Lease Type Questions

[Paul Kubin]

I recently purchased two 3/2 SFRs in Fort Smith, AR.  I live in CA and my best friend from college will be managing them for the next year as a favor and to learn the process.  What kind of lease should we use?  Specifically:

1) Month-to-month vs Long-term?  

I've seen the arguments for both.  I like the idea of month-to-month, but I don't want to make my generous buddy work too hard with turnover (I'm not sure it would even do that, necessarily).  There is a very low vacancy in Arkansas, and everyone tells me "You'll never want for renters."  Recommendations?

2) Long/exhaustive lease vs. brief/basic.  

The biggerpockets lease agreement for Arkansas is 11 pages (!), and seems very weighted toward the landlord -- everything's the tenant's responsibility and/or fault.  It would scare me if I were the tenant.  Arkansas is very landlord friendly by default.  Seems it would be much simpler and less scary to a new tenant to just agree on the basics and keep it brief/simple.  

Recommendations?

Thanks :)

[Seth Hutson]

@Paul Kubin

Very nice! Congrats! I'd do minimum 6months. Yes, low vacancy, but with it being a 3/2, should get more stable families.

No objections to BPs. I'll ask a few colleagues what they use for their leases as well. I know one uses a copy/paste from one of the Property Manamebt companies in town.