Anyone who has looked seriously at buying a rental property has built the spreadsheet. Purchase price in one column, expected rent in the next, then the lines that knock the shine off: insurance, property tax, repairs, the months it will sit empty, the agent’s cut. At the bottom sits a single figure, and it is tempting to let that figure make the decision.
The figure matters. A property that loses money year after year is not good stewardship, however noble the intentions. But a house or a block of flats is never only an asset. People sleep in it. Workers build and repair it. Neighbours live beside it. And the owner’s own household carries the weight of it, in time, worry and conversation at the dinner table. None of that shows up in the bottom cell, and much of it is where faith has something to say.
Underneath it all is an old reminder. When God gave Israel instructions about land, He said: “The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with Me” (Leviticus 25:23). Whatever the title says, the believer holds property on loan. That changes the questions worth asking.
1. The people who will live there
A spreadsheet treats tenants as a rent figure and a vacancy rate. In real life they are a nurse coming off a night shift, a couple with a new baby, an elderly man whose children are abroad. The way you set the rent, answer a call about a leaking pipe, or handle a late payment will shape their year more than almost anything else you do.
Consider two landlords with identical flats on the same road. One screens carefully, charges a fair market rent, fixes things within days and gives notice before visiting. The other squeezes every dollar and leaves the burglar bars rusting. Over five years the first will usually keep tenants longer, spend less on turnover and sleep better. The second may post a higher return in a good year and a far worse one when the flat stands empty and damaged. Fairness is not only right; it is often wise.
2. The workers who build and repair it
Every property investment depends on masons, plumbers, electricians, painters and cleaners. The prophet Jeremiah warned against the man who builds his house by unrighteousness and makes his neighbour work without paying him (Jeremiah 22:13). It is a sharp word for anyone who delays a tradesman’s money to protect cash flow, or who haggles a small contractor below the cost of doing the job properly.
Pay on the day agreed. Put the scope of work in writing so nobody is cheated by a misunderstanding. If a job costs more because you changed your mind, own the cost. A reputation as someone who pays properly is worth more than any single discount, and good workers remember.
3. The street around it
Investors talk about “up-and-coming areas”. The people already living there rarely use that phrase. When outside money arrives, rents can rise faster than local wages and long-standing families can find themselves priced out of the district where they grew up.
No single owner controls a housing market, and buying in a changing neighbourhood is not wrong in itself. But it is worth asking what kind of presence you will be. Will you maintain the property so it lifts the road, or leave it half-tended because you never visit? Will you keep some units within reach of local workers? Will you know the neighbours’ names? Small choices, repeated, decide whether an investor is a blessing to a community or simply extracting from it.
4. Your own household
Consider a couple who buy a second house to rent out, stretching to do it. On paper the numbers work. In practice the husband spends most Saturdays there chasing repairs, the wife fields tenant messages during church, and a single bad month means dipping into the children’s school fund. The investment is profitable, and it is quietly eating the family.
Before you buy, count the hours as honestly as the dollars. Ask whether your marriage agrees, not merely tolerates. Ask what happens if you lose your job while the loan is still running. Proverbs commends the diligent planner and warns against haste (Proverbs 21:5), and part of diligent planning is refusing to borrow so heavily that a single setback puts your own roof at risk.
5. What the money is for
Finally, there is the question the spreadsheet never asks: why? Security in old age, an inheritance for your children, the freedom to give more generously, a house for a family member who needs one. These are good aims. So is simply providing for your household.
The danger is when the aim drifts into accumulation for its own sake: one property, then two, then five, each one justified by the last, with no point at which enough is enough. Paul warned Timothy that those who desire to be rich fall into many snares (1 Timothy 6:9). Writing down, before you start, what you are investing for and what “enough” would look like gives you something to measure against when the next deal comes along.
A fuller kind of return
None of this means abandoning the numbers. Get proper advice. Check the title, the condition of the building, the true running costs and the tax position before you commit. A property investment built on wishful arithmetic helps nobody.
But run a second column alongside the first. Next to projected rent, write how you intend to treat the tenant. Next to repairs, write how you will treat the workers. Next to capital growth, write what you hope the street will be like in ten years. Next to your profit, write what it is for. An investor who keeps both columns honest may still make money. More importantly, they will have handled what was never theirs to begin with in a way the true Owner would recognise.
This article is general information only and is not financial, legal, tax or other professional advice. Please speak to a qualified professional about your own circumstances.
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