All Forum Posts by: Daniel Miller

@Michael Rogers; 

The last time I was asking questions here (late 2012) I had one "applicant" which was a group of college students, and I was uncomfortable with them because it wasn't clear who I would consider responsible for managing the property.  I no longer have copies of the discussions that resulted, but they were extensive, and many folk here expressed concerns about who is responsible if there were problems; if the highest earner moved out, what happens then??  There were many other points brought up, I wish I could refer to them now.  That is making me anxious about renting to a group of people whose only connection is that they are friends...

I'm preparing to rent out a 1977 sqft house in San Jose, target price $3300; the property has many valuable amenities, so I'm probably pricing a bit low, I think.  I'm pondering questions to include on my pre-filter email.

However, the first three responses that I've gotten are all groups of people, rather than just a family.  One is "a family of 3 with my uncle is a small business owner,i'm a manager at a billard/coffee shop and my uncle's daughter(an international student)", the other two are "I am looking for a place to live for myself and two other friends. We are all Santa Clara University engineering grads with jobs in the Bay Area."

None of these sound like "one source of income"... not to mention (without having talked to any of them) none sound like "3 times monthly rent as income".  $3300 is one *hell* of alot of money to have to come up with every month!!  (I'm so grateful I bought my house long ago).

So, I'm wondering how to proceed... I *could* just disregard these messages and hope for better catches later... if I *do* go with them, How do I really measure income??  All of the college students will likely fail the "reliable job history" test.  As far as the income test, how do they or I measure "reliable income" ??

For now, I'm inclined to disregard these and hope for better catches later, but if I *don't* get such, I might have to fall back on such as this, and figure out how to evaluate the situation...

Okay, cool... 

so where is that shown???  or do I just need to submit an application and wait for the number to pop up somewhere??

Shouldn't the cost of doing a check on an prospective tenant, be listed *somewhere* on the SmartMove website??  I'm logged in as a landlord, but I can't find a number anywhere... 

Interestingly, even the 'Pricing and Payment FAQs', under the topic 'How much does SmartMove cost?' does not answer this question!!  

This is a dilemma that I'm facing now, as well... the tenants just moved out of my one rental property... when I was choosing rent last time (fall 2012, in San Jose, CA area), there were 12 comparable properties within a few miles that I could use for reference.  I pinned the rent at $2700/month, and never raised it while they were there because they were amazingly wonderful tenants.

Now, though, I'm trying to look around for comparable properties, and there are only 2 or 3 within several miles; with prices scattered as from a shotgun!!  Housing availability has been terrible for many months in this area.  

On the one hand, I *could* treat that as a "charge what I want" opportunity, but I'd rather charge a little low and hope that the tenants appreciate the bargain...

Please permit me to offer an opposing view, however... I live in Fremont, CA; not exactly a hotbed of crime, but we *have* had a spate of house break-ins during the day in various places around the city.  If a break-in occurs, and the homeowner got video that is relevant, the Fremont Police will actually post snap-shots on their Nixle emails, to give the public a chance to help with IDs.  Homeowner videos have been instrumental in leading to arrests in a number of recent cases, both in house break-ins and also with theft of delivered packages.

In fact, Fremont police have been holding meetings with community members to provide advice on selecting video monitoring equipment and locating them most effectively.  Furthermore, the homeowner can register their video equipment with the city; if a crime occurs in the area, they sometimes contact nearby video users to see if they got any relevant footage.  I can assure you that they are not doing this with an eye toward assisting drug dealers or other criminals!!  So I would be hesitant to jump to malign assumptions without further info to go on.

Yes, I would like that too; I've seen a couple of different examples here and there, but not sure what questions (other than income) really sound useful...

Thanks for good suggestions!!  

Last time I listed this house for rent, I tried several different avenues; craigslist, San Jose Mercury News, and another avenue that I don't remember.  The only one that returned any results was craigslist.  I didn't list the address, just general area (south of Santana Row).  When people responded, I gave them the address and appointments to come by, all on the same day.  The one thing I'm going to do differently this time, is pre-screen applicants before inviting them to view the house, as discussed in at least one article on this site; that sounds like a simple process.  And I'll renew my account at SmartMove, that was a really simple way to handle a final check of prospectives.

Hi all!  I spent a long time here three years ago, getting ready to rent out my first property, which is actually my father's house (he is in assisted living, and I have PoA and am successor trustee on his account).  Location is San Jose, CA.

After all of your excellent advices, I rented the house to a mature couple who were both still working, and it has been a heavenly experience!!  They were previous home-owners, so understood maintaining a house; in fact, when small things went wrong he usually just fixed them himself; if there were material costs they'd email me the bill and deduct it from rent (at the beginning, I was pre-approving all work, but quickly learned that they were very dependable and frugal people, and let them just this for small jobs).  Larger jobs (such as two bouts of termites) they'd notify me with a "no hurry" and I'd arrange the work.  Sadly, they are re-locating out of state; I'm very sad to lose them!!

Anyway, I'm wondering if there are any major changes in how things are done, that I need to be aware of??  I was running credit checks through an agency whose name I don't recall now; I think it was affiliated with biggerpockets.com ??  Does this sound familiar??

I'm inclined to also require tenants to have Internet accounts; is that reasonable??  It certainly is much easier to interact with tenants when they can just send an email to discuss issues, and can include pictures when needed.  All the prospectives that I was dealing with the last time, submitted their documents (application, etc) via email, but I don't recall if that was a requirement or just convenient.

Dan Miller

Fremont, CA

My thought on this (as a landlord of one house, still on my first tenants), is that I don't entirely see the purpose of a separate "pet deposit" on top of a regular deposit.  If I only required the normal deposit, and they left pet damage to the house when they moved out, I would repair that damage using the standard deposit, regardless of whether part of it was labeled "pets" or not... is this thought flawed??