Occasionally, I use the Twitter search tool to look for threads that mention Landlord.  It has been very interesting to see that most of the comments are from tenants and that they are often negative and disrespectful.  Here are some recent examples:

"Apparently anyone can be a landlord thus having stupid landlords is no surprise."

"let's lynch the landlord"

"My landlord is so dumb. Let's unplug the internet because of thunder."

"Just so everyone is aware, my landlord loves to make my life difficult. Kinda want to throw a temper tantrum a la a 2 year old right now."

I also watch Twitter threads mentioning Property Manager.  It is a lot more difficult to find tenants or owners who "tweet" about their property manager or property management company.  Most of the property manager tweets are about job postings.  However, I found a few.  They seem to be less personal and are more neutral in tone. 

"Property manager at my apartment complex told me not to be so gruff when I come to his office. Well, at least it got his attention."

"So I met my property manager "mike" and he's the coolest dude ever.....yep"

"on my way to meet with the property manager to get my new apt signed!"

"so glad i hired a property manager to handle repairs for my rental property. I definitely don't have the time or patience."

"locked myself out of my apartment. had to call property manager on my neighbor's phone."

 I am a curious and fairly analytical person and so I asked myself why the tone of the "tweets" are more personally disparaging when a tenant is talking about a Landlord vs. a Property Manager. My conclusion (which is completely unscientific) is as follows.

- A Landlord is a person who owns and manages their own rental property.  A tenant may have less respect for a landlord because of this.  The tenant sees a landlord's actions as more personal.  Landlords may also be less systematic in their approaches to managing a rental property and less process oriented.

- A Property Manager is part of a company that manages rental properties.  Tenants appear to understand that there are policies and procedures when dealing with a company.  Although they may not like the processes  tenants seem to see them as "company" dictated, not personal.

I am a landlord, and we consider our rental property a business.  I am wondering how individual landlords can better maintain a "company" image with tenants.

Let's Talk.  Do you agree with these observations?  How do you maintain a more business vs. personal relationship with your tenants?