How to Qualify as a Landlord

So lately I have been wondering how I can qualify as a landlord for someone. Here are two reasons why I want to learn how to qualify!

You see a while back I had someone walk a property of mine I had listed for rent. After he walked the property he told ME to call HIM at the end of the month and he will walk the property again and decide if HE is going to rent from me.

Today I had an email lead from Zillow... (which most email leads are always duds in my experience. I use Postlets.com to advertise and multiple sites pull data from here and many times is not complete. That's for another blog on another day). But in any case I responded to the email lead as always and explained that all the property information is on my website and that I also require a pre-screen application to be filled out before I will schedule a showing.

Here is the chain of emails but I x'd out the email from the lead.

New Lead

New Contact

Jimmy XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX is contacting you about a property on Zillow:

I am interested in 1003 E Evelyn Ave, Hazel Park, MI 48030. I need to know your pet policy. Contacted via

Property Address:
1003 E Evelyn Ave
Hazel Park, MI
Listing Source: Postlets

Status: For Rent
Rent: $750/mo

My Response:

Morning Jimmy,

Thank you for your interest in 1003 E Evelyn. You can find all the property details on our website at www.ckiproperties.com. We also require the pre-screen application to be filled out before we will schedule a showing.

Thank you for Contacting CKI Properties

Aaron - Property Consultant

phone 586-799-3254

www.ckiproperties.com
m.ckiproperties.com

"Giving You The Feeling of Home"

Leads response:

Thank you, but I need to know your pet policy before I can begin your application process.

thank you,

Jimmy

My Response:

Everything is on the website. But yes we do allow pets. It's $25 extra a month and a $200 non-refundable cleaning fee on top of the security deposit.

Leads Response:

Yeah, asking for four references before you even see the property? I bet that's costing you a lot of business. Certainly cost you mine.

thank you,

Jimmy

My Final Response:

No Business loss at all. Just keeps tire kickers away. If someone can't qualify then there is no point in showing the property.

In fact, my associates charge upfront for the application before showing a property.

Time is money

Thank you for contacting CKI Properties

END OF EMAIL CHIAN.

So you see, I would like to know how I can qualify to be someone's landlord... aaahhhh ha ha ha ha....

GOTCHA...

But seriously!!! Do tenants really think that the LANDLORD is the one who has to be screened and NOT the tenant???

You see MOST of the leads I receive from Zillow, Trulia, and Hot Pads don't have a phone number and many times it's an alias email created from that listing site. This means the lead is not a 'Hot' lead and they are tire kickers just bored apparently.

Listen. These are our properties. So what I would like to say to anyone just getting involved. Don't let things like this scare you. Stand your ground. The tenant is who needs screening (in most cases- that's another blog story). There is always another lead just around the corner.

I know I have posted my process somewhere in these posts but for anyone who has not seen it before I am going to list my process in numeric steps. I have come up with this process because my time is very precious to me as I'm sure it is to all of you. But then again maybe some of you LOVE no-shows and wasted phone calls or showings just to find out they have no money!!!

1. Post using Postlets.com and craigslist - Postlets submits to Trulia, Zillow, hotpads and a few others. Unfortunately not all the information gets transferred and I still get dud email leads but that's better than no-shows or wasted phone calls.

2.Respond to any email leads or phone calls and request the pre-screen application be filled out before i will show the property.- Now this gets me lots of applications. Also gets me lots of people who can't afford the rent. But no worries. It's doing exaclty what I want it to do.. Pre Screen- BEFORE I spend time at the property showing it.

3. Review all applications and contact qualified leads based on NET Income and form being completely filled out. An unfinished form gets no response. If the income is a little low or they say 'Married' on the form I iwill email or call and ask a few more questions before just calling to schedule a showing.

4. 30 minutes prior to showing the lead must call me to confirm the showing or I will not go to the property. At times I will call them if I am on the road already for some reason.

5. At the showing I get the lead to talk about themselves and I just try to listen. I need the to open up to help me learn what type of person they are. And let me tell you... I have had some stories. I catch a lot of people in lies and even have people 'request' things to be done to the property if they rent it. They don't understand that what they see is what they get.

6. After meeting and showing the property I choose the person I feel most comfortable with and run a complete background check. I do this in the end because I don't want waste peoples money. Doing it this way saves people the fee and from me offering to refund it if they lied prior to the full background check and after reviewing it they are now not qualified.

7. Get deposit, First months rent, sign papers and viola... DONE... well except for my most recent property. Had a tenant all lined up. Everything went through all these steps exactly but she had to leave for a family thing. Next thing you know I never heard back from her and had to start the process all over again.

END OF PROCESS

So far using this process I created has eliminated 'no-shows' for me in the sense I'm not sitting at a property waiting. Obviously I get no shows still but I'm at home or spending time with my family instead.

I developed this process because when I travel I have other people do property showings for me. My wife being one of them. After this happening two times she said that she is done showing properties. So I was forced to come up with something different.

At first I was leary of doing this process thinking that people won't just fill out an application for a stranger let alone on a website without talking to someone. But then I thought, well, I do it all the time and it makes sense. Next thing you know I get leads even when I don't have properties for rent. (Which was in my big plan anyways- company recognition and I can still try to help.) I then forward these leads to an associate of mine. I haven't even set up any SEO for the site either.

...I think I have lost my main point here. I am writing this at work and keep getting pulled away... so let me re-read this so I can get back on track...

Oh yeah... so what I'm saying here is that you need to create a good process that works for you. Figure out what makes sense to you. Don't let the 'Lead' control the situation. In time you will learn how to streamline yourself and become that "QUALIFIED LANDLORD"... ha ha ha..

Thanks to everyone who reads this and I hope it gives you some help in your journey with Real Estate.