I just called 3 hotels - 2 local, one out of town, and asked them if I needed to have a certain amount of money available on my credit card above and beyond the room rate for a damage deposit. They all had no clue what I was talking about. I explained it in detail, and they said no way.
Two of them said they do pre-authorize a small amount off for “incidentals” which was explained to me as being items from the minibar, or to cover food/drinks at their restaurant. One hotel said they took $50 for this, the other said $25, the third said they don’t pre-authorize or take anything above the room rate.
I specifically asked each one of them “So if I have only $200 left on my credit card before I reach the limit, and the room + “incidentals” comes to $199, I’m fine?” They said yes.
Not that this is a big deal to me - I don’t carry a credit card balance - but I just have never heard of this practice, and it just doesn’t jive with what I’ve experienced.
I wasn’t going to look stuff up because I need to do some stuff today. Here are some links I found, but this is all I’m looking up. Now I’m off to winterize.
Not disagreeing with you that you’ve had theives and vandals, but some amount of breakage and loss is appropriate.
We’re down to 7 forks from 10, and I’m pretty sure that neither of my roommates is taking them. We just use them and sometimes they get lost. Computers do break. Sometimes they even break in the first few months.
I am not complaining about small missing items. I am talking about a 10-piece set of large items that were displayed visibly in the kitchen. And towels, lots of them. There are other small things (like spoons, forks, kitchen towels, cloth napkins, books), but I don’t complain about those (I don’t expect them to leave that cheap paperback novel if they are half way through).
The things I complain about don’t break, and they just don’t disappear magically all at once. You can just not mistakenly take them.
Someone without much ‘religion’ might feel bad about doing something wrong. Someone who is religious can always rely on ‘being forgiven by God’ at some future date.
Not saying all religious people are like this…many are not. However, I have notice through my life that the people who screwed you over/tried to tend to be more religious.
I’ve had small condo rentals in Las Vegas, and a house in Los Angeles - just regular rentals, not furnished - and I can’t stand the hassle of dealing with tenants trashing the place & leaving owing rent & mucho $$ to make the place rentable again. I found out I am not tempermentally fit to be a landlord. I sold almost all of the rentals (kept one condo), and bought triple-net lease - no upkeep, no taxes, no insurance - and Starbuck’s sends me a nice check every month. Maybe you can make more with residential or short-term rentals, but the hassle is not worth it (to me).
One hotel room I rented last weekend had a very nice sign with a price list for towels, etc. The sign explained that all items were available for sale in the office, and that if you took any such items with you, it was presumed you’d desired to purchase them and your CC would be billed accordingly. I think they had a similar notice on the rental agreement I had to sign.
I don’t know why people do this, but it seems to be extremely common.
Do you have her credit card info? Send her a registered letter with a bill and explain that the items will be charged to her credit card!
I too have never had a “hold” put on funds on my CC, and I’ve stayed in hundreds of hotels, all over the world. I think that this might have happened back in the 1980s - when I first hired a car, I recall they did this - but not these days. They get an authorization for a certain amount, but they don’t (and, possibly, can’t) “hold” that amount. One could, theoretically, get the authorization done, then go and max the card later that day, then run from the hotel and stiff them. Different jurisdictions might have different rules, but I doubt it.
Mighty_Girl, you say “most customers just wouldn’t pay” a deposit. Rather than de-listing completely, why not change your listing to say “deposit of X required”? You might reduce the number of tenants you get, but the ones you get would hopefully be a bit careful.
They wouldn’t pay it? Don’t count on it. I have a $200 deposit for a condo I’m renting for WEEK next month. Yes, it’s in Florida, and not the Caribbean, but it’s okay and normal to require it, then refund it when the place is left intact at the end of the rental.
And if they won’t pay it? They don’t get to stay there and steal you blind.
I’m surprised you don’t charge a deposit. I don’t know about the rental culture where you live, but if you had a rental where I live (Bay Area, CA) having a place for rent with no deposit is a trainwreck waiting to happen.
A security deposit has a number of advantages. The obvious one is it preemptively lets you recoup on any losses. The other advantage is that it theoretically keeps out abusers/destructive people, since once they pay you their deposit, you have the upper hand if they so much as scuff anything in the property.
I don’t think people would be as pissy about having to pay a deposit (which is a one-time fee that you GET BACK assuming you don’t break anything) compared to being forced to charge more rent to recoup the losses from weirdos stealing silverware and breaking computers.
You also didnt mention how ‘short term’ your rental terms were, but here that would be even greater factor in the security deposit. If they trashed the place and bolted, you’re kind of farked since it would take time and money to get the place in a rentable state again. With a hefty deposit, at least the money part’s taken care of.
For comparison, I live in a 10x10 room in a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom single story house in San Jose, CA. The rent here is $475 a month, and I don’t have to pay utilities. The deposit was $200. This was rather a steal compared to the place I lived in last year, which was a similarly sized room and house, but 500 deposit, 500/month, and had to pay my share of the utilities. I save 100/month and got most of my deposit back (last month’s utilities and carpet cleaning were deducted out of the deposit check)
I decided to keep it to myself. I am not really happy with the idea of giving it people who have no qualms about stealing used towels and bulky kitchen utensils. Incubus, I rent by the week. The longest staying guest I had was here for 3 months. I had another long rental (4 months) this year but the guest croaked before it was over (see thread linked in last page). Luckily a lot of people are really decent and cool, some not so much, a few are complete basket cases. I’ve just decided that dealing with the last two groups is just not worth the money.
In my experience, the more someone complains about the rates, the more likely he is to cause trouble.
So do you rent out to vacationers/travelers? It ocurred to me after reading that other thread about the Mexican soap opera and racist dude that these aren’t the same kind of living arrangements as, say, someone like me, who rents month-to-month but generally intends to stay for 1-3 years.
If that’s the case, I could see potential for tranwreck tenants.
You left yourself in a bad position by offering a cell phone and laptop, but don’t feel too bad, you were a lot like my mom when she first rented out a house: nice, flexible, and understanding, only to get screwed over and become jaded. She got to the point where she refused to rent to anyone who had declared bankrupcy, charged huge late fines, a big deposit, and lots of legal-ese to protect herself as much as possible just in case people turn the house into a meth lab or something. She took it a step further and got a property manager which deals with the drama.
That would be my suggestion to you- get a property manager, let him deal with the drama.
I just popped in to say I’m sorry this happened to you. And I’m doubly sorry because I was just thinking last week that maybe I should look into visiting there and I should contact you about your apartment. Oh, well, I probably couldn’t have talked my husband into it anyway. But I am sorry to see more jerk people taking advantage of the nice ones in the world. Overall level of trust just went down again.
Usually property owners - including owners of rental proprties - have to pay porperty taxes, insurance, maintenance fees, possibley management fees, etc - depending on where you are and what type of property you have, it can add up to a lot of $$$
With triple-net (or NNN-) leases, the lessee (Starbucks in my case) pay all of these items (except for, in my case, a portion of the structural insurance - which, technically, makes it a double-net lease). The theory is that Starbucks wants to spend all of its capital in expanding to new markets, so it just “rents” the property from the leaseholders. You get a guaranteed return on your investment - smaller than you (might) make on other real estate investments - but absolutely no hassle.
Otherwise, it’s the same as any other real estate investment, except the only tax write-off you get is the interest on your mortgage. The property appreciates ( or not), you can sell it off at a later date if you want, you have a lease with the lessee that lasts for however long (20 years, with rent bumps every five years for Starbucks). I chose Starbucks because they seems to be a relatively “safe” investment, with a huge record of renewing the lease after it is up (they don’t seem to like to have to move). Other lessees - Dairy Queen & Sonics for example -have a higher rate of return (“Cap Rate”), but higher uncertainty in the long run.
The more pertinent question to ask is “If I have $200 left on my card, and the room costs $150, and the authorization for incidentals is $50, can I still spend $50 on my credit card elsewhere in 30 minutes?” The answer might be “NO.”
I worked at a video store as recently as mid-2002. Before DVDs at sell-through price killed videotapes. At the time, many new-release videos cost upwards of $70.00, and some cost as much as $106.99. My store did an authorization for all new accounts for $100.00. More times than I care to recall, I had angry people tell me that they couldn’t use their cards, because we charged them a hundred bucks. We did NOT charge anything, but many banks DID in fact hold that authorization against their available credit for up to 24 hours. And yes, we did warn them in advance, but people are retards, and never read what they are signing.
The bad thing is that many a bank rep, either because they are not well-trained/informed, or to get rid of the customer ASAP just tell them to call the merchant. Most customers will believe the bank than they’ll believe the merchant.
which deals with the drama.