Those are all good ideas. Based on the difference in monthly rental between my place and the fully furnished short term rental next door, one of my long term thoughts is to furnish the place and move to weekly and monthly leases, and adding a maid service to a short term rental seems particularly attractive.
Fortunately the interest rate I’m required to pay is 0.35%. I might not be making that on the account I keep the security deposit in, but I can soak the $8/year.
I do have a steam cleaner (well, my in-laws do) and a shop vac, and it is very important to not let spills sit on the laminate floor.
As a landlord, I never do credit checks. What I do is ask a potential tenant to see canceled rent checks for the previous year or so. There is a pretty bright line between those people who say, “No problem, let me get that for you,” and those who say, “Uh… I’ve been paying cash” or “I’m living in my brother-in-law’s basement.” And I also find – speaking of checks – that the simple fact of having a checking account indicates a higher order of tenant. (Yes, I do rent out apartments in the low-rent district… why do you ask?)
I find as a practical matter that you can’t really enforce a no-smoking policy, so I don’t bother to try. Pets, it’s situational. In a perfect world, you wouldn’t allow pets, but that does shrink the potential tenant pool somewhat.
Had the exact same issue with a past landlord who wasn’t just slow about it but actively tried to steal my deposit. I’m in California which has a very similar law about returning the deposit. It took over a year of back and forth small claims battling: her lying about not getting summons, saying she was moving out of state, appealing the verdict in my favor, etc. for me to get my deposit back. And even though the judge did award punitive damages in my case (which they are very rarely willing to do even if the statute allows for it), I wasn’t able to collect a penny above my deposit amount, since she just wasn’t willing to pay it. And I wasn’t willing to chase her for several years more trying to collect so I just took the check for the initial deposit amount so I could be done with the damn thing.
“A simple filing at a small claims court”, indeed.
You won’t be liable for damages to their personal property regardless of whether they renter’s insurance. Or if you are liable, the renter’s policy won’t abrogate your liability. I assume maybe lindsaybluth means that if you know they have coverage they won’t bother trying to recover from you.
A different insurance tip - require in the lease that your renter maintain insurance at all times and that you be an additional named insured on the policy. Their insurer will mail you a cert and if the policy lapses they’ll notify you. If your tenants cause damage to your property in excess of the security deposit you may be able to file a claim on their policy.
On a human level, be prepared to be lied to in a way you are hopefully not used to. My tenants have had more mothers-in-law or step-moms die than everybody else I know combined.
On a “business” level it’s easy to see through.. Really, your mother-in-law died and you were so distraught you couldn’t mail the rent check, call me, or return my several messages in 10 days? That’s a common reaction for a 50 year old man…
But on a human level it just bothers me that people I have interacted with periodically for years lie about things like a death in the family rather than making a partial payment or just admitting they’re going to be late.
It’s not that big a deal, but it’s something that you don’t experience when investing in gold or pork bellies.
Good point, and when you advertise on Craigslist, you get more than your share of liars, not all of them Nigerian. “Oh, I’d love to come see the apartment… Tomorrow at 3:00? Perfect, I’ll see you there then.” Not.
Here’s another piece of advice: Never let tenants paint. In fact, spell out in the lease that they’re not allowed to. It’s the rare tenant who can paint competently.
One thing we learned is to take a picture of every wall ,thing etc. make 2 copies and have the tenents sign, and sign your self, so if they move and destroy anything you have proof., that protects you both. We had a tenent who wrecked every thing they could when they moved. Also, make them pay the first month and last ahead of time, and have a clause that they pay for any thing they destroy.Also, i learned from some one else, don’t take their old landlord’s word, go to their residence where they are now living and see how they keep things up, some landlords are happy to be rid of them, and will give a good reference so they will be rid of them.
No offense, but you come across as kind of a dick already. I get what you are saying, but I think if you communicate this way to a prospective renter you are setting yourself up for and adversarial relationship. Having rented from loads of places and had problems with many, I suggest the following:
Be up front in your paperwork as much as legally possible. Be clear and simple. Have a sheet which they sign showing that they understand that enforcing things like HOA regs and neighbor’s noise is not your problem. If the HOA will NOT talk to them because they are renters, then that IS your problem, and I suggest you allow them to simply e-mail you about it. You can just forward the complaint and CC them on any reply. Thus you are good landlord and they won’t call you often.
Be honest about the appliances and leave them a note about it. You can just leave all this in a welcome packet, and avoid misunderstandings. I don’t know about your finances, but I’d just drop the grand and install two new, but cheap units and be done with it. We have scratch and ding stores here in Florida that do nothing but this kind of thing and you can get nice units dirt cheap.
Be reasonable about normal wear and tear. Holes from paintings are normal. Holes from punching the wall are not obviously. A renter who knows that you are willing to be reasonable about them making the place their home will likely be far more careful. I also strongly recommend taking a critical inventory of the property and fixing any issues that you see before renting it out. Have a condition sign in sheet, and check it at inspection time.
Unless the HOA has rules about visitors, it’s none of your business if the renter has their significant other, or visitors over. Any problems they cause are the responsibility of the renter. If you are concerned about people subletting, or sharing, then put language to that effect in the lease or the additional rules papers. Those types of rules are usually for someone renting out a room in a home, not a private condo.
If you’ve painted, then be a smart landlord and leave them tins of the colors in the utility closet. Ask them to touch up any chips or scratches or do it yourself if you can’t trust them.
Otherwise, just make yourself available with a good phone number, e-mail that you check, or other communication system. Our current landlord does all these things and he is hand’s down the best one we’ve ever had. We are more than willing to go above and beyond for him when necessary because we know he’ll take care of things. When the AC broke over thanksgiving, he had a new unit installed the next day. THAT sort of thing really motivates us to take that extra care with the property and our dealings with him. There isn’t any reason you can’t have an amicable business relationship with your renters. If you choose well that won’t be a problem.
From what I understand, it is illegal for a landlord to enter the property without prior written 24 hour notice, unless it’s an emergency. You own the building but the apartment is my home. If you wanted 24 hour instant access, don’t rent it out.
And Bosda’s idea about picking up the rent in person, inside my apartment, would make me skip over that property entirely. I bartend and don’t often get to sleep til six or seven in the morning; I may sleep til 3 or 4 in the afternoon. And even if I’m awake, I certainly don’t want to let someone in my apartment once a month, on a mandatory basis, even if it’s just my landlord. At one apartment complex i lived at, I taped my rent check to the front door for my landlord to pick up on the first; according to our rental agreement, I had til the third to pay it without penalty.
But he would show up at eight o’clock in the morning on the first and knock on my door (and my BEDROOM WINDOW!) til I got up to give him his check. He knew what I did for a living. He was just, in his words, “saving time.” I explained my issue with this practice and he didn’t care.
So I stopped writing the check on the first and stopped answering my door. I would tape it to the door around three o’clock in the afternoon on the third. (He had no mailing address for me to send the check to; he had several properties and he picked up all the rents personally.)
Funny…after I inconvenienced him as much as he did me, he stopped with the knocking at eight a.m. on the first and would swing by in the afternoons after calling me first.
Wow. That…sucks. My landlord is not that much of a deadbeat; it’s kind of hard to be when you walk your mom’s Pomeranian around the neighborhood for her. He’s just lazy and he got worse in 2009 when he started buying up dilapidated foreclosures because of the recession. So instead of devoting his time to his original places, he went off and repaired these shitholes instead. Did you end up getting your original deposit back or double? I wouldn’t pursue it just for the original (it’s 650) but because it’s double, I figured why not. Also, if I don’t get a penny, I have nothing to be sorry for - it’s about 150 bucks below market rate per month because he’s an idiot.
First of all, let’s not get tangled up calling things “illegal” when they’re not. Also, it’s not actually “not allowed” in a lot of places. Thirdly, it’s not as though these ruling/tenant acts carry stiff penalties; nobody is going to jail or even paying hefty fines for entering a premises without 24 hour notice.
However, as mentioned above, providing tenants’ plenty of time will make things a helluva lot smoother. I, as a renter, informed my landlord of what exactly he was violating and he backed off.
Acid Lamp, I can’t imagine holes for paintings being normal. To me, that reads as “$50 a hole” unless you’re spackling and repainting the area yourself. Of course that’s probably the norm where you are, though. (To the OP): As with so many things, spell it out in the lease if you don’t want holes from paintings and check to see if you’re even allowed to not allow it.
As a past renter I would give my landlord 6 months worth of post dated cheques. This way it was never a pain the ass for either side paying/collecting the rent.
I’m sure if I was ever in a pinch and knew the cheque wouldn’t clear I could call them and they would hold-off cashing it for an extra day or two.
Sign up for an online way to accept credit cards - ProPay is one - and give your tenants the option to pay that way. You’ll eat some fees, but you’re more likely to get paid when they’re broke.
Rent is $550 if paid after the 3rd, $500 if paid before. This simple step got us to 95% of paid rents by the 3rd. Its invaluable, and definitely do it.
Take the credit check fee out of their first month’s rent. The $20 it costs goes a LONG way to weeding out bad tenants, and not charging them for it help. We found that first, by just SAYING you’d be doing a credit check suddenly gets a whole lot of information they “forgot” to tell you - like their four evictions, their DUI’s, their nine divorces… Secondly, give them a copy of their credit report when they move in.
Never trust a tenant. NEVER EVER TRUST A TENANT. Always get everything in writing. 90% of them may be perfect, upstanding people, but it only takes one tenant to make you have a world of hurt. They will lie about everything possible, and if it goes to court, the documentation you have will be the most powerful evidence you have. Tenants are not your friends - they are there to pay you money in exchange for a place to live, and you are usually the largest drain on their finances. They don’t like you for this.
With Point 3 above, keep your documentation for at least 7 years. This includes the photo documentation of the move in condition of the apartment, AND the move-out condition of the apartment. Tenants will lie to your face, and swear up and down that there was a four-foot barbeque-shaped burn mark in their kitchen when they moved in.
Document every damn thing that happens. Keep separate log entry areas for each apartment - note things like late checks, rowdy parties, the times you’ve talked to them about the cat crap in their yard, etc. Again, for 90% of the tenants, you’ll never need it, but its utterly invaluable for the times you do.
Finally, if you are an on-site owner or on-site manager, realize that the only time things will break down is at 3 a.m. on a sunday, or 20 minutes before you’re going to your sister’s wedding and you’re dressed in a tux. Its a very difficult profession, and takes a certain personality to handle such things.
I had a landlord that requested this – after I had moved in – and I found it extremely odd. I wasn’t comfortable with this, and ended up doing a little Googling, where I found his recent theft conviction. I said no, and stood my ground. I said if he insisted then he could give us 24 hour notice each time as to when he would be there so we could be present – not the ‘well, I’ll just stop in wheenever’ privileges he expected.
A lot of the suggestions here would turn me right off. Asking for a year of cancelled checks? I don’t even get canceled checks, this would be a huge hassle. Wanting to inspect my CURRENT apartment? Yikes. I understand the desire to screen tenants but that is what background/credit checks and referrals are for. If a landlord was this intrusive, I would have just looked elsewhere. I don’t think it pays to scare away good renters by asking for such above-and-beyond hoop-jumping. You’d need to have a really good deal or something like that.
That said I have seen the other side too and I know horror stories abound. Do get the checks and do check the references. As much as I love pets, if it was my property I would also disallow them (having heard from someone who worked in property management) or at the very least put in strict rules limiting the number and size of the animals, requiring additional deposits and/or fees and requiring disclosure and approval prior to bringing the animal in. That way, if someone secretly brings in their 12 cats or gets a puppy and leaves it to bark 23 hours a day then you have it clearly in the lease that it’s not okay, so it’s easier to deal with the issue. Make sure it’s clear that only approved pets are OK - no 'Well, my sister got in a fight with her boyfriend so I’m just watching her 4 cats for .. awhile" situations, that sort of thing.
Unless you plan to be on call all the time and plan to make all repairs yourself, you should compile a list of reliable repairmen/contractors who can make repairs, i.e., plumber, electrician, painter, HVAC, etc. And hope that they will actually show up when they say they would. Most of all, I wish you luck. One of the happiest days of my life was when I stopped being a landlord.
They work long hours, have lousy social lives, rent bigger places then they really need (so the kids can stay on the weekends) keep their places reasonably clean and neat (can’t give the ex any ammunition), rarely have pets, and they stay put for years and years.
Its a very difficult profession, and takes a certain personality to handle such things.