All Forum Posts by: Kelly N.

I've had one of these tenants for four years now. They paid on time for the first two years and have been less consistent the past two years but they always pay within the month. They're on a month-to-month lease at this point. It's your call, really. Personally, I'd probably let the rest of the lease play out and would not renew. What's the method of payment? Does he have an option to pay online? 

Sounds like a good plan to me. We recently dealt with a divorce situation in one of our properties, but they were already on a month-to-month lease. The wife wanted to stay and her income alone is just shy of 3x the rent amount. We executed a new month-to-month lease with just her name on it. 

I'd feel bad about taking the money too, but that's between the two of them. They signed a one-year lease on the property and they're both equally responsible for it.

For our own home, we had an issue with a newly installed heat pump. It was great the first summer and over the winter, but wouldn't cool the second summer. They added freon and a dye pack so that they'll be able to see if there's a leak. It's been fine since. It seems odd to me that a brand new unit would need freon.

We use a property management company for a 3br, 2 ba single family home. They charge 10% of rent each month along with a half a month's rent as a "finder's fee" for screening and finding a new tenant. For an annual lease at market rent, this would amount to $2720 per year. I'd suggest shopping around to see what companies would charge for full service and compare that to just the finder's fee.

I'm currently onboarding my first property. We've had a lot of interest and I'm using TurboTenant to screen applicants before showing the property (after making the mistake of showing it to one person who fell in love with it but was not close to qualified to rent it). It's taking a decent amount of time to respond to all of the inquiries, but a lot of them have dropped out after I send them the pre-screener. 

A solid lease is certainly important but you can probably use a standard lease agreement and pay an attorney less than $2000 to review it. If it were me, I'd either manage the process entirely myself at that price or pay for full management.

We're using TurboTenant based on recommendations we've seen here on BiggerPockets. There's a basic pre-screener that requests the number of people living in the unit, gross monthly income, credit score range, number of pets, and whether they smoke indoors/outdoors/not at all.

I'm working on my pet policy now, and I'm planning to request a veterinarian and prior landlord reference from all dog owners and a meet-and-greet with the dog. 

My understanding is that if someone has a service animal or emotional support animal, I'm required to allow it in my state unless that specific animal might pose a threat to others. Someone please correct me if that's wrong. I'd rather get a well qualified tenant in the house with a dog that I can do a background check on than have a tenant move in and then produce a physician's letter and a dog that I didn't have the chance to screen.

 I'm working on this as well. I'm not putting them in the listings, but am noting that a background and credit check will be required. I have a pre-screener set up, so when they inquire about the property I'm sending that to them to complete before I'll set up a showing. So far, only a few have actually taken the time to complete the pre-screener. I'm assuming the rest of them know they won't qualify.

All good advice, thank you! I know it's wishful thinking on her part to think that she can afford this property. I set up a list of rental guidelines that I'll just refer back to, and I've started sending a pre-screener to individuals who are asking to view the house. If needed, I'll pay a PM to do the screenings and lease and then will manage it from there. 

We've always used a property management company for our other rental, but we recently purchased a second rental home close to ours and I thought we'd save some money by managing it ourselves. Now I know what I was paying them for! Our first applicant gave us a sob story and I made a rookie mistake by allowing her to view the property before doing an application screening. She assured me she had enough income for the rental, but it turns out she was counting child support that doesn't exist yet (she says she needs to get out of her current living arrangement before filing for divorce) and SNAP funds from an application that's in process. 

I know I wouldn't be doing her any favors by leasing to her when she can't afford it. Does it get easier to say no? Or should I just count on sleepless nights due to guilt over not being willing to give people a chance?

 Which did you end up going with, and how is it holding up? I'm agonizing over what to buy for our rental. We have LVP in our house and it's holding up great, but I don't want to spend quite as much on the flooring for the rental.