All Forum Posts by: Mary Ann Nielsen

All Good Pointers noted previously.   Look at the lease terms.  Are they doing one year leases or are they per the school year.     Do yourself a favor and do a rent comp survey of the area.   Can rents be raised etc.  By renting out each room per unit as a joint tenancy you will realize a higher rent overall per unit.   If leases are on the schools terms you will end up with the units vacant 3 months out of the year and then you are starting over looking for new tenants.   Try to go for at least a year lease.   Upon renewal, opt to take an annual rental amount in the shorter term.  For example:  if the rent is $500.  for 12 months that would be $6,000. divide that over 9 months which is $667. 

I have done where we rented the property for a 12 month lease and they paid a higher amount for 9 months and then a lower amount for the 3 months they went back home and the unit stayed as is "primarily storage where they didn't have to move out"  that saved on turnover.

You may experience a higher turnover and make sure you secure a higher security deposit for damages.  

I just learned of a new website that is cloud based that allows you to manage up to 75 units free.   I haven't had a chance to check it out just yet.    It is www.auth.tenantcloud.com/signup/

It is a tenant cloud based system that lets you manage up to 75 units for free.  You can accept & manage rental applications, store accounting, collect and track rents, manage maintenance requests with tenants, manage websites and a bit more 

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me at 415-640-7905.