All Forum Posts by: Alvin Sylvain

Quote from @Bruce Woodruff:

You can get around it easily. It's not the Govt's business who you rent your property to. I spent years in Cali as a Landlord.

 I agree 100% but at the same time, this is the environment we live in. I do try to be as fair as possible, even beyond govt standards (really, I don't care if your hair is purple ... but no green), but no matter what you do, you have to say "no" to somebody, and some of those somebody's know they have access to free legal services in a monstrously tenant-friendly state and even more tenant-friendly city.

So I just keep skating along trying as best I can to avoid the thinner patches of ice!

Cheers!

Quote from @Richard F.:

Aloha,

I would only calculate based on the actual numbers on the SSI letter, and paystub gross YTD pay. If that meets your 3x rent criteria, I would not rule them out on that alone. Credit history and court records will show if they are habitually making bad decisions. People are often reckless when completing apps. It is common to see them write in net figures vs. gross, or just a close estimate. (The worst are those that sell online and try to show their total sales as "income", without accounting for the cost of those sale items.) I would also ask for proof of any other financial resources...IRA, savings, etc. Having NONE is not a great sign...

Now if there are other misleading statements or discrepancies on the app, such as addresses that do not match credit report or paystubs, job history, or other relevant bits, I would be more apprehensive and possibly ask for explanation. Or simply decline.

Aloha backatcha!

This is pretty much how they almost would qualify, using actual paystubs and SSI letter. My concern is not only that the numbers don't match up, but also that they don't qualify without the overtime. I'm concerned that the overtime is variable, different on two different paystubs. So what happens if business is slow for a bit an there's no overtime?

Otherwise, I think you have a lot of valuable insight in your posting. We'll see how this plays out.

Thanks!

Quote from @Bruce Woodruff:

I'd assume they're fudging. You don't need a letter, if they ask say you rented to  someone else....

Thanks for the reply!

I think in California you are required to give a Legal Reason, to make sure you aren't discriminating against purple haired people and such.

Not that I'd ever do that ... I just want to see the color of the money!

And I doubt it's lawsuit-safe to say it's rented to someone else until such time as it's actually rented to someone else.

Quote from @Michael P.:

I would install it on the ceilings just to confuse the tenants

Ten points for humor!

Quote from @Joe Villeneuve:

How is that asinine?  They're REI.  That means they invest in properties.  I'm not suggesting that they buy a house to "store" the floors in, I'm suggesting that they just save the floors for their next properties they buy.

What I don't understand is, if the OP doesn't want this product because it's not the kind of product he wants ("glue-down"), then why would buying more property help? That just means he has more places to use the wrong kind of product.

Forgive me if there is an important detail I'm missing?

As has been said, rental rates depend on supply and demand. The interest rate to purchase a property has no bearing on existing properties, except maybe somebody fool enough to get an adjustable rate and not refinance before the adjustment hits (coz it never adjusts downward).

What will make rental rates drop would be a immense influx of rental properties to increase supply, like 20% of homeowners move to a different state and rent out their old dwelling. Or NIMBY constituents of municipalities stop pressuring their city councils to make new construction as difficult as possible, resulting in a rash of new apartments.

As I don't see either scenario as being likely, I expect rents to level off at most, and probably not for long before they start going up again. Inflation has affected everybody and everything, and some companies are forced to raise wages to keep employees, and raised wages mean that more people can afford more rent.

Therefore, I expect the demand to remain constant or increase in coming years.

But remember, my prognostication abilities are no better than anyone else's.

Quote from @Jian Feng:

I appreciate everyone's responses. I just checked. You guys are correct. No-fault eviction is still not allowed yet. Hopefully, it does expire on the end of January 31. 

This is Los Angeles, California. Were I a gambling man, and could find somebody to take me up, I'd bet on another extension.

I doubt I could find anybody to bet the other way though, so it's probably just as well I'm not a gambling man.

OK, for some of you long-term landlords this is probably an easy one.

I looked at the applicants' pay-stubs and SSI letter, and pro forma, with two jobs, overtime, and SSI, they do make 3x the rent.

My main question is, the numbers I calculate and the numbers they put on the application do not agree. Which by itself wouldn't worry me greatly as the overtime obviously varies from month to month. But in stating the SSI income the application, they put roughly $1000 more than what the SSI letter said. That number at least ought to agree as there is no variability.

Didn't they even read the letter when they provided it with the application?

So do I chalk this up to simple mistakes or assume they are attempting to misrepresent themselves?

And more to the point, as I'm leaning towards rejection anyway, what do I put on the rejection letter? I don't see online any examples where the application was rejected because the stated numbers didn't match the proof provided.

@Gustavo Alvarez

We've been going Zillow/Apartments for about a month now, and we also are getting most inquiries from Zillow.

Have you heard about TransUnion announcing their data breach a few days ago? They been hacked.

This affects everybody, and it especially affects you if you're using Zillow for Tenant Screening, because as I understand it, they use TransUnion.

I was considering using Zillow for tenant screening, or going to TransUnion directly, as they have more in-depth credit reports available for additional fees. I could be wrong, but I believe Zillow does not offer that through their service. Now I'm more on the fence about either one of them.

Thoughts?