Tenant offering to pay 12 months upfront

[Nathan Darcy]

Have any of you ever had a tenant offer to pay you 12 months upfront? It sounds like the potential tenant is selling their house. They are also self employed but showed low income (technically does not meet our monthly income requirements). Thoughts? Pros/cons?

Thanks in advance

[JD Martin]

Quote from @Nathan Darcy:

Have any of you ever had a tenant offer to pay you 12 months upfront? It sounds like the potential tenant is selling their house. They are also self employed but showed low income (technically does not meet our monthly income requirements). Thoughts? Pros/cons?

Thanks in advance

 Yes I have. I wouldn't rent to anyone that didn't meet all criteria, regardless of how much they wanted to pay upfront.

[Theresa Harris]

A number of people have asked this and if you use the search function, you can see replies to those posts.  Basically if someone is offering to pay 12 months in advance there are a lot of red flags that go up.  Don't do it.  If you aren't willing to take them as a tenant paying one month at a time, then find another tenant.

[Bjorn Ahlblad]

For me it is a sign to do more homework. It is offered as bait so the greedy LL will not look any further. 

Is the "thanks in advance" like a pun? A good one BTW!

[Melanie P.]

If they don't meet your requirements, you decline them. The 12 months of prepaid rent has nothing to do with your screening/leasing policy. I'm sure you'd like them to keep paying rent after their initial payment is used up, right?

Make no mistake if self-employed and can only show low income it's because the applicant is low-income. People want to show you how great their business is going, what geniuses they are. If he's showing you low then it's that amount or lower. 

[Chris Seveney]

Quote from @Nathan Darcy:

Have any of you ever had a tenant offer to pay you 12 months upfront? It sounds like the potential tenant is selling their house. They are also self employed but showed low income (technically does not meet our monthly income requirements). Thoughts? Pros/cons?

Thanks in advance

Take the advice of everyone else on this post - find another tenant

[Jonathan Greene]

One more thing to add here to the great advice you have not to do this is that when you take 12 months up front in rent, you will never get those tenants out no matter what they do. You are paid for the year so if they crank up a legal escort service in there, you are not getting them out.

Besides the fact that it always means they don't qualify by standard means, it means giving yourself no way of getting them out.

Side note, some international renters are used to renting a year in advance as it does work this way in other countries.

[Marc Winter]

Just say no.  If they don't meet your standard qualification requirements, it doesn't matter what they offer.  Remember the movie "Pacific Heights"?

[JD Martin]

Quote from @Marc Winter:

Just say no.  If they don't meet your standard qualification requirements, it doesn't matter what they offer.  Remember the movie "Pacific Heights"?

I do! Creepy Michael Keaton!

[Michael Sloan]

@Nathan Darcy

If they meet all the other qualifications then I wouldn’t have a problem with it.

In TX we can collect up to a double security deposit which I do for some tenants. This is a similar thing.

If you take it, the prepaid rent would sit in a holding account and be recognized as rent one month at a time

[Ned J.]

NOPE.... they are usually trying to bribe you to overlook something. Throwing $$$ at you to hide something else. 

And when that 12 months is up, how do they plan on continuing to pay you then? If they dont meet the criteria NOW, they probably wont in 12 months either

HARD PASS for me in 99% of cases

[Jeffrey Yarusso]

In my opinion, not meeting your requirements but willing to pay for an entire year is just a red flag. I would be very skeptical of breaking your requirements just because they are offering to pay a large amount up front.