All Forum Posts by: Anne H.

I plan on doing a pre screening phone call to go over list of qualifications they must meet and get a feel for them over the phone. If all seems to check out do you typically have them fill out an application before you do a showing or let them see first if they are interested before the application? 

Kris, 

That is a good way to look at it.

Also keeping the mindset of this is a business with MY money on the line. Being to nice and overlooking red flags is not going to serve my business well. My kiddos and life come first. 

Agreed. The more I added up all the "little" things my gut was telling me to run from I realized it was pretty obvious. Took her 12 days for them to fill out the Application, little by little she would slip info in to see if it was okay, etc. 

This was a good learning experience for me. She sort of fell into my lap as a possible tenant before I had really established my renter qualifications and I did it all wrong. Met her first without doing a screening interview was the first. I now feel I have a good process in hand to avoid these kinds of situations and find a quality renter! 

@Kris H. 

Love it. Well said.

@Bjorn- Thank you for your response! Everything my gut was leading me towards but nice to hear:) 

Hello,

I am looking at prospective tenants for my first rental property. One in particular is looking to move in with her mom and dad. 

All 3 have zero rental history. Mom and dad apparently were given grandpas house and then left it to another relative when they moved out of state and in with their daughter. Daughter is saying she lived with husband in a rental but was not on the lease, then when they bought in 2018 she was not on the mortgage due to something about her military service time not being quite long enough. She is now getting a divorce and needs a place. 

Is this shouting red flags all over it? She has been up front that her credit score is 580 due to paying off all her husbands debt and now is working on hers. 

As I am writing this I think I know the right answer but thought I would throw the question on here since I am a softy....

Thank you both for your insight! It's hard being the newbie and having to ask questions you feel are no brainers for people in the rental/landlord world:) But, I would rather ask now then wish I had later. 

I agree chances are low of being sued if you treat others kindly and fairly but we have learned through the realtor side that there are always those who take advantage no matter how good and fair you are unfortunately. I feel I have a good foundation now in which I can talk to a real estate attorney. 

I appreciate you both setting my mind a little more at ease. I will be sure to reach out if more questions pop up! 

David,

Thank you for your response. So what you are saying is instead of doing an LLC you have the landlord insurance on the property as well as umbrella policy to protect yourself?

I do like the idea of having a separate account for maintaining all you mentioned above. I am the one who actually keeps track of all income and expenses through our business and it is very helpful to keep it separate/keep me organized. Our cpa just does all of our quarterly filing. Without the use of an LLC we could still keep this separate account and move money back and forth more easily if that is what I am understanding?

Thanks again

@Evan Polaski- Thank you for reply. Every little bit of info helps it sink in more and more for me. We are taking out a mortgage on the rental with 25% down. After the monthly payment we expect to make $800 monthly profit. It made sense to me that since we set up an LLC for our business to protect us from clients taking our personal assets that we should do the same for our rental. I guess it just threw me off when our cpa sort of brushed it off like not many people chose that for rental properties.

If you don't mind answering another/walking me through if this is correct, 

If we have the LLC can it only be in one spouse's name?

With setting up a separate business checking account in which all rent would be deposited/mortgage paid through, can we transfer income that we make into our personal accounts? I understand that there will need to be a detailed spread sheet kept off all monthly expenses/income.