Potential Tenant wants to book in advance

[Joseph Nguyen]

Hello!

I'm new to the real estate scene and was wondering how to handle potential tenants who want to book months in advance? What's a reasonable timeframe? Do I just ask for 1 month deposit? I currently have a SFH where I aim to rent the rooms out for mid-term rentals (only have 1 so far in the 3 available listings). Thinking about switching to LTR if I'm unable to get additional people in there before the current tenant's lease ends in 3/10/24.

But anyways, I have another potential person looking to lease May 18 - Aug 3, but that's 4 months away. Was wondering if anybody has dealth with this and how to handle? I'm in Texas. TIA

[James Carlson]

@Joseph Nguyen

We have medium-term rentals in Denver and Colorado Springs. With our personal properties -- and what we recommend to our MTR investor clients in Colorado -- we only book sequentially. So if your next opening is March 1, then I'd only book starting then (or right around then). Doing so -- even if you have to drop your prices to do so -- will most likely reduce your vacancy. 

Right now, you can take anyone starting around March 1, however long they want to stay. But if you take that May 18 request, now you're locked in to finding someone who wants to start around March 1 and stay for two and a half months. Anyone else won't fit, so you've just reduced your potential tenant pool by a lot. 

Just my take. Good luck!