Who rents to those with evictions?

Question

It is not part of my business plan and nor do I plan on doing it.  That said, there must be someone out there making it a business out of renting to those with evictions.  I am constantly seeing people on craigslist or facebook housing sites looking for a place to live with an eviction (and often times multiple) on their record.  Where do they find housing?  Are they paying that much more to make it worth someone's while?  I can't even imagine this as they clearly are not paying normal rental rates.  Do they just try to find someone naive or someone they can sell their sob story to?

Kyle J. · Answer

A lot of landlords don’t even check. They just want to fill the vacancy as quick as possible, not realizing that having a bad tenant is worse than having no tenant.

Thomas S. · Answer

If you want to know who rents to them just read a few of the posts "should I rent to this applicant". In every case they are risky applicants that someone is wanting to rent to and come on here to find reassurances that it will be OK. 50% of the respondents will usually say they would rent to them, some do not see the risk or worse state that they believe in giving people a second chance.

Bottom line is there will always be landlords that either do not understand risk, see no risk, are willing to trust in people and have faith that they have changed or that someone was in a temporary situation that has now cleared.

There will always be mom and pop landlords or those that operate their business based on having faith in humanity that are always going to be out there. Good thing is they remove those individuals from the market place so we do not have to waste time rejecting them.

Evictions are one of many issue they will turn a blind eye to.

Mike H. · Answer

Wait. I was all in there until you mentioned the hairdressers. They're as dangerous as drinking water in mexico?  Hmmmmm.

In terms of do I rent to people with evictions? No. That would just be silly. It basically says they are someone that if they run into money problems, either has no safety net in terms of friends or family that will take them in OR that they simply don't care and they're going to stick it to you.

So that tells you that if they run into money problems with you, they're going to milk it out.

Now is there an opportunity there? I just don't see it. Even if they agreed to pay rent up front for a year, whats going to happen at the end of the year? Would they agree to pay sec deposit of 6 mos? Typically people with evictions don't have that kind of money either so I don't see that happening. There literally is no good scenario that I can think of to where I would let someone with an eviction move in.

The only way they're getting in is that they:

1) Find a landlord that buys some sob story they concoct.2) Find a landlord that doesn't run evictions.3) Get some friend/relative to apply for them. I actually had an applicant try to get in one of my houses up north and they came back with an eviction (even though they swore they didn't have one on the app). They then explained that the eviction wasn't there and that they had signed a lease for a friend who had an eviction and that friend stiffed the landlord.

I told them that was worse. They purposefully lied to a landlord even though they knew they were likely going to get stiffed on the rent.

But I just don't see any realistic scenario where it would make good business sense to allow someone with an eviction to move in.

Nathan Gesner · Answer

The same people that invest in Bitcoin, drink Mexican water, and sleep with the hairdresser they just met at the bar.

Some people like to live dangerous.

Gail K. · Answer

Out of curiosity I just looked at our online Marshal's Service.  Between the two of these agencies they have racked up 9960 filings for "dispossessories" (our version of an eviction) in my county.

I have suggested to private landlords (who hadn't a clue how to go about screening) to at least GO to this online site.  It's a free site (the neighboring county also has one); all one has to do is type in the applicants name and see what comes up in terms of a history of being served.

It would then be up to that landlord to decide if they wish to continue the process of renting to this applicant.

I once had a young man fill out one of my applications and state he had no history of evictions.  Going to this site showed SIX pages (single spaced no less) of evictions.  I simply printed all these out, shoved them in an envelope with his application and sent the mess back to him.  His response (before I blocked his phone number) was offering to pay double the security deposit(!).

Gail

Gail K. · Answer

It's been my experience that those with evictions tend to focus on finding rentals with private landlords.  Why?  Because the vast majority of them (at least in my neck of the woods) still don't do screening of applicants.

Those with evictions know that, in many cases, larger companies will require screening.  On the other hand, we have two local agencies in town that offer rental properties that tend to be class D neighborhoods (for the most part).   Their rents are cheap and thus they attract a certain group of tenants who, as a general rule, might fall into the category of both unemployed and, perhaps, unemployable.

When I go to our online Marshalls Service (the law enforcement agency that handles all the notices for evictions) these two agencies are vying for the greatest numbers of evictions; I'm talking in the thousands over the years between the two of them.  The irony is that you will often see them rent to the same person over and over and over again.

Gail

Anna M. · Answer

Just the thought makes my skin crawl.No amount of money will make that an attractive business plan for me, nope!NEVER!I’ll take the Vacancy thank you!But as you say, some are doing it.While I do believe in second chances, I just don’t know that I want to be the second chance, knowingly.I inherited tenants with my first purchase and little did I know that they had prior evictions, guess it just goes to show you, before you go showing your teeth at the closing table, happy as can be, do your due diligence to know what you are really taking on when seller suggests taking on existing tenants with the sale. Needless to say, I ended up evicting my inherited tenants and my eviction added to their history, not sure if these tenants were just out to collect as many evictions as possible but it became clear to me why they were evicted in the past, no respect for policy whatsoever, unless it is their self-made policy, living conditions that were just unbearable, the stress buildup watching my property mishandled as a landlord was painful, not to mention a new landlord trying to enforce policies only to be told, “well we didn’t do it that way!”Ooohhh,(Anna grasping hard at my mouth to keep from saying what I really want to say here).Even months after the eviction, it still hurts and I prefer to put that behind me and deeply bury that memory never to bring it up again.Evicted tenants?Someone else can take em!Not me, sorry.

Cara Lonsdale · Answer

Would never do it.  Any Landlord who considers it is like ignoring a red flag flashing right in front of them.

My guess is that only landlords who don't pull credit or verify references will be the only options for those who get evicted.

Anna M. · Answer

LOL! yes! them Bitcoin folks, lol Nathan, I laughed so hard at this one.

James Wise · Answer

Renting to those with evictions is a terrible idea. Don't do it.

Who rents to those with evictions?

Most Popular Reply