request for re-advice (after a long absence)

[Daniel Miller]

Hi all!  I spent a long time here three years ago, getting ready to rent out my first property, which is actually my father's house (he is in assisted living, and I have PoA and am successor trustee on his account).  Location is San Jose, CA.

After all of your excellent advices, I rented the house to a mature couple who were both still working, and it has been a heavenly experience!!  They were previous home-owners, so understood maintaining a house; in fact, when small things went wrong he usually just fixed them himself; if there were material costs they'd email me the bill and deduct it from rent (at the beginning, I was pre-approving all work, but quickly learned that they were very dependable and frugal people, and let them just this for small jobs).  Larger jobs (such as two bouts of termites) they'd notify me with a "no hurry" and I'd arrange the work.  Sadly, they are re-locating out of state; I'm very sad to lose them!!

Anyway, I'm wondering if there are any major changes in how things are done, that I need to be aware of??  I was running credit checks through an agency whose name I don't recall now; I think it was affiliated with biggerpockets.com ??  Does this sound familiar??

I'm inclined to also require tenants to have Internet accounts; is that reasonable??  It certainly is much easier to interact with tenants when they can just send an email to discuss issues, and can include pictures when needed.  All the prospectives that I was dealing with the last time, submitted their documents (application, etc) via email, but I don't recall if that was a requirement or just convenient.

Dan Miller

Fremont, CA

[Account Closed]

Daniel,

I believe the service you're talking about is called "smart move."  In general, tenants in the Bay Area are top notch based on my experience.  You were lucky to find a handy couple.  The tenants here are so easy that I even thought about opening a property management company.  It's easy money IMO.

This is what I say in my ad to keep myself out of trouble. "To be fair, we will rent to the first person that we are comfortable with."  This way, you don't get jailed for being discrimination.  You can ask for whatever you want. Internet accounts, auto-pay, email or text about repair inquiry, etc. Whoever are willing to meet your terms would get the first shot at acceptance.

I usually host an open house between 10-Noon or 1-3pm on a Saturday for viewing. You should get more qualified tenants than you know what to do with them.  If not, host another one on Sunday.  It saves you time, and people will compete for you place when they see competition.  In some cases, some might even offer you more money than your asking rent. 

Based on my experience, highly compensated couples ($250k-$350k/year combined salary) tend to move out between 1.5 - 2.5 years because they're buying a house.  I like to pick a couple that make between $125k-$150k because it takes them longer to save so they will stay much longer.  Single parents are rough because they don't have the safety net if they lose their job.

Good luck.