All Forum Posts by: Vicki M.

I had rentals for years and my strategy was to always try to be what prospective tenants saw as a "good deal". I wanted to be on the lower end of the range: here is why. You want to be in the driver's seat when it comes to choosing a tenant. Lots of people competing for your property means you get to pick the most qualified people. A bad tenant- one that doesn't pay on time, causes damages, moves after a short time for a better deal- will cost you way more than the extra $50-100 per month you hope to get by holding out for the higher rent. When you do finally get someone who will rent for $1200, you may only have one taker. So you have to make concessions: taking the three large dogs, reducing the damage deposit because they don't have enough to move in, getting the people that were turned away by the more experienced landlords who have already developed the 6th sense you have still yet to develop.
One more reason- once people are living comfortably in a house, they are often reluctant to move and you can slowly raise the rent each year to where you wanted it. I vote to drop it $75.

Good story! I'm sure after the 2008-2010 "recession that was more like a depression" there are many out there who got hit hard and are wondering how to pick up the pieces again.

Look at it from the point of view of the tenant. They don't want to move so anything they can do to drag out the process, the better for them. It delays the inevitable; they might even be able to squash the whole deal (from their point of view). Is there some incentive you can offer the tenants to cooperate? I had some difficult tenants once that I wanted to just get out of a rental fast. I offered to give them their full deposit back so they had the money to move, even though there were some damages. But it was cheaper than going to court. If you offer them $200 to allow you to come in and inspect the place, they just might take it. It could save you $20,000!!