NO PETS!
Don't just check credit, call the references.
Trust you gut if it feels bad.
Don't trust your gut if you just want to give them a break. Just don't do rentals from that point forward.
Pay an attorney for an hour of their time, before you do rentals, to find out the landmines and how best to avoid them.

Hire a management company

It was the best 8% each month I paid

If your handy and can do repairs yourself then that can be worked out with them, if not they have maintenance crews on call. the contracts are very negotiable. Letting them do the marketing, eviction, renting, background checks is worth the agreement in itself

I'm military and my property is in a different state than my current posting (hence the need to rent out in the first place) so I kinda had to get a property manager.

That said...literally every person I've had direct experience with (ie not the internet) that personally managed their rental property or properties no longer has any properties for rent.

Some people got burned bad and others just got sick of having a second job that barely paid, and everything in between.

Screen tenants carefully. It's now very easy to get credit, public records (meaning), and criminal background checks. Get employment and prior landlord references and call them. And when you call them, try and do it prom a publicly published number for the building/company, not the number the applicant gives you.

If someone is a problem, they've likely been a problem before they came to you. If you screen correctly, you should be able to ferret this out.

Also, know your local laws. In some jurisdictions, tenants can have people move in (roommates, boyfriends /girlfriends, etc.), and you have no choice in allowing it. In TX, I suspect this us not the case, but make sure.

Write your lease as tightly as possible. Find a local LL who knows the business and rums good properties, and ask him where he got his lease form. Make sure it includes an inspection clause, and exercise it periodically. Also, tenants occasionally want stuff fixed. Thus is a great time to inspect the unit.

Very pleased with the property management specialist I hired; limited contract was to screen potential renters and write lease contract beneficial to the 'me--the owner'.

A large corporation offered their own version of contract, which was strongly in 'renter favor', 26 pages long. They refused my counter offer of 4 page version.

The phrasing of a few terms and definition of conditions can make significant improvement in desirability and ease of owner management post lease signing. 22 pages that reflect owner advantage helped secure a stable new renter.

I am a landlord only because I’m forced to be one with a property I’m underwater on.

To be honest it’s a giant PITA and not worth it.

Finding good tenants that won’t wreck your property is not easy, thank GOD after two sets of less than stellar tenants I have a guy who is great, pays his rent promptly and really takes care of the place.

The ONLY good thing I see from it is the tax write offs but as soon as I can, I’m selling the place.

To the OP: we used a Realtor who charged us a fee to use her tools that regular people didn’t have acces to: the background check, eviction check and credit check she was able to run for us as a Realtor. People look great on applications and talk a good game, but then you see how they have evictions, make $30k a year but have a $600 car payment, etc. NEXT!

no pets, no waterbeds,no aquariums, no smoking any portion of the building,

the local l.e.o.'s will do a credit check a background for arrests etc. and let you know if they have order of protection and maybe even more. for a fee

you charge the applicant $30.00 for a credit check and you have them sign that its ok
you charge them $35.00 $55.00 for a legal check.
both non refundable.

and its up to you to check their jobs situation , in person , not on the phone .
get a bank statement for the last 8 months.

look at their car when they come to see the apt. you can tell a lot about a person from the condition of their car.

one lady told me that only three people would be living in an apt. yet 7 came to see it and there were two more in the car.

do not show the place by yourself, everyone will be wandering all over.

our P.D. has monthly seminars for people who rent, 8 hours of what to do , how to do it and when action needs to be taken, it was well worth the $55.00

We currently have a rental property in San Diego we got on a 1031 exchange. It's rented to a Navy family and we haven't heard a peep of complaint from neighbors, manager, or renters. Jim Allen mentioned some time in the past that the military families were good to rent to because they can get in trouble if they don't pay the rent. The Navy gives them a housing allowance that about covers the (rather high) rent.

This is definitely not a buyer's or renter's market--house is in a desirable community with rentals snapped up quickly at the asking price, and multiple tenants to choose from.

Don’t worry, you won’t get a single application from anybody with pets. Pet owners don’t exist anymore.

Suddenly, however, 50% of tenants require a service animal to survive. Don’t ask them about it or they’ll threaten you with the ADA.

quote:

Originally posted by sigcrazy7:
Don’t worry, you won’t get a single application from anybody with pets. Pet owners don’t exist anymore.

Suddenly, however, 50% of tenants require a service animal to survive. Don’t ask them about it or they’ll threaten you with the ADA.

Yeah, already experienced this bullshit.

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
We currently have a rental property in San Diego we got on a 1031 exchange. It's rented to a Navy family and we haven't heard a peep of complaint from neighbors, manager, or renters. Jim Allen mentioned some time in the past that the military families were good to rent to because they can get in trouble if they don't pay the rent. The Navy gives them a housing allowance that about covers the (rather high) rent.

This is definitely not a buyer's or renter's market--house is in a desirable community with rentals snapped up quickly at the asking price, and multiple tenants to choose from.

My experience with career Navy officers was ideal. The downside is that military change of station orders cancel the lease, no matter what. The upside was that as one family was leaving, they told their replacements/squadron mates to replace them. These officers and their families were very responsible, took care of the property, maintained them in very good condition, and were nice people. It was gratifying, and astonishing.

quote:

Originally posted by sigcrazy7:
Don’t worry, you won’t get a single application from anybody with pets. Pet owners don’t exist anymore.

Suddenly, however, 50% of tenants require a service animal to survive. Don’t ask them about it or they’ll threaten you with the ADA.

A Chihuahua is a seeing eye dog?

I'm going to re-state my post above for biggerpockets.com. they are a wealth of resources to the property investor/ landlord. They aren't selling a $500 "course" (although they do have a "pro" membership and do sell books and other things). And they just opened some state-specific landlord forum sections - it may or may not have your state yet but it's coming.

I just listened to their latest podcast yesterday. BiggerPockets Podcast 265: Kidnapped by Russian Mobsters and How to Manage 13,000 Rental Units with Andrew Propst. Fascinating story about the Russian mobsters, and he has a ton of good advice for landlords. The advice boils down to two things:

1. Hire a property management company. More specifically, don't do it yourself if you're a softie or not an asshole. (He's Mormon, so didn't use the word "asshole".)

2. Have systems in place (or make sure your property manager does). Pre-screening - have a tight set of criteria for this, he gives examples. Lease - write EVERYTHING into the lease. Then, if something goes wrong, there's no question what to do, and no accusations about being treated unfairly.

Other resources (gleaned from BP):

Screening: https://www.mysmartmove.com/

Lease: https://www.biggerpockets.com/...tm_source=newsletter

(And her book is here: http://www.reluctantlandlord.n...-addendum-landlords/)


I'm not a landlord (I was one in the past for one property), but I have some cash and am looking to maybe get back in that game. That's why I'm also in the researching phase. Ideally, I'd like to buy something(s) in the Albuquerque area as that's where we'll be settling in a few years. I would definitely use a property manager as I'm not enough of an asshole. Budget 11-12% for that (8-10% per month, plus a little for them doing screening and renting process).

ETA: I am by no means an expert. I am a beginning student, very definitly in the "paralysis by analysis" stage of things. And BP is the only other forum I'm browsing right now other than SF. (Sorry Para....)

quote:

Originally posted by IntrepidTraveler:
write EVERYTHING into the lease. Then, if something goes wrong, there's no question what to do, and no accusations about being treated unfairly.

^^^THIS

I have maple butcher block counter tops in my rental condo and it's spelled out clearly several times in the lease AND in an addendum "DO NOT CUT DIRECTLY ON THE COUNTERS, USE A CUTTING BOARD". The two girls we rented to for the first year ignored this and I found numerous cut marks in several locations on my counters.

They didn't renew and when it came time to give the security deposit back, I subtracted the cost for my time and materials to sand out the cut marks and re-oil. They bitched but we just sent them a copy of what they agreed to in writing and told them "tough shit".

get 25 "before pictures" of the apt.
prior to the new tenants moving in and have them sign confirming that they agree to the condition of the apt.

Before and after pictures of the apartment are valuable when it's time to "settle up" at move out time.

My wife and I owned houses from 1978 to 2015 when we moved to Las Vegas area and found a nice rental property. Our lease requires we trim palm trees away from side walk, change air filter monthly which the land lord provides. We had to specify who was living in the house and guest could only stay 2 weeks without his permission.
He asked about pets and we had 2 yorkies which were fine with him.
HOA send us and him a nasty gram about an over grown bush on the property that needed to be trimmed and he lives 4 hours away so I told him I would take care of it for him
Last May he was here to paint soffit and trim and he decided to replace outside lights, brought samples and asked my wife to pick the ones she liked.
Since he had not been here for some time I asked him to make an inspection and he advised after inspecting the property he was glad we were in the house.
I have found him to be fair and easy to work with for any needed repairs. We maintain the house like it is ours.
We signed a lease for 2 more years.

I'll keep this short, but it is tough. 2 things I highly recommend-- here it is tough to charge late charges on rent that are substantial. Instead we set up our leases that rent is $750.00 per month, but if you pay on or before the first, $50.00 off--therefore we get the $700.00 we wanted on time

Another is, if they want pets, another deposit of a month's rent to do so, along with the demand they clean up the lawns after said pets, unless the want to pay me to do so, at a charge of $10 per pile. I video each pile, and they learn quick.

I wish you the best, try to get older single women, they are the best. Make it clear, that a party atmosphere isn't acceptable, and will end in a termination of their lease.

Follow through with the rules is key!!!!!!

I forgot at add that one of the best tenants I had was a 67-ish guy who had just lost his wife to cancer. He had sold their house due to the memories and wanted to rent for a year or 2. He gave me 6 months rent up front and a month for the deposit.

A month later, while exercising, I see the house on the local news. His 40-something girlfriend hit him with a golf club while he was watching tv, then finished him with a hammer. Left him in the house for 3 days, then confessed to the cops. Of course, they kicked the door down and caused more damage.

After about 9 days I was able to enter the house and have Servpro do a bio-remediation on the house which cost around 12k. Insurance covered most of the clean up but the rates went up, plus I had to wait 5 months for the guys daughter to get his stuff out of the house.

Glad I sold that place......