I have a condo that I rent out, and it’s time to choose new tenants. Because apparently I can’t properly determine comparable rentals, I priced it about 5% too low, which doesn’t sound like much, but has brought in a flood of applicants.
I’ll sort through them all this weekend and eliminate any that don’t qualify. I expect they will all qualify.
So how to pick who I make an offer to?
At the moment I’m thinking of doing it randomly. An R script or assign a D100 value to each?
Please no suggestions that violate the fair housing act, but otherwise any advice?
So far nobody has asked, “will paying more increase my chances?” (Yes!)
well, one way to weed people out is to add a “cleaning/repair” deposit …then see whos left and if you like someone you could just say the I just wanted to see whos serious …
Even that could get you in trouble in California. You can forbid smoking on the premises, but you can’t refuse to rent to someone because they smoke.
California has a non-discrimination law, the Unruh Act that is substantially identical to the similar Federal law. But the California courts have ruled that the law covers identifiable groups beyond just those listed on its face. For example, it was held to protect gays and lesbians even before the law was amended to include those classes explicitly. It is possible that it could be held to protect smokers likewise.
Yeah, don’t ask me. I’m a terrible judge. The last one I rented to completely trashed our cute little rental house. For some silly reason, I thought that the very well paid general manager of a fast food place would be a good option.
I do hope you get a good tenant. I personally got a thank you card from the landlord of the last place I rented, thanking me for being so clean and neat.
“I’ve brought you all together because each of you has expressed an interest in renting my property. But there can be only one. I’m certain you good folk will reason this out without excessive violence or bloodshed. I’ll be at my home address later this evening. Good day.”
Why would looking at their social media violate the Fair Housing Act? I was thinking more about looking at their pictures to see if they are messy, party a lot, have pets, and so on that may be problematic for a landlord. I would think the protected categories of the FHA would be things that landlords would notice about the tenants notice during the condo viewing anyway.
Here, for instance, is a post on the National Association of Realtors site about how those “love letters” prospective homebuyers were sending to the owners of houses they wanted to buy might include personal details (religion, family status, etc.) that might consciously or unconsciously influence the decision.
Yeah, how would the government even know you used the tenants’ social media to weigh your decision? I seriously doubt they have the manpower to sift through all those pictures and posts just to prove you have a systematic bias, made harder by the fact that it’s only one tenant that echoreply is renting to so far.
And if they do call you out on it, you could just claim that you drew straws to decide between a pool of equally qualified applicants.
The whole building is non-smoking, which I mention in the ad. People don’t read ads for comprehension though: “The entire complex does not allow dogs,” “is there a yard to walk my dog nearby?”
It is a top floor unit, so people can get away with smoking on the balcony without stinking up other units. I don’t approve, but I’m not there all the time, and unless I get a complaint or the inside stinks, I’m not going to do anything about it.
My wife doesn’t want me to rent to Nazis, and I’m concerned that if I exclude somebody because of their “14/88” tattoo I’ll violate some law.
The way I’m dealing with it is telling people masks are required for tours, regardless of vaccination status. Hey, I’m just the landlord, the current tenants are there for another month. I wouldn’t want lots of strangers coughing and sneezing their way through my home.
Maybe I am biased. I’ve never rented to an African American. None have applied, though. Not much I can do about Boulder being Whitey McWhitesville. I’ve had gay people look at it, but none apply (that I’m aware of). I did rent to a pregnant woman, though, and that’s a protected class.
Joking aside, these kinds of things are incredibly difficult to prove. Unless I have lots of apartments I rent to lots of people it is going to be impossible to statistically show some kind of bias. If I only have to pass over one or two undesirables every few years, it will be easy to find other, legitimate reasons. “I don’t want to deal with co-signers,” “her credit score is too low,” etc.
That system can be very problematic because it allows bias to perpetuate systemic problems. That is another thing I talked about, does “affirmative action” type decisions on my part violate fair housing laws? If I have several applicants who are otherwise equivalent, can I decide to offer first to the African American specifically because that person is African American and I want to put a dent in Boulder’s Whitey McWhitesville environment?
I second the suggestion for references, and checking them rigorously. If someone can’t supply references to a place they have rented before, where you can find out what kind of tenants they were, I would rule them out from the start.
