Help - Leases, first time landlord

[Rick Santos]

Hello,

Looking for some help from other Connecticut landlords on lease agreements and tips. I am in the midst of rehabbing my first investment property in New Britain, CT and am targeting to have it ready for rent/occupancy on 4/1. Does anyone have any standard lease agreements to share? Any insight on things to outline in the lease to protect myself, & things to go over once tenant is selected?

I feel I have a good understanding on tenant screening, here is what I plan on using as criteria:

3 x Rent Monthly Income

No felonies

No evictions

Credit Report

Prior Landlords Information

$Application Fee

1st Months Rent - 1 Month Security

Area is class C, plan to list 2BR units for $800 per month to gauge interest and go from there. Want to avoid as many mistakes as possible as far as the leases go, although I'm sure i will make them! Thanks for your insight!

Rick

[Jonathan Makovsky]

@Rick SantosCongrats!

I think your processes look good. 

A few things to consider: 

Will you accept pets? (I would advise if the answer is yes to make sure no viscous breeds are allowed and also get an extra security deposit and possibly extra monthly rent.)

Also, something that helped us that you might want to consider is for your credit check is that the score matters, but we look deeper than the score if there are things that come up (and in New Brit there are usually things that come up).

If tenants are skipping out on "modern life essentials" like utility bills, cell phone bills, car payments that is a huge red flag.

However, if it is a result of medical bills or student loans (or possibly a foreclosure during the crash) you may want to look past some of those. The rationale is that if these tenants got hit with a $10K medical bill they probably cannot pay it and it's not necessarily because they didn't want to.