Lease agreement with option to change move in date

[Chatree C.]

There's a good prospective tenant that wants to sign our lease but they are not sure about start date (work travel schedule) until 3 weeks from now. And they agree if they start later, they are willing to pay a bit more to make up for loss rent.

For example:

rent is $2000 if starting Aug 1

rent is $2100 if starting Aug 8

rent is $2200 if starting Aug 15

We need the contract signed before they can make this decision, can we pick a date to sign first then include a clause where they have until X date to change the start date & rent?

[Amy Beth]

I would pick a date that you want and let them know you will continue advertising the apartment until a lease is signed and all monies are paid. You could be wasting time for someone whom is considering all of their options and end up with a longer vacancy when they back out. If it was me I would let them know the start date and not allow for any changes. The move in day can be whatever day they want as long as it is after the lease start date.

We have a tenant whom did not need to move until the end of he month but we let her know we were looking for tenants for the first. She signed the lease start date for the first and did not move in until a month later. She was paying the rent so we did not care when she moved in. If she did not agree to this we would of kept looking for a different tenant and she really wanted the place so she agreed.