Lessons from Managing Rentals in the Denver Metro — What I Wish I Knew Starting Out
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Drew SygitBusiness Member
Property Manager · Royal Oak, MI · Member since 2012 · 12k+ posts · 9k+ votesQuote from @Nadir M.:
Been managing rentals across the Denver metro (Westminster, Arvada, Thornton, and surrounding areas) for a few years now. A few things that are common rules of thumb I've found useful — curious how they compare to what other landlords/PMs here actually do.
1. Tenant screening: credit and eviction history matter, but income verification is the one people skip. A common rule of thumb is 3x rent in verifiable income, not just a pay stub screenshot. What's your cutoff?
2. Fast maintenance response tends to keep good tenants longer — a slow work order is one of the top reasons decent tenants don't renew.
3. Keeping rent collection and bookkeeping separate is a good habit; mixing the two is a common way owners lose track of what's actually profitable per door.
4. Lease renewals tend to go better as a real conversation than a last-minute formality — starting the conversation 60-90 days out instead of 30 gives more room to actually retain good tenants.
Genuinely curious: what's your income requirement for applicants, and how far out do you start renewal conversations? Always good to compare notes with others managing rentals in this market.
1) Hmm, which do you really think a tenant will prioritize paying:
- Rent, when it can take months for eviction
- Car payment, that can typically be repossessed faster than they can be evicted?
Find it comical that with all the internet tools available, most landlords default to income as a multiple of rent that was created decades ago.
We use DTI just like lenders do for mortgages. We've designed a simple Excel spreadsheet that handles it.
2) Within reason
3) ?
4) We’ve found a great way to raise rent is:
- Determine market rent
- Share the proof with the tenant (they can see it on Zillow anyways)
- Tell the tenant, given your rent is $x and market rent is $y, what do you think if a fair increase?
- Often, they may volunteer a higher amount than you were hoping for.
- Those that respond “$0” or something ridiculous, you can request income documentation from them to justify.
- Don’t be afraid to share with them how much your property taxes & Insurance increased and that YOU cannot afford to absorb them.
ALWAYS get an increase or something of value annually when rents are increasing or tenants will start thinking they should never have an increase, making future increases that much more difficult to negotiate.
Logical Property Management4.9459 Reviews
11 Replies
- 1moJeff WhiteBusiness MemberRealtor · Denver, CO · Member since 2016 · 278 posts · 371 votes
1) Agreed, and I would add last six months of rent payments screenshots, not to see if they paid rent but to see when the paid rent and see the pattern, and also call to verify income with HR/Supervisor and not rely just on a paystub, and I don't mind a credit karma report too. I look for big ticket items such as foreclosures, bankruptcies, judgements, etc.
Also, I don't trust the current landlord, so I like to call the prior one before that and the one before that to get more realistic feedback.
2) Yep, that should be a given to show you are a good landlord/PM. Most PMs/landlords don't respond right away and take a week to get things fixed.
3) A good PM software helps with this, accounting can be done with spreadsheets too, it isn't that hard.
4) Yes, that's something that I do 60-90 days before too, and start showing the place with them in the unit. The sooner you start, the sooner you can fill the unit without a vacancy, and also, not to time vacancies in the fall/winter either.
- 1moNadir M.Property Manager · Westminster, CO · Member since 2018 · 486 posts · 110 votesOP
Jeff — really appreciate the detail here. The six-months-of-statements point is smart — I hadn't thought about framing it as "when did they pay" rather than just "did they pay," but that pattern matters more than a single pay stub ever will. Calling HR/supervisor directly instead of trusting the stub is something more landlords should probably do and don't.
Good call going back two landlords instead of just the current one, too — makes sense, the current one usually just wants them gone.
And yeah, a week turnaround on maintenance from a PM is way too common. That's exactly the kind of thing that quietly costs a renewal a year later. Appreciate you weighing in from the agent side.
- 1moDrew SygitBusiness MemberProperty Manager · Royal Oak, MI · Member since 2012 · 12k+ posts · 9k+ votes
Quote from @Nadir M.:
Been managing rentals across the Denver metro (Westminster, Arvada, Thornton, and surrounding areas) for a few years now. A few things that are common rules of thumb I've found useful — curious how they compare to what other landlords/PMs here actually do.
1. Tenant screening: credit and eviction history matter, but income verification is the one people skip. A common rule of thumb is 3x rent in verifiable income, not just a pay stub screenshot. What's your cutoff?
2. Fast maintenance response tends to keep good tenants longer — a slow work order is one of the top reasons decent tenants don't renew.
3. Keeping rent collection and bookkeeping separate is a good habit; mixing the two is a common way owners lose track of what's actually profitable per door.
4. Lease renewals tend to go better as a real conversation than a last-minute formality — starting the conversation 60-90 days out instead of 30 gives more room to actually retain good tenants.
Genuinely curious: what's your income requirement for applicants, and how far out do you start renewal conversations? Always good to compare notes with others managing rentals in this market.
1) Hmm, which do you really think a tenant will prioritize paying:
- Rent, when it can take months for eviction
- Car payment, that can typically be repossessed faster than they can be evicted?Find it comical that with all the internet tools available, most landlords default to income as a multiple of rent that was created decades ago.
We use DTI just like lenders do for mortgages. We've designed a simple Excel spreadsheet that handles it.
2) Within reason
3) ?
4) We’ve found a great way to raise rent is:
- Determine market rent
- Share the proof with the tenant (they can see it on Zillow anyways)
- Tell the tenant, given your rent is $x and market rent is $y, what do you think if a fair increase?
- Often, they may volunteer a higher amount than you were hoping for.
- Those that respond “$0” or something ridiculous, you can request income documentation from them to justify.
- Don’t be afraid to share with them how much your property taxes & Insurance increased and that YOU cannot afford to absorb them.
ALWAYS get an increase or something of value annually when rents are increasing or tenants will start thinking they should never have an increase, making future increases that much more difficult to negotiate.
Logical Property Management4.9459 Reviews - 1moNadir M.Property Manager · Westminster, CO · Member since 2018 · 486 posts · 110 votesOP
Drew — the DTI point is a good one. 3x rent as a flat rule doesn't care whether someone's carrying $800/month in car and credit card payments or nothing — a mortgage lender would never underwrite it like that. Curious how you weight it — do you use something like the ~43% DTI ceiling conventional lenders use, or does it flex by situation?
On #3 — my bad, wasn't clear. I just meant keeping "what did we collect" separate from "what did this actually cost to run," so you're not fooling yourself about which properties are actually profitable — not a software recommendation.
The rent increase script is smart, especially asking them what they think is fair before you name a number — anchors the conversation on their number instead of yours. Tying it to your actual tax/insurance increases makes it feel like math instead of just squeezing them.
- 1moAshish AcharyaBusiness MemberCPA, CFP®, PFS · FL · Member since 2017 · 5k+ posts · 3k+ votes
Nadir, I agree with most of this, especially separating rent collection from bookkeeping and starting renewal conversations early.
The part I’d add from the tax side is that once you’re managing multiple rentals, property-level recordkeeping becomes just as important as tenant screening. Repairs, utilities, maintenance, tenant-related expenses, and capital improvements should all be tied to the correct property. The IRS specifically emphasizes keeping good rental records because they support deductions, depreciation, and the numbers ultimately reported on the tax return.
I’d also separate repairs from major replacements. If you replace an HVAC system, roof, flooring, or another major component, that may need different tax treatment than ordinary maintenance.
And for owners with larger portfolios, I’d review cost segregation property by property. It can accelerate depreciation on qualifying components, but the deduction is only as valuable as your ability to use the resulting losses. Rental losses can still be limited by the passive-activity and at-risk rules.
Operationally, I like the 60–90 day renewal window. It gives you enough time to evaluate the tenant, market rent, upcoming maintenance, and whether keeping a good tenant is worth more than pushing every last dollar of rent.
Happy to connect!
INVESTOR FRIENDLY CPA®5241 Reviews - 1moNadir M.Property Manager · Westminster, CO · Member since 2018 · 486 posts · 110 votesOP
Ashish — appreciate the CPA lens here, especially the repairs-vs-major-replacement distinction. Easy to lump a $400 repair and a $12k roof into the same "maintenance" bucket mentally, but the tax treatment (and honestly the reserve planning) is a different conversation for each. The cost-seg point is a good flag too — accelerated depreciation only helps if you can actually use the losses, and that part's easy to gloss over. Good add on tying every expense to the correct property from day one; that only gets messier as the portfolio grows, not less.
- Rental Property Investor · Cleves · Member since 2023 · 132 posts · 82 votes1mo
hi, 1. i liked the 2.5x, 3 is good too. i’ll start renewals 90 days out now, simple conversion, send the rent increase letter for confirmation.
- 1moNadir M.Property Manager · Westminster, CO · Member since 2018 · 486 posts · 110 votesOP
Twannisha — appreciate you sharing where you actually land. Curious what's behind the 2.5x for you specifically — is that a comfortable cutoff for your price point, or does going to 3x start knocking out applicants who'd otherwise be solid? And glad the 90-day renewal timing landed — even that extra 30 days over the usual 60 gives real room to catch something before a tenant's already decided to leave.
- 1moNadir M.Property Manager · Westminster, CO · Member since 2018 · 486 posts · 110 votesOP
Twannisha — appreciate the pickup. Two things that helped me hold the 90-day habit: block it on the calendar the same week rent is due each month so it never slips, and always send a value line with the increase (updated rent comps + one recent improvement to the unit). Tenants push back less when the number arrives with a why attached.
- Real Estate Agent · Denver CO · Member since 2019 · 210 posts · 332 votes1mo
Agreed and much of the same on 2-4.
1) No income qualifications but DTI and credit like others have mentioned. There's many high earners who are paycheck to paycheck so we prefer not to use income. In my experience some have been higher maintenance tenants as well. I've had a few tenants who spend 40%+ of their income on their home but they have low cost hobbies, bike everywhere, and cook frugal meals.
- 1moNadir M.Property Manager · Westminster, CO · Member since 2018 · 486 posts · 110 votesOP
Marcus — the DTI-over-income point keeps coming up in this thread for good reason, and the high-earner-paycheck-to-paycheck pattern is exactly why. The 40%+ housing spend with frugal habits elsewhere is a good real-world case for why a single income multiple misses the actual risk — someone spending less on a car and eating in can carry a higher rent-to-income ratio comfortably, while someone at 25% with high fixed debt elsewhere can't. Credit and DTI together probably tell you more than either number alone.
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