All Forum Posts by: Kimberly H.

@Johann Jells In my area the city rental licenses set occupancy limits in a very similar way, a 70-99 sq ft bedroom is only for 1 person. We ask how many occupants, if it exceeds it the limit it's a no go. I have had people get angry a couple times and we just refer them to the city.  Your place in my cities would only be rentable to 2 people. I actually don't mind it now, less wear and tear on the homes so we use that criteria for all our rentals.

So this just in, just got contacted by a real estate agent for the current crazy person, she didn't have a real estate agent when she applied, was a self-showing. Agent's saying she doesn't know why she was rejected (total BS, she does), can she get in with a guarantor, etc. Now she is wasting some poor agents time.

Wondering if anyone else runs into this where people refused for showings or had applications rejected keep attempting to get a showing/ get the home rented??

We are not renting the Taj Mahal for $1/month here, are not the only game in town by a long shot, and we are not illegally discriminating.

The one going on right now initially called saying her credit was messed up due to divorce…sounded like her score was right at our threshold ... Found an address for a rental on her credit report that she skipped on her application. Asked her about the address twice, she evaded answering, she had also exaggerated her income by $10,000, no previous landlord to contact, current landlord selling... Rejected application. Now she is calling/texting/emailing every contact for us, now saying her 80yr old dad (she is mid 40’s) can cosign and emailing his credit report, drivers license, trying to set up two half hour showings to see the home again tonight…

Last time was a felon (for several things like weapons and bodily harm) who for MONTHS was trying to see a house we were attempting to get rented during a Chicago winter. Leaving notes at the house, trying to set up showings under the girlfriends name …they finally after months of this had an agent show it to them, which I only know because they posted pictures on FB saying, “Our new home” and another applicant who happened to be FB friends saw the pictures and was all upset about it and contacted us! Fortunately it all ended because we got it rented right after that.

I don’t tell people to get lost for fear they will take out their crazy on me or the house. You would think they would just get tired of being ignored and move on!!

@Jay Dean, did they say how the mold started in the first place? I just got a call from a tenant yesterday complaining that the air coming out of vents has a mold smell, making his clothes and dog smell like mold. It's got a brand new furnace and A/C and it did take us a year to rehab and we, no any of the billion showings or contractors ever smelled anything and are mystified by what could be going on.

@Redgy Saint-Germain It seems like you really only want to work with this agent. If that's the case, work out a buyers agency contract with him with a guaranteed minimum commission to him as your agent, either per property or some time persiod. If $500 isn't enough for him, find out what is, and have a buyers agency contract where you will cover the difference if the coop commision in MLS is to low. Problem solved. If he's not worth it, find another agent or agents in the areas you are looking in.

@Soh Tanaka We don't to it every year. Just when we close on the home and every few years after that. But we will check to make sure furnace filters are being changed at least every 6 months because tenants are told to do it and they don't.

You need to be careful who you hire, I hired a company doing a furnace check with a Groupon and they tried to tell me that a rental furnace needed some fix, that the furnace hadn't been working (I told him we just closed on the property), and that it wouldn't work next winter. When I asked the guy what exactly was broken he couldn't explain it to me in way that made sense; I have an engineering background so if someone can't tell or show me a problem I know it's B.S.  Plus we bought the property short sale and had been in the property multiple times in the year and a half it took the short sale to close and observed the furnace working just fine.  That was three winters ago and the furnace has been working just fine.

Our air conditioning died in our personal home this year. I asked the guy who replaced it, who keeps trying to sell his 2x a year maintenance plan, how maintenance could have caught this, all he could say was that I could have gotten 15% off a freon charge if we were under the maintenance plan. Since they are taxing the old freon to death 15% wouldn't have changed the math much, we ended up replacing the air conditioner caused by a leak at the A-coil.

@Thomas S. Thanks for understanding that because it's a lawyer I am trying to tread lightly.

@David Willett Did you ask him what it was worth to him? Could be a new revenue stream, sending letters to do the break-ups for tenants [of course I am kidding].

@Justin Fox I know that. That's not my question.

If there wasn't a lawyer on the other end of this I would have no issue.