All Forum Posts by: Constantia Petrou

Hello,

I have just had a first in trying to rent my property. I received an application from tenants who have lived in apartments in big cities for over a decade and are now applying to move into our single family home in a more quiet coastal community. Financially they qualify  but references seem to imply they will be demanding tenants.  I am getting very cold feet. They are now asking that since I am calling references for them, they too want to talk to our past tenants to see how it would be living in our house. From what I gathered from references they like things to be on their terms. An applicant asking to talk to our past tenants is a first and indicates that they cannot take the fact that the landlord sets the rules. The market in the Bay Area has changed- it is softening and becoming a tenant market. Nevertheless I don't want to get involved with people who do not respect my process. Any thoughts, feedback would be greatly appreciated! 

Thank you Chad. This is excellent feedback. I wanted to pull down the property ads to reset the clock but zillow which pretty much controls most online ad distribution will not reset the clock unless the ad is off the site for 31 days. This is too long. Do you know how I can shorten the off market period and still reset the clock? Great idea about leading with a different pic to freshen up first impressions!

Again thanks for all the suggestions. We have tried lowering the price even further. We are now under priced and what would be considered an amazing value compared to other homes similar to ours. A bargain! Tenants realize it because when they contact us they ask if they can go on a 2 year lease for the new lower rental rate. However, the outcome of this experiment has been negative. No qualified prospects. The unqualified prospects keep contacting us! People with $40 K incomes think they can rent a $3750 per month house! I absolutely don't get it. Where did the qualified tenants go? There has been a ton of overbuilding in the San Francisco Bay Area in the last year, mainly apartments, so we are definitely experiencing over supply. In an oversupply market prices drop and that's why we dropped ours below what every other house of the same quality goes for in the area. Nevertheless nobody qualifies. We are still on the market experiencing the longest vacancy period we've had in the last 5 years across multiple properties. In a soft market we are simply experience a much higher percentage of unqualified tenants. Has anyone else experienced a soft market before bringing out unqualified prospects and how did you manage vacancy under such soft conditions? Thank you all again.

Thank you all for your input! The issue is not traffic to the house- we are among the top visited properties compared to our competition according to zillow. Our marketing materials are high quality and attract visitors. We also had several applications (all consistent with my past experience renting my properties). The issue is that those who apply are not qualified. Our standards are quite high and perhaps there is a shift in the market place with the pool of tenants who meet our criteria being smaller which then translates to longer vacancy. However, lowering the standards has resulted in a disaster for me in the past which makes me want to simply wait until I find a good tenant that meets my criteria.

Thank you! I will give it some more thought. We are not under priced but certainly on market rate (based on comps). Also, the unqualified applicants all appeared after we lowered the price

Hello all,

I own an investment property in the San Francisco Bay Area which I put on the market for rental two months ago. I have a real estate agent showing the house (which is different from how I did it in past years where I showed the house myself). We had one application 1 month after putting it on the market which was for short term rental but other than that just lots of tire kickers. 6 weeks into it, we lowered the price a bit and in the last 2 weeks we got a lot more interest/ traffic, plus applications, but the applicants have all been highly unqualified- they don't meet income minimum (3x rent) and one even just came out of bankruptcy. It is very frustrating and I was wondering if anyone has any feedback on what may be causing this unqualified applicant pool coming to my property and if there is anything I can do to attract more qualified prospects. Thank you.

P.S. My RE agent does not prescreen and just shows the property to everyone who asks to see it (when I showed the property myself I always prescreeened). Also my property is not new but it has been updated and presents very well from what I hear from the RE agent and reactions of prospects who visit (transmitted through the RE agent). It is also in a great location. Other properties in much worse condition have rented (granted one for a drastically lower price than listing) but several other properties in my area have been on the market for a while too. So the market has slowed down compared to the past

Thank you all for your input. I am in a class A neighborhood so a small expense of renters' insurance should not be a problem with tenants here. In the past I did clarify that my landlord's insurance does not cover their personal property but best for all to be safe and have tenants have their own personal property and liability insurance. I will require it this time. Thanks again

Hi everyone,

I am about to rent my class A single family home. I have landlord's insurance and was wondering whether I should require tenants to have renters' insurance? If so what limits (liability, personal property and medical) would be reasonable? I am in CA, San Francisco Bay Area.

Thank you

I provided the convenience of storing 2 boxes in the garage to a tenant before they moved in and it was the biggest mistake. I was just a beginner landlord at the time and thought I was helping my tenant out building some good will. Long story short that good will came back to bite me. It turns out the tenant was testing how much they could push me around and how much they could get away with. The tenant was a nightmare who ended up breaking their lease, threatening to sue me multiple times and just tying my stomach in knots. If any property owner is more experienced than I was at the time, s/he will consider your request as a red flag.... Just thought to share the owner's/ landlord's perspective. Also No good RE agent involved in the transaction would let this happen. Too much liability.

Hello,

This community has been so helpful and I have learned so much from your advice! This time I am facing a dilemma with regards to charging some damage I incurred when  my tenants' moved out as a result of their losing the garage remote control. Specifically, they notified me that they lost the remote control and that they called the garage door guy who gave them the price for replacing it. I told them I would take care of that with the garage door guy and charge the remote control replacement to their SD. When the garage door guy came over to replace the remote control he told us he had to reinstall the door sensor to comply with CA regulations in order to sell us a new remote control. If no sensor adjustment then no new remote control. The price now more than doubled from the original quote he gave the tenants. I want to subtract the total cost from the SD since had they not lost the remote control at the first place I would not have incurred this additional cost. The additional cost is a result of their negligence. Can I subtract the total cost (sensor plus remote control) from their SD or should I absorb the sensor cost and only charge for the remote control? 

Thank you very much for your input