All Forum Posts by: Tyler Ansell

I'm a student property manager for 570 students. Let me know if you have any questions. 

First thing to double check, that 5 un related people can occupy the same place. That could be a killer. If that's ok, then you need to find out if they're renting individual bedrooms or the place as a whole. That will direct alot of your future decisions with regards to the students.

We wait until about a month before move-in to start trying to get the deposit or other funds from the tenant. They can pay it early but won't be able to move-in without it.

1) YES! We signed our first lease this year on September 14th, 2016 for move-in date August 19th, 2017. 

2) As soon as you can get lined up with tenants on the school schedule you'll be rocking! I agree with @Kelly N. though, any student looking right now is likely to be a pain. Think about it, if they're supposed to be in school since August/September why are they just now looking for a place? In my experience it usually boils down to either issues with their current housing (which means they'll be a joy to have at yours), they are being evicted or face other financial trouble. Note that if this is the case and you lease them before their eviction processes it won't show on the BG reports. Call all landlord references! Or they might just be looking for a change...we just got one of the most pleasant, awesome tenants a few weeks ago who was just looking to be closer to campus.

Be very careful, you cannot discriminate against a handicapped or the perception of such. If she is a qualified applicant then she's a qualified applicant.

The ADA stuff if she requests it, can usually fall under a reasonable accomodation and you would need to comply with her requests ie grab bar, roll up ramp etc.

Are you going to rent the duplex out by the room? If not, I would put them all occupants on one lease. Treat it like a normal conventional lease, can they qualify with credit/rental history/income etc. If you're not renting by the room then it's not a student property in my opinion. @Henry P.

We send an unauthorized occupant notice if we get wind of anything fishy. Usually that generates an immediate phone call and you can discuss options for adding to lease or that they need to quit.

Our PMS doesn't allow anything but full payment online, we use RentManager. But you're correct, a partial payment can really mess up your eviction process.

IMO a pet agreement update would be plenty. @David Scharler

We charge: 

$300 non-refundable pet fee

$100 refundable pet documents fee (taken off account when tenant complies with all documents we require)

If we find the pet in the unit and it's not registered we charge a $100 pet fine (non-refundable) and go ahead and tack on the other 2 fees above in case they want to keep the animal.

We don't do pet rent, but some of our comps do between $20-40 per month.

When did this issue arise? If they're students they might be starting to fabricate this up with expectation of graduating in December and wanting to leave town. Usually around this time and again in May when they get ready for summer all these weird odd ball issues come up with people trying to get out of their lease. For example, yesterday we got a message from a tenant that wants to be let out because her roommates cooking smells bad and is making her sick.....5 months after living together....

It's called Bedlam Plus. Active ingredients: 3-phenoxylbenzyl, 2-dimethyl.

You can buy online at doyourownpestcontrol.com

@Matt Kowske