All Forum Posts by: Tricia O'Brien

@Jane S.

I had a household with 3 adults and an income about 5X my rent inquire about my rental house.  But they have 2 pit bull mixes.  I thought it could work with a large pet deposit to offset risk and the right homeowners insurance.  After I spent several hours researching insurance, now they're saying they don't think they can afford the pet deposit!

Someone else inquired with a bull mastiff as an ESA.  

I'm beginning to hate dogs too! You're not alone....

I recently rejected an applicant who had no record of paying rent at her current residence on her current 30 day bank statement, even though the landlord said she always paid on time, never a problem. The applicant said she'd paid cash and would get a receipt, but never gave it to me.

People trying to scam us "evil landlords" so they can get a bigger nicer place they probably can't afford !!

@Account Closed

I agree that at least 90% of the inquiries from Facebook Marketplace are crap! What's your secret to quickly finding the cream of the crop on facebook ?

Cheers...

I loved it.  He makes real estate investing sound a lot easier than it is in real life, of course.  But I have listened to one of his CDs before and always enjoy his insights. Especially interesting about he is expecting us to have inflation and high taxes for a long while due to the how the USA's ration of debt/ gross domestic product has gone up to 130/1 now whereas just  before COVID it was 106/1.  He said he thinks a healthy ratio is 90/1, but didn't really explain why 90 was the best ratio. 

His take on homelessness was interesting and the lack of affordable housing.  I also found it interesting that he thinks the trend of the government giving money directly to landlords to assist people with housing will grow  as opposed to the government building big housing projects for the poor. 

That's what I heard anyway! 

I would sure appreciate it if someone could  help me figure out this annoying water bill problem with an older house in Indiana (over 100 years old).  

It's been vacant for about 6 months now.  When the last tenant lived there, the water bill (which the tenants paid) was consistently higher than what the property manger thought it should be by about 100%. When I called the water company they said these tenants usage was consistently high so they refused to come out and check the line because they only did that if there was a sudden jump in usage. Property manager looked once in basement and found no leaks.

So I just dropped the issue for about 8-9 months.

Now, with it empty,  one handyman said there was something wrong with the toilet. I had a plumber come out on 6/30/21 who replaced a flapper and the lever on the toilet. 

Then for the period July 17 to Aug 16 (still vacant) my water bill was about $55 for 5500 gallons of usage !!  During that time the only activity was that I had a handyman working there for about 10-14 days to paint the entire interior, put new flooring in one room , and a couple of other small projects. And a housecleaner was there to clean all the floors and windows and do general cleaning (1-2 days)

Does it seem normal that painting the interior of a 1300 square foot house and housecleaning (1-2 days)  for the same house would use that much water?

Should I try to demand the water company put on a new meter? 

What is the deal with checking the toilet with dye?

It's a 1 bathroom house.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!!

I have to pay the sewer bill if the tenant's default on it, so I'd like to get the water bill down...the sewer bill is based on the usage of water.

@Marian Smith

So when you say you require all applicants to qualify individually, do you mean something like this?   Say the applicants are a man, his girlfriend, and there are 2 children under 18.  If the minimum to rent the unit is $3K/ month income then the man would have to make at least $3K / month and the woman would have to make at least  $3K per month to qualify since they are non related occupants? 

@Russell Brazil

Hi Russell,

So I have a question about a different unit now since you brought up the issue of 50 square feet per person. If a 2 bedroom place has one bedroom that is only 75 square feet and the other bedroom is 109 square feet, then the HUD rule would be that this dwelling could have 2 people in the larger bedroom and 1 person in the smaller bedroom and 1 in the living room so a total of 4 people in the unit?

Thanks!

@Scott M.

Do you think it would be discriminatory to put  a statement like the following in an application. I know another   PM  company sends this to their applicants (maybe by email separate from the application or part of application itself):  

" Please write a short description of why you would like to live in this  house and how the other people in the household are related to you"

I found it useful in the past to know why they liked my house and that  the other people on the application were  the son, daughter, fiance , etc of the head of household

@Scott M.

Okay thanks for your  input Scott! 

What are your thoughts about how to screen out some high risk applicants you don't want??

Specifically households with more than 4 people total?

I have a 3 bedroom / 1 bath SFH rental in Indiana in a class D area (about 1290 sq feet) and I have a maximum occupancy of 4 people - full time and part time residents. I bought it in 2018, and the first tenants I leased to had a family size of 3. I didn't advertise a max occupancy limit in 2018 or currently in 2021, that's just who I ended up picking in 2018.

It's vacant now, and when I told a property manager a couple of weeks ago that I wanted a max occupancy of 4 (as one of my preferred criteria)  he said that might be seen as discriminating against large families and it might be a violation of some Fair Housing Law.  He said the fire marshall in most cities allows 2 people per bedroom so 6 would be normal max occupancy.

He recommended NOT putting in a Facebook or Zillow or Avail.co or  realtor.com  listing that the max occupancy is 4.  However,  if someone applied with 5 or 6 or 7 people in the household , I could reject them for another reason, like credit score too low.  I believe he was  recommending  NOT telling people to their face that we don't accept families with more that 4 people total.

What are your thoughts?? 

Should I tell people by phone we don't accept families with more than 4 people (either before or after they do an application)?...

Maybe  say something like "It has always been my policy since 2018 to have a max occupancy of 4 people because it's less than 1400 sq feet and only has 1 bathroom." 

I decided to self manage for now.  Someone emailed   a pre-screening form Sunday  who said her family size is 5-6 people and total gross income was only $3,100/month (above my preferred  income requirement) . So I just failed to respond to her email because I don't want her to apply.  I'm confident she cannot afford to live there and is  a high risk for non payment of rent.

After paying rent and utilities, she'd only have at best $2k/mo for all other expenses for 1 adult and 4 or 5 children if they lived there.

My house has: 

Rent: $760/mo with tenant responsible for paying all utiliites ( runs $200-$350/mo)

Rent plus utilities: runs  about $960/mo to $1110/mo (depending on household size and habits) 

My Preferred Criteria for Tenant Applicants:

1) Maximum occupancy 4 people - full and part time residents

2) Gross Income at least $3040 / month (4x rent amount but 3.1x expected  rent and utilities for 3-4 person household)

3) No evictions in  past 5 years of any household member

4) No felony convictions ever of any household member

Am I on the right track to take the PM's advice and NOT be up front about the max occupancy ??

  Less than 10% of people who have inquired so far have a family size more than 4, but I'm feeling awkward about how to handle it when it happens.

Any advice would be appreciated!  Thanks!

Hello BP Folks!  I would like to get as many opinions as possible regarding which service is better for tenant screening for evaluating debt to income ratio and the applicant's history of on time car payments, credit card payments, etc - the BP recommended screening tool (SmartMove) for $38 or the one from Rentscreener.com for $35? 

I am concerned that, for a low income property (like one that rents for $760/mo) the Rentscreener might not have enough detail about late payments.   The folks at Rentscreener.com lump all their data into a final "Rent Grade" of A, B, C, D etc but do not give you the actual data of the how many late car payments or late credit card payments someone had in 2020 or 2021.  They also don't give you the raw credit score of 550, 600, 650, etc. or the total amount of debt payments like $500/mo car payment , $300/mo VISA payment etc.

I'm new to tenant screening ...Thanks in advance!

It is easier to self manage a B class rental than a D class. However, in the D class areas, where you really need the help, it can be almost impossible to find a good quality property manager. So you have to do some of the work yourself at times with a D class rental  as in  "manage your  manager"  even though you are paying a property manager.  If you do not supervise your out of state property manager through emails, phone, drive by inspections by others  etc sometimes they'll neglect maintenance and jeopardize the safety of the tenants.