First and last month's rent

[Benjamin Mueller]

Just curious who here collects first and last month's rent plus deposit when getting a new tenant? My curiosity is can you evict after missing rent for one month when you techniquely have anoher months rent? Where I have my rentals the judge is pretty fair I hear but Def leans towards tenants even if the law states the obvious sometimes he does what he wants ... What are you reasons for it the double rent? IE your standard practice or for questionable tenants or have you been burnt too many times by tenants.  I wonder if this is the practice how hard it is to get a renter as alot if tenants would have that much disposable cash from my experience, but of course I could be wrong

[Jennifer T.]

This actually just came up for me.  In my area, traditionally only the first month's rent and a security deposit equal to the rent is collected.  That is what I typically do.

However, I recently had a pair of applicants who are moving to the area but are going to find jobs once they get here and live off savings in the meantime.  They do have a good job history where they currently are.  Since I live in a landlord friendly state, I offered to accept them if they would pay first AND last plus security.  I thought that was a more than fair compromise for the additional risk I was taking.  Their response was "thank you, but we have found another place".

I feel like I dodged a  bullet, lol!  If they were supposedly going to be living off savings, then it shouldn't have been an issue to give me first/last/security.  I don't know what place they found or if they even did...but I already thought I was going out on a limb.  I can't imagine someone else renting to them for only security/first when they have no income yet, but apparently there are landlords out there even more lax than I.