Security System for Tenant

[Mike B.]

I have a tenant for my first rental property. We are still screening her, but it should be fine and I expect to have the lease signed soon.  

During the showing, my future tenant asked to have a security system installed before they move in. She wants a system with a video doorbell. I didn't realize the cost when I offered to pay for the equipment and installation. The tenant will just pay the monitoring fee. 

This is my only rental property. Should I just sign a 3-year contract for a security system and then add the cost into our rent? Or just buy equipment outright and then let the tenant pay for monitoring herself? What do most landlords do in this situation?  
 

[JD Martin]

Originally posted by @Mike B.:

@JD Martin

She turned in her application and there are so many red flags. Now I see why people use realtors to find tenants.

My rent is $1850/month - Which is slightly below market value in my area of Austin. The applicant earns $40,000/year and has lived here for her whole life. She doesn’t meet the income requirements for the house alone. Her “domestic partner” earns $40,000/year. The issue is her domestic partner is relocating from a different state where she has also lived most of her life. On the application she lists her relationship status as single, but put the other woman down as her “partner” and the kids down as her children. I don’t buy it and I think she just found a roommate online.

The primarily applicant has been living with family for the last three years and her previous rental reference lives outside the country with availability only via email. The domestic partner also doesn’t have any rental history because she is a homeowner in the state where she resides.

They both state on the application they have bad credit with at least one of her scores below my requirement of 600.

There are rentals available in nearby neighborhoods that are starting around $1600, so I almost feel like rejecting them helping her financially and i would be doing them both a favor.

Newsflash: using a realtor is no panacea. If you can't verify the income/identity of both people who are signing the lease, then it's pretty easy as she doesn't meet the income threshold (assuming you have one; most people - including me - use income must be 3X rent monthly). If you can verify it, your credit score criteria is up to you. Credit scores below 600 are more common than you think; you need to look at the composition of her credit. I look for things like: how much payments do they currently have; what have they been late on; what's in default/deferment; what is in collections; etc. A lot of people won't look too bad except for medical bills in collections. That's very common in the US so I usually ignore those if everything else is good. If they are loaded to the gills with payments or have charge-offs or collections on dumb stuff like clothing accounts and cell phones I take that more seriously, as someone who is unwilling to pay a few hundred dollar bill and let it go to collections is going to be a bigger risk of not paying their rent (in my opinion AND experience).