All Forum Posts by: Katie Rogers

There is no contract.  The whole system needs to be redesigned to better align the agent's interest with the buyer's, especially in high priced areas.  It seems to me the agent who gets 6% for a $150K house in Wisconsin earned it, while the agent who gets 6% of a $1M house in CA ends up with a huge bonus for very little work.

I still do not know what to do in this situation, but splitting does not seem fair to the agent who actually gets the job done.  I am not sure what a discussion with the first agent would accomplish.  She must certainly be aware of her lack of timeliness.  

I am so glad someone finally rented to me when I was unemployed. I had just returned from a long stint overseas in a cash-based country (so no credit score).   For most people, unemployment is a temporary situation.  I do not understand why so many landlords treat it as though it is more likely permanent.  And the attitude of "well if they can pay in advance for 6 months, they can pay for 12"  is harsh and stinky.  As a landlord, I never lose sight of the way I was treated as a tenant.  Tenants are people, not wallets.

Notice the number of landlords who desire to "lock in" the tenant.  This is a terrible way to treat a tenant.  Worse are the landlords who specifically say they want to trap tenants in order to discourage tenants from buying.  Good landlords do not need to lock in tenants.  A happy tenant will stay.  If you aim for money, you'll get some.  If you aim for customer service and satisfaction, more money will follow.  The time-tested Golden Rule really works.

A good tenant might want to do this.  For example if they work in a seasonal industry where they get their income for the year in a lump sum, they might want to pay the rent first so they do not have to worry about.  Or there was the time a skunk got into the subfloor of the unit I was renting, and I was in a hurry to find another place before the skunk succeeded in digging through and emerging in the living room.  Or maybe especially as more and more people are wary of handing out personal financial information, they may want to set the landlord's mind at ease by paying up front.  Here is another one I encountered.  A parent wanted to secure an apartment for their developmentally delayed child who worked at Goodwill.  You need to evaluate the reason.

I do not think I would want to accept a 12 month prepayment if I were an absentee landlord. 

Another advantage of a month-to-month is the landlord can also give notice without waiting for a lease to expire.

"Hey why have a contract Katie just let them rent for as long as they need like a hotel right"  What are you talking about?  The alternative contract is a month-to-month, and sure, let them rent as long as they want.  A month-to-month means the tenant must give you 30 days notice before they leave or they forfeit all or possibly a proration of the next month's rent. The last time I was a tenant, I stayed 4 years on my month-to-month rental agreement.

As much as I understand the temptation to require cashiers checks or money orders after an incident, that would actually be an over reaction.  Long leases are traps for both parties.  If a landlord is a good landlord, a long lease is unnecessary to keeping a good tenant.  The last time I was a tenant, I stayed 4 years on my month-to-month.

This sounds manipulative.  Staging is merely cosmetic.  As a landlord, you should be offering a decent home in the first place.  If I were a tenant, I would wonder what kind of pig the staging lipstick is covering.  Plenty of real estate books say that a fair rent is about 25%-33% of a local typical tenant's income.  Staging will not change this.  I would resent a landlord who thought he could charge me extra rent for putting some flowers on the table.  I think this will backfire eventually.

A couple months ago, I made an offer for a house via my buyer's agent.  This was the first deal this agent and I worked on together.  Throughout the process, I have been disappointed with this buyer's agent's lack of timely response.  The seller accepted another buyer's offer.  As of today, the house has fallen out of escrow and is back on the market.  If I restart the offer process with a different buyer's agent and I win the house, can the first buyer's agent demand a commission even though she did not successfully negotiate for the house the first time?  Or do I have to work with her on this house until my offer is accepted, or the house closes for another buyer?  California law prevails.

If the current tenants had given notice, they are responsible for moving whether the house closes or not.  Perhaps the tenants gave only a tentative notice, in which case the landlord left open the possibility that the tenants would not leave.  This kinds of problems develop when landlords chase money, in this case, by trying to minimize vacancy costs.

Depending on the rental market, "moving on" and finding another place to live at this late date might be difficult.  The landlord should be sensitive to the predicament he has placed you.  If the landlord has not expressed any willingness to mutually find a resolution, you may be better off letting this one go.  Perhaps he is a lousy landlord, and you would be dodging a bullet.