Imagining it’s going to be a neglected rental with some bean counting company doesn’t make you feel the house you lived in for however many years and took care of will be left in good hands...It’s one thing if someone takes out the garden and plants a tree but if you installed and maintained fixture after fixture, kept that place nice and tidy, the last thing you want is to imagine a bunch of random people running around and letting things around you rot to ****.

Third, just because random "couple who are successful in RE" said to do ABC doesn't mean you have to deviate from your desired plan to do XYZ.

If it seems random to them they will think your trying to drive them out or discriminating.Let them know well in advance that you will be adjusting your rental rates.

Will sending a random text message do that? 

Plus, that way you would have a name and phone number for everyone who shows up, rather than just letting any random stranger or criminal to come traipsing through your property, casing the place or just adding more dirt.I have spoken LOL.  

Therefore, I completely disagree with you, that any landlord could get away with putting some random charge for attorney fees that never happened - into a lease as a liquidated damages clause that could ever get enforced - even if they did live in some mystery pod where liquidated damages clauses were allowed.

So, our move-outs were pretty random and spaced out.I guess the main thing to do is try to find tenants who normally stay where they move for at least several years.  

I always wondered who those people were who just randomly set in on court hearings.Surely, you then told the landlord sister you were the answer to all her problems, and scored the property at a bargain basement price, right?

@Yvette May There is no way as a property manager or owner I would ever give some random landlord who calls me my tenants lease copy.  

And a random piece of advice... find your local tenant/landlord court and spend a morning watching.