Renting to a felon
Real Estate Investor · Lincoln, NE · Member since 2013 · 584 posts · 353 votes
A guy called me yesterday and asked about an apartment we have for rent. I gave him the info then he asked, "Do you rent to felons?"
I was a little surprised and responded, "What do you mean?"
He explained that he just got out of jail 2 months ago and he and his wife are looking to move closer to her work and were interested in the apartment. I asked what he was in jail for and he said selling pot. I asked if he was done with that and of course he said yes.
I personally feel that a person is not defined by one bad thing they have done in their past and people need second chances. However, zebra's don't change their stripes to quote the saying. It would probably be easy to reject them based on credit history, etc. He didn't call back and we have several other good applicants for the apartment, so I won't have to deal with it this time. I'm just interested in how other landlords feel about something like this in a tenants background.
Ok, I'll be an outlier here and the cold heartless SOB. No felonies ever. My brother got in trouble with the law. The things people do before they are caught is usually at least 10x of what they get caught for. It is extremely rare to get a felony for a one and done. I don't have time to sift through all those that are BSing me to take a chance on the one the will turn out good. I'll let all the other kind hearted landlords here on BP offer them a place to live or maybe they'll find a LL that doesn't ask. There are too many applicants that don't have a criminal history to consider those with a felony criminal past. Criminals know criminals. I don't need those kind of people in my life. Period. There was a thread previous about LL personal safety. This is the very first step, and most basic, in that process. Ignore it to your peril.
Seems like most of the standard issues (potential risks, 2nd chances, etc) have been covered here. The only thing I didn't see was an assessment of the individual's ability to pay. In this respect, your potential tenant has a proven ability to raise cash quickly :). If you were in Colorado, there would be some partnership opportunities as well. Just saying.
I do have a sex-offender as tenant for the past 2 years. Some years ago he lived with his cousin and ended up becoming friends with the 15 year old daughter. They ended up kissing and the daughter threw that at her parents when she got in trouble for something else. There was no other touching or sex involved.
Frankly, to me that's not a big deal.
I think it's a big deal. I wonder how many other underaged girls he victimized before he got caught. Hopefully he experienced some prison justice.
Sounds like he got off easy. If that were one of my daughters, he would be sitting in a wheelchair, eating his dinner from a straw, while a minimum wage worker changed his catheter.
@Rob K. Geez, he kissed his 15 year old cousin.
Granted, I grew up in Europe where seeing a nipple doesn't disturb a child for life, the way American parents see it. Where nudity on the front of magazines is no big deal and every child can see it. Where sex is part of life and considered fun when shared with someone special and not this dirty forbidden thing. Where we only have a small percentage of rapes or sex crimes of what the U.S. has. Where we don't think that a child watching blood and gore and killings on tv is better than watching some sexual content on tv.
Great discussion everyone. Lots of good points made by everyone. I think the best point is that you need to have well defined tenant criteria and then stick to that criteria to keep yourself out of trouble. Just to close the loop on this particular case, he didn't call back and didn't fill out an application. I just signed a lease with a new renter yesterday, so it's over for now. This discussion will be helpful next time we have a vacancy.
As a convicted felon, I now own 2 businesses that are both successful. I have chosen to rent a home in lieu of purchasing due to my concern of the possibility of relocation. My crimes are 9 years old, and are financial in nature when I was 17 yrs old.
I know that I made a mistake in my past, but I also think that people should take the time to interview the person applying. I now have a wife and 5 wonderful children. A vast change from my history. People make mistakes, and we should remember all remember that. Employees come into my office with felonies and I must take the time to interview them. What I look for is nature of the crime, time since occurrence, and rehabilitation. It is hard for a convicted felon to move on with his or her life because we are branded. Not asking for pity, but take the time to see who they are.
Look at myself, I work hard each day, pay taxes, and support my family. I am still treated like I am a murderer. Very hard to rent for something I did in my childhood.
@Wade Sikkink I myself am still weary of renting to someone that has been in jail. Even if they have been there once. Their chances of going back are much greater. Not saying they will, but there is a chance. He was honest, I will give him that. I had a girl call about a SFH I had for rent and she showed up with her boyfriend, tatoos up his arms and on each of his fingers and I got a bad impression right away. I greeted them both with a smile and asked if they would both be living in the house. She told me he would be here part time. I said he would have to fill out an app. too. Right away, he got an attitude. She later said she would check out. She wasn't so sure about him. A few minutes later, they said, "thanks for your time." And left.
While looking over these replies, I thought that some factual data might also be helpful; seeing how many of these are roughly two years old. First off, the populace of individuals that possess a criminal record is approximately 1 in 4. In other words, that's 75 million people in the US that have something on their record. If you take into account couples renting then you are looking at somewhere around half of the applicants potentially not qualifying for this reason. Thus, the claim that there are many more people to select from is a fallacy since those that can qualify will also be more likely to qualify for a home mortgage in the future at some point; whereby reducing the total population. In effect, a blanket policy of 'never' has the possibility of damaging one's own future revenues.
Secondly, recent studies conducted by the Center for Housing Policy has determined that homelessness is a principle catalyst the drives many first-time offenders to become repeat offenders; "...ex-offenders who are unable to find adequate housing upon their release are more than twice as likely to reoffend as those with stable housing." Therefore, the argument that a criminal is more prone to commit the same act again is only a partial truth. The policy of denying adequate housing has been demonstrated to be a determining factor.
Thirdly, recent changes in legal interpretations of laws regarding rental landlord/tenant rights stipulates that blanket policies of never renting to anyone with a record can be grounds for discrimination suites by violating the Fair Housing Act. There is some wiggle room when it comes to denying an individual on the basis for safety concerns (violent and sexual violations), but denial for the sake of denial (a blanket 'never' policy) can now end you up in a costly legal battle. One article put it this way, "People with criminal records aren't a protected class under the Fair Housing Act, and the guidance from HUD's general counsel says that in some cases, turning down an individual tenant because of his or her record can be legally justified. But blanket policies of refusing to rent to anybody with a criminal record are de facto discrimination, the department says — because of the systemic disparities of the American criminal justice system."
The best advice is to consider each potential applicant on an individual basis, and consider the nature of the offense, the time that has elapsed, and frequency of violation(s). Some can and should be turned away. However, others are probably going to be some of the best renters that you could ask for by virtue of the difficulties they face in simply wanting to move forward with their life. In fact, if you really think about a blanket policy is nothing more than an attempt to justify discrimination that is akin to the line of logic that looks something like: A black man stole my car, therefore all black people are thieves'. The mere insinuation of this line of logic is repugnant at its core, and indefensible.