All Forum Posts by: Ben Freiermuth

@Will Gaston We require it because otherwise a tenant can claim they have aid, but in reality they don’t. I am unsure how many times this happens but I wanted to see if there was a better way.

We are on the higher end of quality in our market and we are happy to say that University of Wisconsin-Whitewater is a very accredited D1 school! We don’t have very many occurrences where there are mishaps with students who pay with financial aid, but I want to fix bottlenecks when we have time.

@Will Gaston yes our leases and lease ledgers in Buildium are set up that way. The issue is with residents who are paying with financial aid, and how to prove that.

Good morning all!

We are a student rental company located in University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. I was recently hired by my father (owner of the business) and he currently accepts financial aid from his student renters for rent payment. Currently, we have them take a screenshot of their financial aid section in their student portal to verify their aid so they can pay rent. This could be anything from FAFSA, bank loans, etc. In lieu of them using financial aid, we have them pay an $800 down payment towards rent, and then the remainder of the semester is due once aid arrives. If they don't have financial aid for rent, then the entire semester is due for that payment.

I feel like there are a few loopholes in this process. If a resident who does not have aid designated for rent wanted to pretend that they have financial aid for rent, they could simply submit a screenshot of their loan (which would only be used for school), and get away by only paying the $800 and deferring the rest of the payment until fall. There is no indication on the financial aid section saying that this is designated for rent money. This loan could be only for schooling. 

Are there systems or a different method that you use to better prove this? 

I've spent countless hours researching for a management software product, and signed up for Buildium over a year ago. Since then, they have exceeded my expectations. the communication aspect of the software in itself is worth the couple hundred dollars a month. Each month they are continuously improving their system and adding new features while not compromising the functionality of the system, and not requiring a learning curve each time. I highly--highly recommend them!

@Ryan Swan That sounds like a better plan. One more question: how much success/history do you find with running background checks on college students? I have heard both good and bad with running checks with students. Some say that they think it's well worth the money, as (I say this lightly) a "majority" of landlords say there is not enough history from a college student to really make a decision based on it. What do you think?

Lastly, I was thinking that the application fee would rid off of any potential bad renters who don't want to pay for the fee. Do you agree? 

@Ryan Swan we may charge an application fee of $10-$15. Rental season is still 9 months away. 

How do you structure your lease signing? Currently, we show the unit to them, then if they have the time, they come in to our office and sign the lease. 

Otherwise they will come in at a later date. I would have them go through the application process to input their information at the office, or have them do it on their own. I am currently having a very hard time getting them logged in to their resident portal, so I don't know if making them do the application process on their own would be very possible. 

We do not have assigned parking at most of our properties. Our one apartment building requires a paid permit. 

I will take a look at your application and try and re-engineer our lease signing process. It is only my father and I, so I try to make it as streamlined as possible. 

Thank you for your help! Any added input is greatly appreciated. 

@Account Closed, Thank you for your input. I will discuss it with my father and see what we will decide. You are right with trying to scavenge for evidence from every tenant and party-goer is impossible--all while managing all other activities. I just looked through our lease and agreements, we do not have an occupancy addendum. 

@Account Closed Sounds good. We have already confirmed that the residence is occupy-able for our case. I am just gathering input to formulate a decision for this "oops". 

Forgot to add--the rental application would be online where we set up 3 to 5 kiosks in our office. When the surge of students come in to our office during rental season, we receive about 30+ applicants a day. Gets pretty hectic. Check out what I have built so far: https://hsirentals.managebuilding.com/Resident/apps/rentalapp

Hello! I am a soon-to-be rental property manager for my father's college rental business located in Whitewater, WI. We have 85 units in our portfolio. We recently purchased Buildium for our property management software, and the software includes a rental application that I can customize which fields to include/exclude. Currently, we require basic contact info of the applicant, a drivers license, and an emergency contact (parent). We have not run any background checks on college students since they have no credit history, but the software allows us to run checks on them if we wanted to on our higher end units. 

My question is, what information have you found useful for renting to college students? Any recommendations to background checks/co-signing parents, etc.? Thanks!