All Forum Posts by: Ryan Johnson

You guys (Landlords) are too strict and mostly "uppity", here is what my pristine home looks like it's on the MLS [LINK REMOVED] So are you saying you wouldn't rent to someone that keeps a place in this condition??? Anyway...If I where in your shoes... landlords I would rent to someone that keeps a clean home over credit, if they sold a home short or foreclosed etc...If a guy makes 4-5 x's the rent and can prove it and has never missed a payment on anything in his life other than his home that he lost his tail on in boom times I would rather have a renter that would keep my place in perfect cond over a possible slob with a 780 credit score (Just saying) Anyway

looks like my house has an offer as of last week, just waiting for the slow as molasses bank to do it's thing. We ended up going the short sell route and have bought another place that should close by the end of Aug so I don't need a rental, but thanks to those that gave constructive criticism on the matter and didn't give me too much of a hard time on my financial situation. God bless :D

Steve- Again I see what you mean, but in all honestly if I were renting a place and the neighborhood turned out to be bad. I could sit out a year lease with no other obligation and find another.

When you are stuck with a mortgage and a home that may take 7-10 years to rebound if at all ever. You must do what you have to do if you can't sell the place.

Thanks Bill- I found this site on accident looking for info of short sale options and as a bonus I found all the info on renting. I lurked for awhile and was impressed with the level of good information and knowledgeable members. Again thanks. and thanks to everyone who provided their input whether constructive or criticism.

Todd- we have a male & female cat with claws. We are not fans of de-clawing a cat. If that cat accidentally escaped into the wild it would no longer be able to defend itself against predators. But yes both have been spayed and neutered. One poster mentioned that a cat scratched up their rental props wood rail or something to that tone. Cats will generally only scratch on fabric, I've never heard of a cat to scratch wood. I again I understand were you all are coming from, I was just mainly fact finding on why people are so strict on this subject.

Jeffery- I get it, in all fairness I'm not really a pet person but my wife is. If it were up to me I wouldn't have any. I'm luck that A) I've got an extremely awesome wife and B) The cats that we have (Two) are super clean, don't smell and have only destroyed their scratching post and not any furniture or the house.

I'm not justifying renting to pet owners, this is a first for me. I'm just curious why and thanks to the responses I see why. Prior to being married I didn't have animals so I didn't know cats spray walls and pee on the floor (Ours are fixed and don't do this) so I couldn't relate to the scenarios given.

Again like I mentioned before, we are in between renting & buying err.... my wife buying so we will probably avoid all this renting discrimination altogether. My wife is approved for a home loan, and we can come up with 20% cash because ewe have been good with our money and lived below our means outside of me making the stupid decision to by my house in '07 so we will see how that goes, but if we decide to rent at least I know what my angle of attack will be based off this info.

Richard- I see your point and agree... bad credit is bad credit. PNW specifically said he/she would deny a rental contract based solely on a foreclosure that's my problem.

If He/she would have put in the context of "Ryan unfortunately I could not rent to you simply due to your credit score which is probably going to be low in lieu of a foreclosure I would have thought otherwise.

I know people that have rented a place then walked away. So would you evict your tenant if they had 780 credit score the month they applied for a rental contract with you, but then you latter found out within 3-6 months their credit score is 580 and they walked away from their place. Is that person really going to be all of a sudden a "high risk" just saying.

Seriously I'm not really worried about it, we looked at several places, they've pulled my credit and said Mr. Johnson obviously you pay your bills, we are not going to hang a short sale or foreclosure over your head if you want to rent from us. "After all everyone is in this boat these days" I can't tell you how many property management companies have said this.

The only reason I posted this on this forum was because the places my wife and I have looked at and liked have all said absolutely no pets, we never brought up credit history or anything else.

Also Richard hardship does not just mean someone whom has lost their job or can't afford their home anymore etc.. Hardship can be speculation as well. When I purchased my home in 2007 my plan was to at least get into a home then get married and within five years move to an area with better schools and shopping.

Everyone was telling me in 2006 if I don't buy now I will be priced out of the market. I bought my house, put 30% down cash the rest on a single loan. And immediately the values in my area and the rest of the United stated plummeted, this is all rhetorical.

My point is I was not married at the time and didn't have kids. I'm am now married and we have a 16 month old. The area were my home is has the worst schools and our neighborhood has quite a bit of crime (My truck has been broken into twice) despite the area being a newer development. We are one of 4-5 families original that bought on our street between 2005-2008 when the homes were brand new everyone else has short sold or foreclosed about 20-25 homes +/-.

Our roughly 6-7 year old neighborhood looks like it's 20 years old with all the new rentals and 4-6 empty homes that are vacant.

I'm leaving my property because I don't feel it safe anymore, or that it will ever recover I apologize if this makes you mad or anyone else. There is no motivation to put any more money into my home in terms of upgrades like most people like to because I'm only losing more money from it than gaining any.

To live in these kind of conditions with a wife and toddler is a hardship when you fear for your life at night or wondering if all the tools will be stolen again from your truck that you use to work out of or come home to a house that has been broken into, this happened to my neighbor two months ago.

Say what you will about me and my situation but I'm doing what I have to because nobody else will, and it's the best thing for my "Family" above all. If I could sell my place I would but I can't I've tried. Renting it doesn't pencil because if I get a renter that destroys my home, I will have to put up $$$ that I don't have already to again repair a home that has no value. Just wasting more & more money.....

At this five minutes we are still attempting a second try of short selling the house, if it doesn't work again we are giving them the keys back.

PNW - your last statement is the most ridiculous thing I've heard yet. If we were a prospect tenant I would rather you come out and say you wouldn't rent to me because you don't like my hair color, or the way the planets are aligned etc..

But to deny someone because they are going through a foreclosure is absurd, and largely unethical. I would not want to wish bad karma on you or anyone else that feels similarly, but there might be a day when you cannot be so picky and strict on who you rent to.

Prior to being married I've rented no less than three different apartments, I've personally never had pets prior to my marriage but have always kept my place IMMACULATE and no different that if I owned the property myself. I've always had 100% of my deposit returned to me.

My credit has always been impeccable up until recently dealing with my current home that I am severely upside down in. I've paid ever car loan I've ever had (About 12-13) off free- and clear and never missed a payment or been late on any other bill ever. I probably bring in 8 or more times your measly rent (Just guessing) not even counting my wife's income Not that I would ever rent from you as you sound like the kind of person that only rents to 80+ year old ladies and sucks them dry when they move out because your place now smells like cheap perfume and has to be completely torn down to rid of the smells.

Sheesh.... what does a foreclosure have anything to do with someone renting from you.

In all seriousness you don't need to respond to this post, but something to think about.... in my area all of the "Old Renters" are now home buyers or home owners. The new rental market are people that have had to short sale or foreclose. You might want to open your mind a little before you run out of tenants. Just because someone has a foreclosure on their credit history doesn't mean they are bad people, or going to trash your place.

My wife and I are cross-shopping rentals and buying. Leaning more towards renting though. My question is this... We are very meticulous people. We have the nicest looking home on our street, greenest grass, tidiest yard. The inside of our place is pristine. My wife on the other hand loves her cats. In all seriousness our cats have never ripped, torn or damaged anything in our home. They like 99% of household cats use a litter box and have never had an accident outside of their litter box. They don't stink or smell and we've tested this with friends that don't like cats and are sensitive to smells.

Unfortunately we are walking away from our beautiful home because it is severely underwater. We would expect to keep a rental in the same pristine condition as our current home and wish to take a long term lease out 3-4 years.

The funny thing is we are having a hard time finding a "nice" place to rent that will allow us to bring our two cats. What gives....???? Honestly one toddler does more damage to a home than two cats. Why are renters so reluctant to rent to cats owners?

We found a nice home that we would love to rent today but the owner said they have turned numerous potential renters away because of their pets. They are holding out for someone with no pets. Seems like there are fewer people out there without pets.

We were even willing to let the owners see how we presently keep our current home as proof we would insist on maintaining their property in similar fashion but they were still strict.

I understand why someone would not want to rent to dog owners. Dogs eat wood fencing, the stucco siding on homes, chew up drip lines, dig holes, kill grass when they pee in the yard. Have accidents on rugs and carpeting. But Cats??? Cats are often more meticulous than humans.

Just venting but if anyone can help me figure out why landlords are so picky about cats maybe it will help me.

Thanks in advance.

The problem with the current home is... we live in a newer but abandoned and unfinished master planned community situated as an afterthought in a somewhat undesirable city. The School district has the lowest scores and least money. I fear for my wife shopping after 8:00 PM, someone is always asking us for money when we go to the store or buy gas. My truck has been broken into twice in front of my home and several homes have been broken into or had landscaping materials stolen. My neighbors home to my right was broken into while he was on vacation and they stole his Durango that was in the garage.

The bank owned homes on my street look terrible, and of the three 1/2 years we've lived here out of 30+ homes on our street subdivision we are one of 5-7 families that bought new when the prices were still high. Everyone else is now renting, or bought their home recently as a foreclosure or short sale. I don't think my home will ever be worth what I paid or even close, I worry more about the value recovering as lots of investors have bought these and made our community a huge rental community.

That said I'm sore on buying any home for now, some days I wake up and think why would I ever want to buy another home at all? Others I think well perhaps we will take our time and look and find something down the road that we can call our home.

Curt my credit isn't good anymore, while I was trying to SS my property the bank would not even talk to me until I was three months in the rear on payments. Ironically after three months of doing this to try and get somewhere with the bank by score dropped from 733 to 610 just from stopping payments for three months. I paid the balance in full while I waited to see what my next strategy would be, but now have decided to walk. I really want to end the sleepless nights thinking about my looses on the home, the phone calls from my lender, the sending paper work, bank statements and financials, the depression. I'm ready for this to be over.

I bought a home during the tail end of the bubble in Ca prior to getting married. The home is titled in my name only, I got married shortly after I bought the home in which I am $125K +/- underwater with.

When I bought the home originally, my intent was to get married, start our family and within 4-5 years buy something larger for our growing family in an area with better schools. At the time I could not afford to live in the area I wanted too, with the better schools, but could today.

I tried to sell my prop short this past winter and had two offers, two BPO's and thought all was good & done when the bank came back and didn't approve the SS stating it's not a hardship for me.

I've decided to let the property go unfortunately as the bank is unwilling to work with me. I cannot afford to rent my home as market value for rents on my sized home would have me throwing $600-$900/ month to cover the difference on the mortgage. Plus I am worried a renter might damage my home where I would have to spend big $$$ to repair while I still had no equity in the home loss/ loss situation.

My question is this, I know my previously pristine credit will sink like a rock thrown from a 10 story building, but realistically how hard would it be to buy a Home or rent a place by just using my wife's credit for the next 7-10 years while I re build my credit.

I was told I technically could have my wife purchase a home with 20% down. The downside is she make considerably less than I so that would effect what kind of home we shop for.

Any help greatly appreciated in advance.