All Forum Posts by: Dan Borecki

Great points again, thanks @Gerald K.

I'll absolutely be sure to use that clause and also that's a great call on the 15 month lease.... I was thinking of having it come due in September as a 6 month lease and then have a mutual option to extend for another year as a way to avoid this dreaded rental period, but now after having done all of this work to find a tenant it doesn't make sense anymore to me to have such a short term tenant and then have to clean/fix up/re-rent the place again.

@Aly W. sorry to hear about your having to deal with that mess. What did you mean where at the end of your 1st paragraph you said "Just be sure it's in there"?

You're making me feel a lot better about my decision to hold my place vacant until finding a quality tenant that fits my criteria. Unfortunately from everything I hear you can screen all you want, but will still get burned, so I'm trying to make sure to cover all of my bases with screening people.

I just bought my place about 4 months ago and I have had the mindset to hold off until finding a great tenant since they had to evict one of the tenants before my closing. Luckily one of my terms of the P&S Agreement was to have the place delivered vacant, so it wasn't my responsibility. Believe it or not the selling agent was trying to convince me to keep her as a tenant and hadn't disclosed to me about her not paying rent. I am so glad that I held my ground!! Turns out that she hadn't paid rent in 4 months and they still couldn't get her out for a couple more months after the finally started the eviction process and it didn't help the eviction matters that she was pregnant and had a kid. So that really hurt me since it held up my closing by a few months and now I'm stuck trying to find tenants for the dreaded December thru February period, which has been even worse with the awful winter we're having here in the Northeast.

Thanks @Gerald K. I have only been declining based on credit so far so I haven't gotten to the point yet where I needed to do the prior landlord interviews, but will definitely be interviewing as many prior landlords as possible. I'm glad to hear that some of their current landlords are honest, that is refreshing for me to hear!

What excuses have you used to go to drop by their place? I find it hard to come up with reasons when the screening process is being done over the internet.

@Account Closed I don't think the point is to follow what HUD is saying, it's more because it logically make sense when people are at a lower income threshold to have 3X rent as a minimum income and that they also have savings. I would rather have more than 3X if possible so that they can still keep building up their savings while they are my tenant which then means that they can still pay their rent in the event that any unforeseen expenses come up in their life. They are living on a shoe-string if they're paying rent at any less than 3X their income.

Steve, I really liked this point you made about including it in the lease that the security deposit cannot be applied to the last month's rent. Am I understanding it correctly that you actually follow through with what you told them about evicting so that you can going forward have more weight behind your words with future tenants? Has it really been worth it to go through an expensive eviction process over the 1 month of rent? I'm wondering if it's more worthwhile to take that approach if you have a large quantity of rental properties than where I just own one 3-family at this point.

@Justin Silverio good points! Thanks for sharing, I am glad to hear it has worked out so well for you so far. It sounds like I'm going to have to start taking 1st/security into consideration as well, but am going to stick to my minimum 3x rent rule, especially if they can't cover 3 months up front.

@Account Closed I have come to discover that they are all living in the town of my investment property. All great people, just can't cover the 3 month's worth of up front payments, which is why it seems a good amount of them are on section 8.

@Gerald K. good call on the guide, it is a great resource. I have read it a few times before and just did again now and was reminded of some relevant points. Sounds like I am going to have to do some further research on how to investigate past evictions since it seems there's no catch-all approach. The guide makes a great point regarding reaching out to their landlord PRIOR to their current one. I have always thought it was kind of pointless to call their current landlord since they are going to give me a stellar review of their rental history if they want to get rid of them.

This section of the guide helps me to better understand how you can use the www.mysmartmove.com in conjunction with other forms of background checking:

The Tenant Credit Report:

The tenant credit report will contain a wealth of information related to the tenants credit history, including a detailed list of all the tenant’s open or closed credit cards, car payments, monetary judgements, late payments, and more. This information can be overwhelming, but I recommend looking for the following items:

• Credit Score: Depending on your criteria, you may establish a minimum credit score for your tenants. The particular score may depend on your location and cliental.
• Current and Former Addresses: Often times, a tenant may conveniently “forget” a past address. Verify that the addresses given by the tenant on the application match the addresses on the credit report. The credit report may not include all the addresses, but any listed should be verified. You can ask the prospective tenant about the addresses or simply do a Google search for those addresses and, if it belongs to an apartment complex, you can call the apartment to see if the tenant ever lived there.
• Public Records:This part of the credit report will list any judgments levied against the tenant -which includes garnishments or evictions that have a monetary claim. Note: This does not included evictions without a monetary claim. To find these evictions the process can be a little more complicated. Each state and county has a different way of finding out, but it should be public info in each county. You should be able to search (if your county has online records) for your tenant’s name and/or all previous addresses listed on the tenant’s credit report. Look for any cases that involve a rental company or have the words “eviction” in them. It’s not an easy way – and most landlord’s simply rely on the credit report findings- but it is possible. You’ll also find out when you talk to previous landlords.My policy is to never rent to a tenant with an eviction on their record, though some landlords put a time limit on it such as “no evictions in the past five years.” This is a personal choice and depends largely on your risk tolerance level and the current demand for rentals in your area.
• Vehicle Repossessions: Having a vehicle repossessed is strong indication that a tenant cannot handle their money very well. If you notice a vehicle repossession – definitely ask more questions about this.

@Account Closed 3x rent is a bare minimum in my mind......the way I understand it is that the calculation is based on before taxes, so taxes right off the bat eats away 1/3 of their income and then If people have one or more kids, a low income job, utilities, food for their family, clothing, medical bills, etc. then how are they going to cover the rent?