a very slow talking black guy. He would leave paint and supplies in the units and every time they would disappear. Our second property manager was a black woman who claimed she needed an armed escort to visit the area. We ended up selling the property for dirt cheap back to the guy who sold it to us. Apparently this happened a few times so the FBI contacted us to make sure we weren’t in on the scam. We lost about $80,000.