I think I made a mistake today and am not sure how to handle it

[Jon S.]

I am just finishing renovation of a triplex near a college and am beginning to list it and take tenant applications. College students are the most obvious market. Two college students looked at it today, and decided they want to rent a unit. On a yellow pad, they both provided their own info as well as their parents' names phone numbers and email addresses; the parents will be co-signers, guarantors.  These students seem like the perfect applicants so there is no problem there. The problem is that when they asked about move in costs, deposits, I said one month rent and one month security deposit. Only later tonight did I read posts on BP about the inability to get a judgement on parents who live out of state.  So I checked and sure enough, both of their co-signer parents are out of state. So even if I were to have all the info on who they are, the BP posts indicate that there is no way to collect out of state. Besides, out of state collections sounds very expensive, but also , according to the BP post, these kind of judgments would not apply across state lines into other states, so even getting a judgement would be useless. So what do I do? Get a bigger deposit? If I change my mind about the size of the deposit, am IO going to alienate my first potential tenant to this property? I'd hate to do that because they really seem perfect for the property. On the other hand, out of state co-signers, combined with college students and just the first month rent and one month security deposit - is that taking too much risk? I just renovated this into a nice property and don't want to see it get messed up. Any advice on how to rectify this without seeming like a landlord who is bait and switch on the deposits? Thanks 

[Account Closed]

What I did with students is just put them on the lease, with no co-signers.  And I did only month-to-month agreements.  That way, all you have to do is give them 30 days notice if you want to get rid of them, and you only sue them if they don't pay the rent.

I told students that I don't care who pays the rent, but only tenants living in the building are on the lease.  That way, you also don't have to deal with mommy and daddy.

But, I'd still run the student's credit and criminal and eviction check.  And I'd Google them, too, because you just never know what will show up.

I suggest that you only advertise on the grad schools' bulletin boards/facebook pages, etc.  Especially, law students.  They're the best.  You can talk to the housing person for whatever department and ask them if you can advertise with their students.  I had an agreement (based of course on my good review on yelp) with the local law school to advertise my vacancies on their facebook page.  And I gave my current tenants a $100 rent credit if I rented to someone they referred.  I'd let them know when I had a vacancy.

It worked out great for us (me and the owner).