Tenants, who to choose

In a perfect world you would have lots of tenants with great credit, no criminal history and a spotless rent record. Sadly reality has to rain in on our parade, making the perfect tenant a rare animal and not the norm. This is even more true now with the economy the way it is. And for anyone living under a rock the last couple of years, I mean its completely horrible.

So before you write off tenants with black markets in their past, its a good idea to take a look at exactly what they are. For example I wouldn't write off someone who has a minor shop lifting charge when the were 19 if it was 10 or 20 years ago. After all, how many people did stupid crap in college. Most of us were just luck enough not to get caught. It is highly likely that the one incident was enough to scare them back on the straight and narrow, so why penalize them for something stupid they did in their youth, especially if everything else is spotless. You could be losing a great tenant.

Credit is a major sticking point for most landlords, with good reason. I mean who wants to rent to a tenant who has a habit of not paying. No one with any sense. Having to evict and take someone to court to get late rent is no walking in the park, so most landlords would prefer to avoid it. However that being said, it never hurts to take a closer look at why someone's credit isn't overly high.

After all lets face it, how many business have let go of employees to stay afloat or just gone under completely? A whole bunch, and finding a new job is a painful slow process for most people now a days. This could easily make it impossible to pay bills, especially large ones like mortgage. As that was the only issue and the tenant had a steady job and had been there for sometime, why let the fact that they haven't yet had enough time to erase the past from their credit stop you. Especially if their credit was good before things went down hill.

That being said, avoid people immediately tell you a sob story. The more dramatic and heart wrenching it is, the more likely it is to be a scam. Make sure you do your research, don't assume what the potential tenant is telling you is the truth. Happy tenant hunting.

Risk of Tenants keeping quiet about issues.

Sink holes have become a major problem in some areas. They can be an even bigger issue for landlords who own property in such high risk areas. Unlike most home owners, landlords aren't liable to visit their property daily unless they already live there, so they depend on tenants to inform them of issues. However tenants aren't always willing to be the bearer of bad news.

While I've never had to deal with a sink hole, I have had issues crop up that would have been far easier to fix if the tenant had informed me immediately of the problem instead of ignoring it for months until it became to dangerous or annoying to live with. I find it helps to make sure that the lease has a clear definition of who is responsible for what issues, that way when cases like this happen your tenant doesn't fear informing you of the problem.








*Cartoon by Peter Morici
* Sink hole info from TVS

Recently It seems I've had to deal with more and more renters who seemed to have no understanding of the lease contract. I don't know if they feel like it is just there for formality sake and the clauses are just a guideline or they aren't even bothering to read it. I've recently had to evict two tenants for violating it. One lady painted her whole apartment a rather obnoxious shade of pink, which I probably wouldn't have know about if she hadn't decide to then put up a bunch of shelves up, rather poorly I might add, that ended up falling down and tearing apart the wall. Then she decided to complain about it and demand that I fix it.

Seriously, the paint, I could have lived with, but destroying the wall and then trying to get me to pay for it, that was too much. Told her she had 30 days to fix it or I would evict. She of course didn't fix it. 

The lease is a legal agreement but either some people don't understand that or they don't care. I mean there has always been people who pull this crap, but it seems like there has been a steady rise in such incidents and not just for me.