All Forum Posts by: Winter Heintz

@Winter Heintz NEVER represent a Holding Fee as a deposit! If you do this, it makes it refundable if applicant disappears.

Both these worse case happened to our STR units which we do not self manage:

Scenario 1: tenant created a mud pit out of the small yard for girls to wrestle in.  PM collected for damages and lost rent. We placed a deck over 50% of the yard and artificial turf over the other half of the yard.  

Scenario 2 may not primarily be an issue with our tenant (depends on your perspective): Our STR tenant was one guy and 2 females. One of the neighbors (who was an LTR tenant) was being obnoxious toward one or both females. Our male tenant attempted to be chivalrous and supposedly started the physical confrontation. our tenant ended up getting KOed. Our PM contacted the neighbor PM and neighbor tenant got a warning but no real consequence seeing that he apparently did not start the physical confrontation. Our PM found our tenants a different place to stay and we lost some rent.

Not our tenant, but tenant across the street from our unit was a extreme hoarder case.  They had cat and dog that **** repeatedly in house and was not cleaned up.  There was stuff piled to the ceilings. One of the most surprising things to me was the cobwebs in the door to the bathroom.  It appears tenant bent down to avoid the webs rather than remove the webs.  The unit was a total rip out, mostly due to the pet damage.  If it was just the hoarding, the cost would not have been that high as the owner negotiated $300 to remove everything and they got to keep what they wanted (there was unused laptops, multiple flat screen TVs, etc). 

I've had a couple STR guests smoking meth/ fentanyl in my properties, which is pretty crazy because these are high end luxury units. Doesn't happen often but it's happened twice. I know because one tore down smoke detectors and they both left foil, straws, and other used supplies behind.

Regarding LRT, I usually don't interact much w/ the tenants or do the screening, my wife does. Can't remember what happened but for whatever reason I was at this property and showed it to a couple of young single guys. They were active duty in the US Marine Corps., and I am a Marine Corps. vet, so we hit it off. I bypassed the normal screening that we usually do, because, they're Marines and they'll be great tenants - right?

On the first day they moved in there was something minor that needed repair, so I go over there to take care of it and I'm greeted by a 80-90 pound german shepherd who was not at all welcoming. I was puzzled because the lease stated no pets allowed and they confirmed that they didn't have any pets or animals. 

A moment later I saw one of the guys and asked him what's going on w/ the dog. He said that they decided not to tell me about it because they thought I would discriminate against them, so they went and got an ESA cert online (not worth the paper it's printed on), and said that now I can't do s*it about it. Those were literally his words, and this happened on the first day of the lease when they were moving in. 

From there all kinds of drama, complaining that a fence was a few inches too close to parking space and was code violation, threatened to call fire dept, etc., etc. Literally complaining about every single thing on a regular basis. I was finally able to get rid of them, but they were a complete and major pain in the butt. 

I'm curious as to your tenant screening criteria. Are you using a service such as rentredi or avail?

You can't force them to do anything. 

When an application is approved, I give them very clear, written instructions on how to pay the deposit and secure the rental. If they don't pay within 24 hours, the property is offered to the next approved applicant or stays on the market. That's their choice. It's a frustrating process, but you can't force them to rent your place any more than a grocery store can force them to buy the loaf of bread in front instead of digging back three rows.

EDIT: I just saw that you take the deposit in pieces, which I think is bad practice. I take the full deposit within 24 hours of approval and send them a "Holding Agreement" that says I am accepting the payment, will hold the property until [DATE], and if they change their mind or fail to perform then the deposit is forfeited. I require payments in Money Order, cashiers check, or direct deposit so I don't have to wait for a check to clear. If people don't want to commit, neither should you.

@Winter Heintz  if you are in a rural or semi rural area you may be talking to everyone looking for your type of unit and if you are basically the least expensive of that size unit you will get people on the edge. Aside from the open house consolidated showings and other suggestions I have found a nice video tour also limits who comes in person to those who find the unit meets their needs to begin with. I send the video tour before showing not in place of it. Prescreen before open house type showing too. 

I find it a little odd that you're telling them to give you half the deposit to hold it and then another half to sign the lease. Why not tell them to give you the whole deposit and sign the lease at the same time? Dont give them the keys until you get deposit and first month.

@Melanie Thomas @Winter Heintz

Thank you both for replying. Very useful information. I definitely have to be better about figuring out what my minimum criteria is and being clear about that up front. I may try to verify their ability to pay by getting more information from them and requiring some of those other things you suggested but it will be hard to verify anything with what I have from them so far.

I will be looking into a leasing only PM and maybe have them take care of more as I am still working a full time job so it's been a little difficult balancing that with trying to take care of getting these units ready and filled. Thanks for all of the help!