All Forum Posts by: Paul Ronto

Proper tenant screening and solid acceptance criteria are key to success as a landlord. As soon as you start to bend you're flirting with a headache and risk. I would stick to your guns on this. Don't get desperate, you'll find the right tenant, and like said before, 6 months advance rent doesn't make up for 6 months missed rent if they can't pay after the initial 6 months are up and you need to go through months of eviction issues. Get a solid tenant and you'll get your 6 months of rent in 6 months and many many more payments. 

It's time to have a deep conversation with your partner. Remember the key to finding great tenants is great marketing. The more options you have to screen and weed through the higher probability you'll find a great tenant. Always run full reports, credit, criminal, and eviction and set your criteria in stone. 

Hope this helps. Let us know how it goes or if you have other thoughts of questions. Good luck. 

Typically these are called micro-deposits and they are used to verify that the ACH payments is being set up to the correct account. They are probably asking for this info because the tenant is trying to set up recurring ACH payments. I would not be alarmed by this, most banks will require this as proof that the accounts are set up correctly. Call for sure to verify, but I would not raise the red flag for sure just yet. 

@Mo Thomas I sent you a PM. 

To me the concern would be the quality of the improvements that he'd be trading for the discount in rent. If you could have a say in the finishes and quality of the construction it could be a good deal in the end, you'd get a greater appreciation and help a friend out. 

The red flag though and it's big, is that you could be walking into a nightmare if the quality is not what you expect, if projects are half finished, or if the friendship between you all deteriorates because of your expectations not being met. Renting to trusted friends can be great, or it can really be a stress on the relationship. 

I'd be sure to run all your screening checks, credit, criminal and eviction, just so you know as much about him as possible. Even if you think you know him, there may be things that come up he's left out of the conversation. 

The other major concern is can you afford to take the hit on the rental income? There is risk if you are not cash flowing that at some point you need to make a major repair or your personal financial situation changes and you're not hard pressed to pay the mortgage on the rental or your primary. Cash flow gives landlords a buffer should unexpected things change. 

Hope that helps a bit. Let us know if you have more thoughts or questions and we'll try to help. 

You will not be asked for your CC. Like @Shaun R. mentioned, if you decide to accept online payments you'll connect your bank account information but there is no charge to landlords and money is directly transferred from tenants to landlords, there is no holding account. Let us know if you have any other questions, happy to answer them!

Feel free to shoot us any questions you have. We're happy to help in any way we can. 

Money Orders &Cashiers Check are considered safer than personal checks however, they can still be canceled before you deposit them and they are a burden for the tenant to get and for you to deposit since most bank apps won't let you electronically deposit them from your phone, which means you have to take a trip to the bank. ACH through an accredited payment party is still one of the best ways, it's cheap, fairly quick and based on verified funds. There are great tools out there to help you with this. 

@Mo Thomas let me know if you have any specific questions on taking payment I'm more than happy to help. 

Let me know if you have any questions. Always happy to help!

Congrats on the 1st property! To start, marketing is done easy if you use a syndication tool so you only have to create your property listing once, and have it pushed out to all the listing sites. 

As for applications, online is also easiest since you don't have to retype any info to submit for screening reports like credit, criminal and eviction. Don't skip this step, screening is crucial to being a landlord! The better tenants you get, the easier your life will be. Collecting rent online is really convenient as well so you don't have to deal with lost checks, or "no stamp" excuses. Find a solution that fits your needs that has all this in one location, it will make things streamlined and simple. 

Those are my simple tips, there's a lot of things to consider on your first property, but the community here at BP is happy to help. Feel free to reach out directly if you ever need any advice as well, I'm personally happy to help if needed. 

Congrats on your closing! Regardless of the application, be sure you can add customizable questions so you can ask some questions you care about in that stage of the process, it really helps whittle down the people who you may not accept right off the bat with little time. 

After application, be sure to request credit, criminal and eviction reports, and income verification, either a pay stub of bank statement, past landlords and current employers contact info for reference calls and anything personal that you have added to your acceptance criteria. 

I try to flip houses between tenants in 24 hours. It sucks for the most part, but I line up cleaning companies for the help needed, in the past I used to hammer out the clean and tune up on my own. Too many not to do that anymore. I do require a walkthrough 2 days prior to lease ending so I have an idea of what I am up against. Old tenants are required to be out by 6am on their last day and new tenants can't start moving in until 6 pm on their first day, so I basically have 2 days if needed, but it's hard. New tenants have always been ok with me finishing up projects to make the house nicer throughout the first week, like painting and remodeling. 

Tenant turnover can be the sore spot for most landlords, which is why screening is so important. Good tenants make this a lot easier. 

Good luck, let us know how it goes!