Officially a Landlord!

[Amanda Chandler]

Super excited, officially rented out my first property! It's a single-family home in TX, and the deposit has been paid. Wanted to share some things I learned and that I would implement/do differently next time. Down the road, I'd love to use property management, but I wanted to do this myself the first time to learn and also save some money. 

Listing the Property
1. I had the best luck on Zillow (it's free for your first property) and Facebook marketplace. I also posted on Craigslist and got 0 contacts. 
2. I posted all the information in my FB posts including requirements for renting the house, price, features, link to zillow, etc. I would rather only have qualified people who read my post message me instead of being bombarded by basic stuff. 
3. My criteria for renting the house was the usual.... no evictions, good credit, no criminal background, 3x of monthly rent is the minimum income. Sound past landlord references, sound employer references, and willing to get renter's insurance. I read online that in TX you must clearly state your requirements. 
4. Take great photos. Great photos make a huge difference. My listing was the top on Zillow and I attribute it to great pics. 

Showings
1. Highly recommend scheduling an open house type situation, or, if Covid limits this, have back to back appointments for 15 minutes. No one spent more than 15 minutes at the house. 
2. If someone messages you on Zillow just requesting a showing, email them back something like this: "Thank you for your inquiry and interest in this home. Can you please confirm you have read, understand, and meet the requirements in this listing? We are available for showings Thursday afternoon at 1 or 1:30 pm". You could also not send the times and wait for their response. A lot of people will just not respond because they will then read your requirements and realize they don't qualify. 
3. Make sure the place is nice for showings. We still live here so we just power cleaned it and kept it nice for the showings. Obviously your stuff will still be in the house, but keeping it super tidy makes a difference. 

Application/Lease/Deposit
1. I had my applicants apply through Zillow. It had everything I needed including background and credit checks. This was easy and cheap for the tenants. I ended up with 10 applicants total. 
2. Make sure you call the employers and past landlords. I had some people be super sketchy about this. Some list their friends as the employer. If they are odd or weird about this, consider it a red flag.
3. I had a couple who had great references and outstanding credit. They were really happy when I told them they were selected, I expected them to sign right away. Naive on my part. They ghosted me for 36 hours, finally responded to my follow up saying they decided to move to a different state instead of TX. Next time, I gave the tenant a 24 hour window to sign. You could also tell tenants the leases are sent out to multiple tenants and you'll be signing (binding) the one that is sent back on a first come first serve basis. This might be a little risky for some, but I saw other's saying they do this. Have the tenants sign first then you regardless.
4. Tell tenants before they sign a lease that any deposits are due upon signing. Same day. No wiggle room. 
5. One gray area I came across was denying people based on credit. Apparently you have to send a letter and their report while others say not to do this. I didn't deny anyone solely on credit (ie, they were also evicted or were also not making the required income), so I simply said we are moving forward with other applicants. 

Other
1. People will lie to you! I had some applicants who confirmed they read, understood, and met my criteria, yet when they applied they clearly did not. Simply tell them you have other applicants that meet your criteria. 
2. Be responsive to people. Treat them fairly and with the timeliness you'd expect as well. Also, bee polite but short 
3. Hold firm on your requirements. If you say 3x monthly income, and someone is at 2.5X, don't accept them. This could be discriminatory and you're making the waters muddy for yourself. 
4. Be patient, the right tenants will come. It took me 10 days to rent this home because I was super picky and then my first applicants kinda left me hanging for a day and a half. 

I will say I've listened to several real estate investing books, including rental books, and the BiggerPockets podcast for 2 years. Listening to everything and actually putting it into action is a whole other ball game! Looking forward to getting my next property.