All Forum Posts by: Dong Shi

Instead of going out of pocket for central AC installation you could look at more cost effective alternatives like ceiling fans in the bedrooms, portable evaporative coolers, etc. I would also typically recommend to our clients that we sacrifice on our price point before sacrificing on quality of tenants. You can consider move in specials as well, such as a certain dollar amount off the first months rent if they move in by a certain date. Those are a few ideas, feel free to reach out if you'd like to brainstorm further! 

 None of that tells you anything about the people in those homes or vehicles. It's easy to get a car loan, you wouldn't know if they have a 20% apr loan or paid it all cash. You'd also never know if they're a 600 credit score or an 800.

But generally speaking, a family is going to want that many rooms...and a family will likely value schools more so then a nice property.

Family with no kids, unlikely to "value" the high bedroom count...and would likely want less rooms that are bigger.

Your property is nice, but look at it from a renters perspective. What makes it more valuable or desirable then your competition. 

With people returning to work and school, you could probably do well renting out the rooms... Look at how much rooms are going for, they're way up in the East Bay toward Walnut Creek. 1k room is affordable compared to 12-1500+ for a 1bd room plus your property probably nicer.

or since it's furnished, throw it up on furnished finder or do short term rental (but make sure you account for proper insurance).

You could also likely rewrite the ad, sell it that ad would turn me and most people I know away because it's too formal and not welcoming/selling me the dream lol

Rent out the main house to properly screened Section 8 or Abode tenants that you screen yourself.

No smoking of any kind

They pay for a $50.00 background check

No pets unless it is a service animal. If it is then it can’t be more than 35 Lbs fully grown and no dangerous breed animal even if it is a service animal (my insurance won’t allow dangerous breed animals).

No evictions , ever.

No felonies, ever.

I have had outstanding results with this method here in the East Bay and in Cleveland with this method and I still have more candidates than I know what to do with, even with that criteria.

Do what I do and set the criteria as above

You should probably revaluate your tenant criteria. 200k+ and perfect credit, they're either buying or renting something nicer.

3500 mo, that's generically speaking 125-150k yr to qualify for rental based off income. They would have a hard time buying something with what prices are now.

I would also strongly understand what's causing lower credit scores too. Medial Bills, Student Loans can tank a score, but could mean they care more about housing then those things...

But where you're likely at would be by the room, get people in there at 1k mo utilities included. That's probably a competitive price these days more so with the quality of your unit...and those renters aren't going to care about you being onsite since they're already used to sharing space since they rent roomm.

The house looks beautiful, I'm sure you will find someone soon. Just curious, since I will be in a similar situation soon (renting our main house out that has an attached ADU), how private is the main living space from the ADU? Is the yard private? Are they highly qualified applicants not renting because they don't want to share the space or give up privacy? Did you adjust the rental rate down to compensate for the shared living space w/ the ADU? We figured we would discount the rent slightly to compensate for the ADU even though it's very private and you hardly notice that it's there.

I think the property looks good. Your pictures look real good and your rent seems to be market. 

My units are in San Diego. We do not do individual showings.  We hold an open house that everyone who is interested in the unit can see the unit.  It creates a frenzy.  we typically have 6 to 10 prospective tenants show for the open house (about 25% of those that had expressed interest). We typically end up with 1 to 4 applications.  i would estimate we have ~40% turned in application rate.  If they do not fill out the application on the spot, regardless of how much they state they live the unit, we have a fairly low application rate.  

During covid restrictions we had 4 units to fill.  Wenscheduled individual showings.  Our application rate was dismal, I suspect worse than 10%.  I attribute the reduced application rate to the lack of frenzy.  

Try the following: stop individual showings, advertise an open house for at least 4 days from now, respond to all inquiries answering any questions and stating the time of the open house (hopefully you have at least 25 inquiries), a couple/few hours before the open house provide a reminder of the open house via what ever medium they used for the initial contact, create a sign in sheet (can help create the frenzy), hold the open house.  Hopefully ~25% of those who expressed interest show up fot the open house and you get some applicants.  

Good luck