<p>Many years ago I had a tenant who rented a little basement apartment from us. We had never met him. His employer made the application and signed the lease. He was a furniture repairer and his employer buys and sells used, vintage furniture. The store was almost just across the street from the apartment. </p>
<p>The tenant was a quiet person and there were no issues with rent payment or noise. Once the upstairs people complained about his smoking, because the smell wafted upstairs. A phone call to the employer took care of that. </p>
<p>One day the upstairs tenant called us and said, basement tenant passed away in the apartment. The employer took care of matters, cleaned up the apartment etc and preapred it ready for rent as they have to break the lease. </p>
<p>I spoke to the employer and came to know our tenant’s life a little. He was an older person who immigrated from Germany. He was a talented and skilled craftsman who “can do anything with furniture”. Apparently he had been feeling unwell for a while. Then one day he didn’t show up for work and a co-worker went and checked up on him and found him gone. He did not have any family. His employer and his co-workers were the only connections he had.</p>
<p>The city provided the plot and burial expenses. </p>
<p>I was responsible for renting out the apartment and stepped into it a few days after the tenant passed. The employer did a good job of cleaning up the apartment.There wasn’t even any smell of cigarettes. It was as if the previous occupant was … never been. Except for the bright, gaudy, yellow pieces of clothes that the tenant had put up to serve as curtains. I started crying at the sight of them. It was just so sad to see that. I didn’t know why he didn’t demand us to provide proper curtains, I would have provided it. </p>
<p>Looking at those sad, make-shift window coverings I came to the realization, there are some hard-working, decent people out there who have a hard life. I have been relatively lucky. </p>
<p>I had never met or even talked to this tenant but I would always remember him and would speak of him to my kids one day. His name was Kurt.</p>
<p>I have had a very good property manager now for many years. Before him & his small firm, we used a HUGE company who were really a bunch of crooks who mismanaged our small rental. They charged us annually for fire extinguishers–when the new property manager took over, there was not an extinguisher to be found ANYWHERE on the premises. They also had the property always running in the red whereas it has been in the black from day one with the new management. One really great thing for us is that the new management company offers us the option of paying for any repairs out of current and future rents OR taking out a loan. So far, we have always opted not to take out any loans and it has worked wonderfully well for us.</p>
<p>H was convinced that the original property management company was supposed to be excellent and switching would serve no purpose. Boy, are we glad we switched!</p>
<p>Tomorrow , I take my tenant to court to evict them. I have my doubts as to whether or not they will even show. This morning , my husband got a call from an acquaintance that knows we own the house…seems they were trying to sell him OUR ride on lawnmower…state troopers were called cand paid them a visit. Can’t wait to get them out of there</p>
<p>^Thanks Dstark. I wrote that out planning to put it in a blog somewhere for the future so that the descendants can see it. ;)</p>
<p>That particular apartment give me the occasion to meet and deal with people with quite a different set of realities from what I am accustomed to, my professional landlord friend called them “marginal people leading marginal lives”…</p>
<p>HImom - I find having a competent and honest property manager makes all the difference in owning investment properties. We are about to fire one property manager and go to a new one right now. Most people I find, like your H, seem to be reluctant to make a change. Of the 30 homeowners we know who are unhappy with current management, we are the only one who actively sought out an alternative and plan to take action.</p>
<p>no, you will be discriminating. but landlords technically can circumvante it to rent it to some one they liked using objective stats, such as scores, income, rent history…etc.</p>
<p>We successfully evicted our bad tenants . Last year, I had such a hard time finding tenants. Now I have been approached by 5 different people about renting the house and I haven’t even advertised
I think we are leaning towards a group of four young men rather than families…it worked wonders for us with the first tenants
Last two were families and they were horrible in so many ways</p>
<p>when I bought the house from the bank two weeks ago, there are 4 unrelated ppl in the house. The smart son of the previous owner figured out he can make money by renting it to 3 more ppl. I have headaches ever since. In CA, you have to offer a lease to them first and then evict them. So I have signed a cash for key agreement with them, it is a real PITA.</p>
<p>No such rules in our twp , thank goodness. We have had more luck with young , blue collar workers as housemates. It is in a rural location so it is kind of hard to disturb neighbors. They tend to appreciate having a large garage and land…and are handy when it comes to fixing things ( such as the ride on mower that the previous tenants tried to sell that belongs to us ) ;)</p>
<p>A have a house in Chicago up for rent. Compared with the responses in the last few years, the interest is high. One applicant has a credit score of 960 - I didn’t even know scores can get that high !</p>
<p>I have one applicant is in the process of separating and need to find her own place with her three children. She offers a two year lease and two months security deposit. She is a stay at home mom who does not work outside the home. Apparently her husband is not in a position to support the kids or her in anyway and she has to pay a mortgage of $2,700 a month. Her credit score is in the 550s. She has a mother who is willing to co-sign the lease but the mother lives in Louisiana. I don’t even know if we can enforce anything out of state or the work too involved in case things go wrong. </p>
<p>We are not sure about this because this is not the type of situation we dealt with before. Most renters we dealt with has a regular job, employer and salary. </p>
<p>agree with barrons, sounds like that lady will complain that she did not get her alimony on time often enough that will keep your head spin all the time. A FICA score of 550 explains it all.</p>
<p>Rule #1 of renting: an empty unit is better than a bad tenant.</p>
<p>You will never see rent in month 3, and it might take you months to get them out.</p>
<p>This person would be far better off staying in her current house, kicking the husband out, and living for free for a year or two until the bank gets around to foreclosing. If she is on the hook for mortgage, she might as well get something out of not paying it.</p>
<p>Unless there is some new credit score I’ve never heard of, the highest credit score is 850. I don’t know where 960 came from - did you get that from a credit report or was that reported by an applicant?</p>
<p>notrichenough: the header said “Transunion online credit report”. Credit Score = 960. The applicant is moving from NJ. It’s a 16 page report. The applicant is represented by a RE agent and we are represented by one and the information was transmitted through the agents, so hopefully reliable. I think RE agents has more experience dealing with this. On our end we had been dealing with this agent for 4 or 5 years and we trust her. </p>
<p>The credit score surprised me for sure, I was not aware that scores get that high. We had one previous tenant whose score was 820+ , don’t remember the exact number now. He had his own insurance agency and had a high income and expenses which he always paid on time. </p>
<p>As for the mother with 3 boys, we are now getting more details, </p>
<ul>
<li>she has a trust fund that supposedly take care of all the expenses.</li>
<li>she also has rental income verifiable by tax return.</li>
<li>she is going to provide us more details of the trust and more sources of income. </li>
</ul>
<p>We feel a little uncomfortable about our questioning of her finances, we feel rather intrusive but don’t know how to handle our uncertainty. </p>
<p>We did a quick calculation of her reported income and reported expenses and find it a little tight, and worry about the ability to pay. Then she said she has additional income from the trust. </p>
<p>The house is only 5 days on the market and available for July 1 so we have time. The interest is good compared to the past few years.</p>
I googled around, I guess there is a system that has scores in the 550-990 range. We apparently don’t use it as I have never seen a score that high.</p>
<p>
You are entrusting this person with an asset worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, with significant monthly income for you on the line. You have every right to ask for proof of ability to pay for the place.</p>
<p>We use income formulas, and generally won’t rent to people if the rent exceeds 40% of their income. If they claim other sources of income that aren’t verifiable by calling their employer, they need to prove it. This comes up fairly often with disability income, I don’t think we’ve had a trust fund.*</p>
<p>What sort of rental income? I’d get a couple years of tax returns.</p>
<p>How old are the kids? Do you have lead paint issues to worry about?</p>
<p>*Not a trust fund issue per se, but we did rent an apartment to the Mormon church to put their missionaries in. DW, bless her, asked the local Elder for proof that the they could pay the rent. They sent us a letter that basically said “How much money we have is none of your business, but here’s a copy of our $150,000,000 credit line we have through such-and-such bank. We think that should cover it.” :eek: Yeah, I would say $150 million should do the trick. :D</p>