Roofs with Meows and Woofs, do you allow pets in your rental properties?
I am a Real Estate Agent however, I do not typically handle rental properties. My perspective on this question/discussion is as a tenant.
You might find it odd that a Real Estate Agent doesn't own her home, that's a story for another day. Suffice to say that when my family and I moved to Newton in September of 2013 our biggest issue was finding a landlord that would agree to even consider renting to a family that has two dogs, a cat and a very large bird not to mention two teenagers!
It got to the point where I actually considered becoming one of those people who gives up their pet in order to find appropriate housing. Instead I ended up paying very high rent for a house in not the best location (safe, just not fun being near a businesses delivery door).
What I would very much like to have a serious discussion about is the specific reasons why a landlord will not rent to pets and what (if anything) might change your mind?
Real Estate Agents are trained to handle all types of objections in seminars, webinars, trainings, mentorships etc and in all of the objection handling training I've received, none has ever been about trying to handle the pet objection of landlords.
The ones I can think of are:
- allergies (other tenants might be allergic)
- noise (my bird is the noisy one in our household)
- property damage (yes, the little dog who is from California, pees in the house sometimes..ugh)
- Fear (my big dog is 110 pound black lab) of Dogs/Cats/Animals
- Fear of lawsuits if the animal hurts someone else
I'd like to discuss what can be done to alleviate these and any other objections as much as possible.
You might ask why allow pets.. and that's a good question we can discuss as well.