All Forum Posts by: Dave Chow

Quote from @Richard F.:

Quote from @Dave Chow:

We are having a duplex to rent received an application group.

I would like to know if we should accept this application group.

Husband: credit score 650, income $5000/MO, 

Wife: credit score 600, income $3800/MO,

Husband's Mom: credit score 570, income 0(retired). But has ONE eviction history. 

Son: 12 years old. 

All of them have criminal -free background. 

One big concern is that the Mom had an eviction about 9 years ago.

Should we accept this?

Aloha,

There are a number of issues that need further evaluation:

1) Income. What exactly is this from? If they are "working from home" what does this entail? INCOME does not equal Spendable Cash. For example, if they are selling goods online, and receiving 9K in "payments", they still must have a significant "cost of goods" sold, like any business...raw materials or products they are adding value to or simply repackaging. Their spendable cash will be a fraction of the income. They can show deposits on their bank statement to "prove" the income, but you need to dig deeper to see what they are selling/doing, and what is the cost for them to do so. They should provide complete tax returns, prepared by legit third party for the past year or two. These will show you their true income.

2) Husband and Wife's credit scores. Not great...I NEVER pass judgment based on the "Score" alone. I pull the full Credit report to see what every account is, history, age of account, type of account, balance (or past due balance), current and prior addresses and employment, and more. The score alone is nearly meaningless, as I have had high scoring Tenants that trashed a place and stopped paying rent; I have also had low scoring tenants that were fantastic. You need to see what goes into making that score. ALSO, for "Mom", Nothing unusual here, IF the Husband and Wife ACTUALLY have verifiable income and other issues checked out ok, they will be the primary parties and are likely helping out an elderly parent that perhaps lost a husband to divorce or death and is not able to support herself at this stage of life. I would be cautious to ensure they will ALL be moving in...you do not want to end up with them just helping to get Mom into a place alone. Do they OWN a home? If not, why not?

3) A nine year old eviction ALONE would have little effect on an approve/deny decision, especially with QUALIFIED co-applicants. People make mistakes, and life happens. What I am looking for is a PATTERN of mistakes, poor decisions, and irresponsible behavior, in all areas...financial, employment, legal, character.

Study the details, ask the "why's", see if all of the provided and verified info "fits" together and makes sense.

Lastly, here is a little more insight to your credit scores:

There would be no income issue.

Have the husband/wife sign the lease as the lessee , while the mother just as residence on the lease. Would that be a bit better and reduce the risk, compared to all as lessee?

We are having a duplex to rent received an application group.

I would like to know if we should accept this application group.

Husband: credit score 650, income $5000/MO, 

Wife: credit score 600, income $3800/MO,

Husband's Mom: credit score 570, income 0(retired). But has ONE eviction history. 

Son: 12 years old. 

All of them have criminal -free background. 

One big concern is that the Mom had an eviction about 9 years ago.

Should we accept this?

I used for several years. Hated it!!

They got some leads with good tenants. But Zillow rental app really works the worst. They do not have any customer serice support. The app is not friendly at all with all kinds of issues. When you have issues then you get stuck without getting any help until 1 week or 2 or 3 weeks later someone suddenly shoot you an email. Wish Zillow gets shutdown soon so a good and friendly rental app replacement will dominate the market. This is the feedback for the rental listing app.  BTW, never use their online rental payment and management tool. They will mess up more. 

$215 k has only $1100 /month rent? It reminds me of the 1% rule.

We used shelter and gave a competitive rate. It seems it all depends on the properties and locations. 

We look for some insurance brokers and they shop for us.  How much do you pay per unit? 

Had once with bad luck.  Tried to use them to fix something at a rental. They even denied fixing after paid fees just for diagnosis.  Will never buy them again. Search posts here and you will find that lots of experiences in rentals show they are a waste time and money. 

Recently one of our tenant's payments has been disputed via Cozy. It has been late for 13 days.

The tenant denied that they ever had disputed and refused to pay the late fees $250. But they stated to make the payment $1000 online on the 13th. So we did not receive the rent until The 20th. 

This tenant has been late for almost 10 times. Most time they made the full amount Including late fees. But everything  is well documented. They are inherited tenants so not sure exactly how they got screened. 

My questions are :

1)is it worth starting eviction process ? 

2) They never show renter insurance that is required by the lease agreement. Are those lease violations including 10 times late rent payment and no renter insurance good enough for eviction?  

Thank you 

We have lease terms specifying that all washer and dryer are provided and working before tenants move in. However if something is wrong during their residence they would be responsible for fixing them. Having washer and dryer set in properties could help get qualified tenants and better  rent and avoid damaging properties due to tenants bring in and out their own washer/dryer.