All Forum Posts by: Alyssa K.

Currently trying to get my first investment property rented. I’ve had a lot of interest, but most of the applicants who have made serious steps to apply have been real “winners”. Note my infamous chicken post. Thanks to the conversations from that post I’ve tightened up my processes, and pre-screening has become a breeze. But now I’m stuck at the worst time of year with a rental I NEED to get rented because I close on my next investment in Feb, and need this property off my debt to income to float 3 mortgages (the rental, my current home turned live in flip that will become a rental in June, and a new live in flip that I’m closing on in Feb and doing a lease back until the end of May). The only comp, because this is a 1/2 acre property out of city limits with no HOA, was in the same neighborhood and rented for $1600. Mine has better upgrades and lawn care included for $1650. At what point do you just “cheap sale” rent it? Do you have a threshold of how low you can go? Cost? Cost + $$? Any and all advice is appreciated! It’s for lease by owner (my DBA name is what applicants see).

@Jennifer T. Yes ma’am, same guy. He’s been shady at every opportunity and certainly isn’t doing his clients any favors.

@Marie Fries thank you! I’m new to this, and this realtor has been so combative at every opportunity. It feels like he’s trying to cause issues. I’m glad I’m under no obligation to respond then, I want to ensure I tread lightly as to not give them any reason to continue to engage. It will certainly make an interesting dinner party conversation!

@Joe Splitrock well no word back from her, but the realtor emailed me with the ESA paperwork and instructions to “send all future correspondence to me only”. Based on your suggestions, the best move would be to not respond, correct? Seeing as how I’ve already given my decision to the applicant via voicemail. Would you reiterate the voicemail through an email to the applicant to ensure they don’t try and claim they didn’t recieve notice of the denial?

@Joe Splitrock perfect! I really appreciate you! Thank you again!

@Joe Splitrock thank you! You’ve been extremely helpful! I did call, got voicemail, and did go ahead and use your statement as my message; “I’m sorry to say I’m calling to inform you that I’m unable to approve your rental application as you did not meet the minimum X and Y qualifications. If you have any questions, give me a call”. Hopefully that will be the end of it. I like the idea of the repeat statement, without having that as a script I could see myself falling into the trap of feeling emotionally obligated to offer additional explanation. Thankfully credit was not ran for this person, the application itself had enough red flags to not warrant the additional steps.

@Anna Watkins for some reason my response posted to another thread I was reading, so sorry for the multiple alerts! thanks for the suggestions! I definitely made a lot of “newbie” mistakes this go around, and everyone’s suggestions have been really helpful in determining what my system will look like hear forward. We are not requiring 3X rent from every applicant, but that at least one applicant makes 3X as the primary applicant. As I had said to someone else above, this was decided upon based on that this was once requIred of myself and my husband when we were about a month out from our wedding, and we felt it was a good practice. Thanks to another poster I now have a pre screening in place that I will use before ever offering an application, and I’m working on editing the application to include the qualifications as we speak! Thanks so much for your help!

@Anna Watkins thanks for the suggestions! I definitely made a lot of “newbie” mistakes this go around, and everyone’s suggestions have been really helpful in determining what my system will look like hear forward. We are not requiring 3X rent from every applicant, but that at least one applicant makes 3X as the primary applicant. As I had said to someone else above, this was decided upon based on that this was once requIred of myself and my husband when we were about a month out from our wedding, and we felt it was a good practice. Thanks to another poster I now have a pre screening in place that I will use before ever offering an application, and I’m working on editing the application to include the qualifications as we speak! Thanks so much for your help!

@Chris Mason thank you! I’ll definitely check it out.

@Gerald Peters I’m not. I have recieved her application, and many of our minimum criteria are not met. Now I’m just trying to figure out how to go about denying without opening a can of worms. This situation has certainly pointed out several “newbie” mistakes I made, I’ll absolutely be vetting applicants more before giving them an application in the future. This particular person recieved one before the showing.