Pets - Lesson Learned

[Zach Denny]

Hi All,

A lesson I recently learned the hard way:

I own several multi-family homes in nice neighborhoods, targeting young professionals and young families for tenants. At first we said no pets, but all of our best applicants had pets, so raised our rent a bit and allowed pets.

Advice: always require to meet the pets.

The tenants are great, but their dogs are terrible. They are not well behaved and seem a bit aggressive as well. We are now at the point where we cannot evict the tenants (and wouldn't because they are great), but we don't know what damage their pets could do to the yard or rental.

So always meet the tenants AND the pets before signing a lease.

[Colleen F.]

@Zach Denny good advice, in properties where we allow pets we do so a case by case basis and request to meet them. This is a strategy that is hard to scale though.  Your best bet with pets is charging pet rent and additional deposit if you can.     One additional way to protect yourself is to require renters insurance with liability to cover the pets.