All Forum Posts by: Kimberly H.

This little gem from this morning. Agent who has showed a rental I manage calls about it,

Agent,"They love it, but because the screening is $40 per adult I want to ask some questions. They are filing for bankruptcy..."

Me,"Wait, they are filing bankruptcy? We don't take people that are mid-bankruptcy".

Agent,"Well, they are planning to file for bankruptcy, but not the son, he has a good score"

Me,"I'm not going to take people that I know are filing for banktruptcy"

Agent,"Well, just the lady is filing. The adult son has a good credit score"

Me,"Can the adult son qualify on his own? Does he alone make 3X the income?"

Agent,"They need all 3 of them to meet the income requirement."

Me,"Well then it's not going to work out."

Agent,"Well, just the lady is filing (bankruptcy)"

Me,"It doesn't sound like it's going to work out"

Agent,"But the son has a good credit score"

Me,"We don't mix and match incomes and credit scores. For a person's income to be considered their credit score needs to meet the criteria"

Agent,"They have plenty of income. I think the lady has enough income to qualify herself.  I think they have way more income than they need"

I think, wow, this story changes really fast.

Then the agent tells me she is going to get her clients to pull their credit scores so she knows what they are and she'll get back to me. I'll be sitting by the phone in anticipation...NOT!!

@Danny Chan I manage B Class rentals in the Chicago suburbs.  700 is sky high. Try 600. I would change it now. If you have contact info for those you previously told it was 700, let them know the policy has changed and it's 600 now. 

@Aly W. oh I totally would but they were then asking to negotiate the 2nd year rent amount if that was correct

These are from real estate agents:

When we reject someone we forward the rejection email to the their agent as well. The forwarded email says in the subject line:address Application Rejected. At the very top of the forwarded email it says in large colored font "Your Application has been rejected". Agent emails back,"So it was rejected?"

Second one, listing says 2 year lease only, first year is $1700/month, second year with 1.5% rent increase. Real estate agent sends email, "I wanted to confirm rent prices: First year monthly rent is ~$1700, but in the 2nd year monthly rent is ~$2550". I wanted to be like, no, that's not how math works. 

Young couple walks into a four bedroom house we have for rent.  Then I hear the guy on the phone and some discussion about the bedrooms which makes me think there are others that would be living there. I ask the female and she says, "Oh, he will have a TON of roomates" and that she will not be living there. Uhm, no. Not managing a frat house.

Seems like no one knew about this before yesterday. Any way to try to fight this that you know of?

1. Don't give these people your cell ; use Google voice.      2a. since your in Chicago, be aware of Chicago landlord tenant ordinance and that in Cook county you can't discriminate against section 8.  2b. Prescreen with four or five questions .      3. If they don't answer all questions in a way that meets your criteria, they don't get a showing. Personally, I don't go out of my way to potentially piss someone off or invite a bunch of excuses by bringing up what I found out about them online.

Learned from a lawyer to not immediately respond when tenants go bonkers, which tends to escalate matters. Wait a day or two, then respond professionally via email. Don't engage in a text back and forth. With where it is now, the only thing I might respond to it the foundation issue.

There is no mold disclosure requirement for rentals in Illinois. That being said, it would be best to get the seller to produce a letter from a professional saying the mold has been successfully remediated.

Never heard of the heartbeat rule applying to pets. Sounds off.