All Forum Posts by: Shannon Slade

We use Cozy for rent collection, advertising, background checks and credit history.  Never have used their maintenance tab.

Your only asking for trouble letting them get a month behind, but since you are already there. 

Check with you local codes.

Here in Texas you do not have to if rent is delinquent, our lease states that rent must be on time for 3 consecutive months before we do any non safety related repairs. This has been through eviction court and Judge told the tenant to pay rent or move.

 Listen you are responsible from that point going forward with the installed wiring even after the tenant moves out, there are plenty of ways this could go wrong and become a problem.  I have rewired enough houses after fires that you want to make sure that all wiring is done correctly and not overloading, piggy backing and grounded properly (especially if this is an older home). 

Its best that the owner or property manager takes responsibility to hire reputable contractors to do all work, of course, unless the owner is qualified to do his own work. You can still charge him for the installation of the fans, even though I do all our electrical work, if a tenant requests something for the property that they want as extra we usually charge it back to them.  Glad you came to the forum for answers, hope this helps. 

If you want to install fans for the tenant then hire your own electrical contractor.  Nothing more dangerous than having Tenants bro-in-law who is an "electrician" install some jacked up wiring in YOUR house.  This is advice from a licensed master electrician (Me).  The only thing electrical we allow our tenants to do is change light bulbs.

I highly recommend using a 3rd party for background screening and credit checks. We use Cozy.co for rent collection and screenings.  Free of charge for both parties unless tenant pays with a credit/debit card, link a checking account and all is FREE.  

Income must be 3x monthly rent

No evictions

No pedophiles

Dont assume that if you follow all these suggestions that you will have the best tenant, people suck and in the end you may be forced to remove them from the house.

Good Luck

No magic number!!

Very seldom in our market that we find folks that have good credit scores of 700 and above. We do not put too much value in scores, we like to view total debt as a percentage, income 3 times monthly rent (verify all income)  and no evictions. 

We just ran into a situation while talking to the applicant she proceeded to tell us that they had no debt and paid cash for all purchases, we said good deal and if this checks out the property will be yours. Ran all checks and credit came back with $50k worht of BAD debt into collections (they stopped paying and just assumed they were DEBT FREE).  

Bottom line:  talk with the applicant and then VERIFY all answers.  Some may seem like they got it together and it turns out bad, others will give you goose bumps to rent to them and they turn out like some of the best tenants.... I have a set of the latter been with me 8 years..

Good luck!

@Roger S.

Search online for an insurance broker they will shop multiple companies (some you probably have never heard of) for the best rates.  Its always a good idea to shop insurance rates every two years. 

They always like to start, then realize its a lot of work to do it right.  That is what you get for a final project when tenants paint. 

Good for you, sounds like you had what you needed for court.  Do not settle with them that the deposit will satisfy the judgement. They broke the lease and your lease should state that the SD is forfeited once lease is broken, once you start the repairs you will have to come out of pocket more to get the house ready for the next tenant. There will be things you missed during the walk through.  

Offer a reduction in the judgement if they pay X amount in 15-30 days. You may or may not get anything but if you do not try you possibly will not get anything.  You could also go to the court and get an asset lien against them, court clerk can give you more info.

Get use to it!  The prospect may have found a better deal or realized your house may have squeeze their budget too much.