Starting out with a rental - Advice and critique on the property needed.

[Isla Arshad]

Hi friends!
I just got my first property and put it out for rent. I have 3 people contact me so far but no serious leads. The property is fairly new and well-kept and I am planning to not allow pets (I miss out on a lot of people but the property is also newer/is carpeted).

I was curious about the credit score requirements. Is anything less than 600 risky? Also, is it true that most tenants look out for properties in the summer because that is when their lease expires (more on average)?

Also, in your experience, is paying premium to Zillow or some other service worth it?

Here is the link to my Zillow post:

https://www.zillow.com/homes/3...

Do take a look and if you like to critique, you are most welcome!

[Cory J Thornton]

@Isla Arshad - 

Pets are a risk, but when there are more dogs living in houses than children under the age of 18, you will be isolating yourself from a large pool of potential renters if you say no to pets. 

Here are few ways to manage risk, should you consider allowing pets: 

- Take and hold an additional pet deposit 

- Do a pet screening as a part of the application 

- Make sure your lease has terms in it that talk about pet damage and a tenant's responsibility if that damage exceeds the deposit. 

- Increase the number of inspections you during the year 

- Charge a monthly pet rent to offset any added costs of managing a property with a pet 

- Use a pet addendum in your lease to ensure that only the pet you approved ever sets paw in your home 

- Require your renter to have renters insurance that covers both damage by pets and attacks by pets 

Overall the listing looked good. It looks like you have a great apartment in a nice area. Turbo Tenant has a free version of their listing tool. If you plan to self manage I would use that tool. You create the listing in Turbo Tenant and it pushes it out to dozens of sites getting you much more exposure than you do on Zillow ... Turbo Tenant doesn't charge you if you lease the property. Zillow is a good platform. There is nothing wrong with continuing to use it, but I would put some other horses in the race. 

Make sure you are evaluating much more than just the credit score for a tenant. 

- Get employment references and call them 

- verify income 

- Set a ration you refuse to compromise of income to rent (typical is 3 to 1). 

- Get landlord references and call them 

- do a criminal background check 

- run reports on eviction history 

- ....then look at the credit score. If someone checks all the other boxes on the list, and they have a credit score below 600, then I will look at the reasons why their score is low, and sometimes go below my credit score standard. If someone has a low credit score and didn't check every box perfectly, then I will not approve the application. The main thing I look for is why the score is low. Student loan debt and medical debt is different than financing an entire house full of furniture then never paying for it. 

Best of luck leasing your rental. If there is anything I can do to help, just give me a shout.