All Forum Posts by: Mark Eldridge

Thank you both for your responses! Going forward, there have been a lot of fine tuning to my strategies and a lot of great information on here. Unfortunately I’m not sure the best approach come Mat 1st if the no show. The Security deposit I would hold onto until the inevitably reach out asking for it. But as far as starting the process over, I’m not so sure that’s completely legal to start looking for new prospects if they’ve been radio silent and haven’t paid first months rent. Although a contract was signed..

Hey Everyone,

This is a new one for me and I’m not quite sure what the best way to go about it is. My current tenants gave me their notice to vacate and I started the process of finding tenants for when they move out. I found my potential tenants that every seemed great and checked out. We signed the lease and they handed over their security deposit back in late March for a May 1st start date. I have been trying to get a hold of them via cellphone and email the last two weeks leading up to the start of the lease date and have not made any contact regarding meeting to hand over the keys and collect first months rent and ensuring that the electricity had been changed into their name. 

Has anyone had this happen where the contract was signed and the deposit was held but they didn’t move in? Do you still have to go through an eviction process since they have not gotten the keys or moved in? I would imagine they will reach out within the next day or two, but want to be prepared if may 1st comes and there’s still no contact.  Anyone’s thoughts or experiences would be very helpful  

Thanks,
Mark

Hey everyone at BP,

A little background about me is that I have owned/ managed 7 units for the past 5 years and had been pretty good at doing my own DD and selecting ideal tenants and haven’t had any issues. This past year with the Pandemic going on, I filled one of the units with a tenant that looked ideal on paper and all previous landlords had nothing but good things to say about them. This person clearly loved to play the system and long story short after about 4-5 months he did not turn out to be the ideal tenant I was looking for and am going through my first (unfortunately pretty inevitable) eviction process. 

I wanted to post because I’d like to find out what has work best and most efficient for people during their prescreening and screening process and just get some real world personal advice. I have read a lot of the posts already seen things on here that show the flow chart, old posts from years back and am just finishing up the book “Managing rental properties” by Brandon and Heather Turner. 

Previously what I had done was I would  post the ad with my criteria and standards for qualifying, showed the units in 20-30 minute intervals on same day to condense time spent going over and showing it, called references and made sure they had a verified job/ income. And asked if they would allow a background check but truthfully never did one as most people would run or not allow and that would be the red flag. I realize that I need to get a better system in place now to minimize the amount of time showing the apartment to bad candidates as well as no shows and really zone in digging deeper on potential tenants by doing credit/background checks.  

I’m looking to see what works best for people from the moment they post it (Facebook, Zillow, Craigslist, ect.) to screening, approving/ denying them with a denial letter to help me along my journey.

Any and all information is greatly appreciated and thank you for taking the time to read my situation.