All Forum Posts by: Kimberly H.

Real estate agent wants to schedule a showing for a 3 bed 2 bath raised ranch single family home that rents for $1600/month. I send back a prescreening questionnaire asking about credit/income/# occupants/pets because the home is tenant occupied with great tenants and I don't want to drive them nuts with showings by people who have no prayer of qualifying.

Agent responds,"she currently lives at her parents house. She is a student and has never rented ...  Her credit is below 600... no pets, She would be the only occupant"

I take a look at the attachments, the person has grossed $2,200 YEAR TO DATE and has a score of 520.

I wanted to write back and ask if she was serious and why was she wasting my time with this, and why would one person with such poor qualifications be trying to rent that much space to live alone, as if no red flags there! But because agents around here start yelling "discrimination" if you piss them off, I bit my tongue and politely responded...

@Thomas S. have you seen the movie Idiocracy?  What you described is what happens in the movie. Cult hit in Mensa circles.

Dont be surprising when the credit is bad and he blames it on his x-wife or divorce. Stick by your criteria.

Anyone trying to argue with you on your lease terms I would pass on. That being said, I have never heard of a non refundable amount charged being that high.

Mandy- if Cozy emails them a letter that meets that FTC requirement you don't need to do anything else, I don't use Cozy so check with them. Obviously you need to do what is required in Federal law.

To Thomas's point, I am not aware of any Illinois regulation that covers this. I would not describe Illinois as landlord friendly, it's not, but there isn't as much landlord-tenant related covered by state law as there are in some other states like California and some states out east, and parts of Canada.

If this is your unincorporated McHenry property, unless something changed that county has no rules on rentals either that I am aware of.

You may want to consult with a landlord tenant lawyer in our area for an hour and learn what you need to do for our area. I don't advise coming to a national forum here for questions that depend on what state, county, and city you are in.

@Mark F. I felt bad for the wife and daughter, actually they have two daughters, the one who won't be living with them was there also trying to deal with her dad, she was getting so frustrated with him and apologized for his behavior after he stormed off. The family and the agent followed him outside and were all trying to convince him to move forward. They came back in and told me it wasn't happening and I was ok with that. It's like the guys a tryant to deal with to his own family. Next!! 

@Kim Meredith Hampton I had called the family's real estate agent the morning of lease signing, who is also a landlord of 3-4 properties, and told her that if they were planning to change the lease terms during lease signing (she kept asking me for a copy of the lease which I finally sent) that we should just cancel now instead of wasting everyone's time because I wasn't changing any terms and told her I didn't need a PITA tenant. I think she was being hopeful, told me the wife and daughter had him under control. One of the things he tried to get me to do during the lease signing was to extend the 2 year lease by another year, and when that didn't work, put in writing that a lease renewal would be no more than 1% when the 2 year lease expired. Family has no clue that the jack-up in rent from his current landlord is due to his behavior.  He was very much reminding me of my late grandfather, or my current FIL, when they start waving there arms and complaining, thinking the things should work the way he thinks and anything else is wrong.

@Shaun Patterson Yeah, he should buy his own home, I believe he could totally qualify to own a home, but he admitted to not being handy at all, and so I think he is scared to own a home and have to deal with maintenance.  

Just had a father (in his early 60's) of a family grab his security deposit check back out of my folder in front of me and storm out of a lease signing. Buh-bye PITA!! He kept wanting me to change lease terms and I wouldn't. First red flag of his PITA-ness:current landlord offered renewal on his two bedroom apartment at a $300/month aka 25% increase. Sounds like PITA-tax to me!!

@Lindsay B. wow, good to know! Is the home located in the San Fran bay area?? We don't use Rently but when I researched it  I thought they had some kind of insurance coverage of like 2k or 3k. If your PM didn't get your approval to use a system like this, they should be on the hook for the money you're out.

In addition to above, Mold addendum. Normal wear versus damages addendum. Price list addendum with estimates of what charges will be, CO and Smoke detector addendum, pests addendum. We update this or lease based on experience. Clear instructions in lease timing for security deposit return and what it is subject to.