I’m a landlord, although I never intended to be one.

Given the slowdown in the housing market, my guess is that more of you may soon become reluctant landlords, too. Let me share my hard-won wisdom on this subject.

If you’re not a handy person, avoid becoming a landlord. If you can’t, try to find a handy tenant. Otherwise, anytime the phone rings in the middle of the night, you’ll cringe in anticipation of some repair and, if that’s the case, have to find and pay someone to make things right.

In worst-case scenarios, you'll be on a first-name basis with people at Home Depot (HD) and Sears (SHLD).

If you’re the handy type, but have a tendency toward sentiment or a bleeding heart, try anything you can to steer clear of having tenants. Avoid renting to friends in case something goes wrong. And under no circumstances should you ever rent to one of your spouse’s drinking buddies - no matter how good a job they hold.

My first stint as an accidental landlord came back in 1993, when the real estate market looked like it does now. A steady decline from a peak in 1987 made it the right time for my then-husband and I to move up, but impossible to sell the 600-square-foot condo we were leaving without taking a major bath.

Luck for us, the first tenant was perfect (she was clean, left me alone and paid her rent like clockwork.) She came with a handy boyfriend who fixed all the little things that had arisen during the six years we’d lived there - leaving the place far better than the state she’d found it in.

Next came the drinking buddy with the good job. I’ll always remember tracking him down while I was eight months pregnant and explaining -- loudly -- that I really didn’t need the stress of him being perpetually late with the rent.

As soon as the market rebounded, we sold the place, recovering our costs and a little more. I was thrilled to be out of the landlording business.

Then what is it they say about insanity? Repeating the same behavior and expecting a different result?

The condo directly above ours became available right when I had some dot-com boom cash to invest and a desire to expand upward to accommodate our then family of three. By the time the closing papers were signed, it became clear to me that my marriage might be closing soon, too. So that turned into rental unit number 2 - and I own it to this day. No hope of unloading it anytime soon.

I’ve had to find tenants 6 times over the past 15 years and have it down to a science.

Pay attention to your gut instinct on someone, but treat the entire process like a job interview. Collect all information on a form in writing: former landlord information, job references, friend references and a signature and Social Security number allowing you to run a formal credit check with Experian. For good measure, do an Intelius.com background check.

I usually advertise (now on Craigslist) and hold one official open house day to meet a range of people in case someone doesn’t check out or changes their mind. In lieu of the tenant having to pay any fee, I collect two months’ security and keep it in an interest-bearing account.

I point out everything wrong with the place and don’t gouge on the rent itself, but do make sure to cover all predictable costs. Don’t forget to budget for repairs. When someone lives in the same building, the chemistry factor is also more important. So is safety, particularly if you’re a parent.

Call every reference and don’t make a decision until you’ve connected. Verify employment and salary. Get a feel for the personality of the applicant. Listen to what people may be leaving out between. See if there’s a Facebook page.

When you’ve made your pick, always use a written lease and spell out anything that could be misconstrued. Just in case, take pictures of the place while it’s still empty (I’ve never had to use them).

Get landlord insurance to make sure you’re covered for any mishap your tenant experiences, as well as for covering the rent if some disaster forces the place to lay vacant.

Remember to take the depreciation deduction; if you don’t and the IRS figures out you had been renting a property, they’ll assume you took it.

If you’ve got a good tenant, bend over backwards to keep them. Try to get them to buy the place from you.

Never forget that it’s business.

Do you have any wisdom to impart or horror stories to tell about being a landlord? Weigh in on The Exchange.