Everyone assumes that when you have rental property you’re making money. That hasn’t exactly been my overall experience, but I accept that it’s the general perception of how things work. Most of the time, the cash flow from the condo in St. Mary’s offsets the giant sucking sound that is the negative cash flow coming out of Memphis. Between the two, I come fairly close to breaking even more months than I don’t. Of course then we have the occasional singularity in which both the condo and the house are sitting vacant at the same time.

That moment you realize it’s about to happen is probably one of the few times in life you’re ever going to seriously consider becoming an arsonist as a valid career option. When you go from happily paying rent and breaking even on everything else to sucking wind on rent plus two mortgages, let’s just say that all the fantastic financial management lessons you’ve learned from Suze Ormond or Dave Ramsey go right the hell out the window. The only thing that matters at that point is how fast you can bring cash in the front door and how fast you can shovel it out the back. It’s not so much a case of planning as it is an exercise in crisis management and triage.

Fortunately, the two leases almost never expire at the same time, but when they do you’d better believe that you’re about to get a serious lesson in why landlording ain’t for wimps.