All Forum Posts by: Evan Williams

I recently received an inquiry on the Zillow listing for one of my rentals from a person who says they work for a company called "AM Management Solutions". The message they sent is as follows:

My company's name is AM Management Solutions. We specialize in filling vacancies for busy property owners like yourself. We do this by establishing a long-term lease agreement (Typically 24-60 months), so that they can enjoy receiving consistent long-term cash flow while building equity in their home. My company would then provide stay to traveling professionals who are looking for a unique short term housing option.

Here's how my company operates: We would be the designated lease signee/holder and would pay you the monthly asking rent rate just as any normal tenant would. With your permission, we would provide short term stay to traveling professionals, vacationing families and local corporations (Our clients range of stay varies between 3- 120 days). All of our clients are top tier individuals. They are all non-smokers, pet free, screened through a criminal/credit background check and are inclusively taken care of by our company (such as low-level maintenance, landscaping, housekeeping etc.). Our primary focus is to keep your property in pristine condition at all times while under our care.

As a part of our client-outreach process, we advertise across the web in order to bring awareness to our services. We have created a full proof advertisement system to ensure that we serve only the best individuals out there. We use various platforms such as our own Website , Expedia, Corporate Housing, AirBNB, TripAdvisor, Booking, Military Housing & Furnished Finders (For health care providers) to simply find our ideal client and begin onboarding them. Every individual we provide stay to goes through a rigorous prescreening process to ensure they are a perfect fit for us.

If all looks good to you, we will happily move forward with the application process in hopes of moving in immediately!

Thank you!

Has anyone entered into an agreement with this type of company? If so, any feedback?

Also, I'm a bit wary of this company in particular as I can't find anything online that would indicate that "AM Management Solutions" is a real company. Has anyone heard of this company at all?

I am in the process of buying a rental property, and have taken out a HELOC on one of my existing rentals to use as the down payment for another. In this scenario, against which property should the HELOC interest expense be applied when calculating cash flow? The first property (on which the HELOC was taken), or the second (for which HELOC funds were used as a down payment)?

I ended up deciding to move forward on renting to this tenant. The rent is $2,300 a month, and the inheritance amount was over $175k (I did get proof of these funds from a bank statement) so it seems like they should have no problem paying rent. In addition, the tenant agreed to a 16 month lease so the next potential vacancy will be in June, and they will be paying the first 4 months of rent up-front.

Thank you all for your input, and I will let you know how everything turns out!

Has anyone here rented to someone who has a co-signer located outside of the U.S.? Would this pose any issues in terms of recovering money from them in the event of non-payment by the primary tenant or damages in excess of the security deposit?

I'm not sure at this point whether they are a non-US citizen, or a US citizen living abroad, if that makes any difference.

Thanks for the advice everyone! I do have other applicants, but this seems like the best tenant to me, so I would love to make it work with them. If they are not willing to pay the full year up-front (either directly or into an escrow account), is there a minimum cash balance you would want to see proof of in their bank account before renting? @Account Closed mentioned 5x annual rent as a good baseline. Does this seem like a good rule of thumb to others as well?

I have an applicant for one of my properties who has no income, but a large amount of money in their name from an inheritance.

Everything else being equal, would you consider renting to someone in this situation? If so, what additional documentation would you ask for, and what additional precautions would you take?