All Forum Posts by: Adam Martin

The pictures make the house look empty but I see that it is not available until the 29th.  Just curious why it isn't ready now and wanted to make sure the place is empty and you are allowing showings.  If not this is going to affect your pool.  Also with Zillow once a tenant pays for an application they can use it an unlimited number of times for 30 days so a lot of lower quality applicants are just going to apply to basically anything hoping for something.  There is no financial reason for them not to and you are getting other landlords rejects, part of the business when you use Zillow's applications.  A few weeks vacancy is frustrating but not nearly as bad as rushing it and selecting the wrong tenant.  Stay patient but this is par for the course for this time of year.  

Touching up paint is rarely as easy as painting over a spot and having it match.  It is not the color that fades as much as the sheen which is what you notice.  I know painted cabinets are the trend but I go with natural wood stain.  It still looks good and is more resistant where you don’t notice scratches as much.  Give it 10-15 years and you’ll be reading threads on if it makes sense to sand and refinish or just replace all these old painted cabinets.  

Dude...  These people got emergency custody of family members and they are doing the best they can to keep the family together.  I have no idea what these kids went through but for emergency custody life has probably not been great.  Sure this is not the ideal situation under today's circumstances but is certainly doable.  Think of how many kids older generations used to have and the size of the average house and they are probably living large by those standards.  I'm not sure if you would have a leg to stand on to evict or demand the kids to leave but even if it is would you really be ok being that guy.  Generally speaking I'm by the book and follow the lease and law to the letter but in certain situations just because you potentially can do something doesn't mean you should.  

Anytime you are debating if something should come of the deposit or not you need to ask yourself what can I prove the tenant did to break this.  Sometimes there may even be abuse but if you can't prove it you are going to have a hard time if there is a dispute.  I understand it worked when you lived there but pretty much everything has a useful life and while it worked then everything in the house will fail and need to be replaced at some point, that is where reserves come in.  A dishwasher is too cheap to repair and I'd just buy a new one. 

Not all money is good money.  After they have paid rent for this month I'd let them know that it seems like we are not aligned on our expectations which is unfortunate.  If they truly feel that you are an awful person and choose not to stay that is fine however as long as they are out by the end of the month you are willing to let them break the lease.  This happy clause allows them to seek greener pastures and since you aren't renewing anyway you are just pushing vacancy a few months up.  They are free to stay if they like but if so we need to stay professional and it needs to be clear this is a 1 time offer.  Out of curiosity though why did you choose to have flooring installed while the house was occupied.  It was good enough when they moved in and while it was only 1 day of install it is pretty disruptive replacing flooring and having to move things around especially since it seemed they were not willing participants from the start.

Well that is certainly unpleasant and escalated quickly but I really don’t see this as something you can evict over.  I would just ignore it and move on with your day.  I’m sure he is in a lot of stress and he lashed out.  This is however not a tenant that is going to get any leniency from me at all so if he is late I’d file for eviction the first chance I had.  He must have missed the whole you catch more flies with honey if he were looking for sympathy from you.

we were posting at the same time so this is an edit but I would assume you were the intended recipient but go with he was just having a bad day.  He realized he made a mistake and just let it go.  

In Ky we must mail it with best practice being certified mail as well as include a letter itemizing any deductions within 30 days moving out.  There have been a couple instances where I skipped these steps and just sent it back through Zelle but I had a great relation with the tenants and they were getting their full deposit back so the risk was minimal.  We also agreed to it through text and I had them text me their link so I was sure it was going to the right place so I had some sort of documentation.

Keep in mind I don't own any storage units so take this for what it is.  If I were at 70% occupancy and the goal was 90% I'm not sure I'd be in a hurry to tempt loosing paying clients.  I'd first try to get to my 90% goal renting vacancies at market rents and paying attention to what rents the easiest.  I'd start there raising rents on the sizes that are easiest to rent and work my way down until I'm at occupancy for the right rate.  

It does get easier and you get better at reading people.  You see guilt over not giving her a chance, I see it differently.  You caught an applicant in best case an incomplete truth, worst case she lied to you.  There should be a reason for all qualification criteria, it was important to you with a clear head and time on your side and it should stay front of mind especially when you are in a hurry to fill a vacancy.  I often find a lot of the applicants I click with best and feel will be great tenants are not everything they appear to be.  I always try to find a rational to rent to them and feel good but at the end I am brought back to why my criteria was selected.  I need to give my family the best chance of success.  We have a lot of money and a lot more debt riding on my decisions and I can't let them down.  

All the tenant screening tool is a redirect to rentprep.com.  You can just go there directly.  I use them and really like their screening.