Up front cost payment plan

[Conor Brennan]

Hi, 

With recent legislation in Cincinatti and Seattle, certain landlords have to offer an installment payment plan for tenants to pay upfront costs. As a real estate investor myself, I am very curious to see if anyone has statistics or anecdotal estimates on what percentage of tenants actually use these payment plans? It seems like this may be something that more cities adopt, so I am trying to prepare in advance for when that happens. Thanks in advance!

[Michael Haas]

We actually first learned about this legislation from a tenant bringing it up (whoops!). We currently have 7 doors being rented long term, and only 1 tenant has requested and taken advantage of the payment plan for their security deposit. I think the legislation is reasonable - we actually don't charge first and last months rent, just first months, out of a understanding that moving is expensive and that can be a very large sum of money due at signing in a high rent market like Seattle.