help me pick renters

[marie3246]

We are renting our housing and moving 2 hrs north. We are doing our own property Mgt since I am in the business and have a good list of ppl to do the repairs if needed. We have a 1 story pool home that we completely renovated and have dark hardwood floors. We plan to return in 3ish years or at least before A goes to school.

1. First couple dh met and said they seemed nice. They are in their mid 30's and she has a 3 year old. He has his house foreclosed on in 2008 and has shitty credit. She has excellent credit. They have never lived together. She has bought and sold 4 houses in the last four years, we don't know why other than they weren't investments. They have a dog but they said it lives with her mom about ten min away. They both work in mortgage for the same company.

-my concerns with this couple is the amount of moving she has done in the recent years. We want at least a year with ppl interested in longer. The 3 yr old and our pool makes me nervous but we have an alarm in the doors and a baby gate around the pool. The dog at her moms, I can't imagine she won't be bringing it to the house even though we said no pets.


2. Family two is a couple in their 40's with 2 teens and they have a 30lbs small beagle. They are from south america and are coming for a 3 year contract for a major sports team near us which is awesome. We were totally against pets bc we didn't want to deal with peeing/shedding/and having our floors scratched. We have a dog so we realize this makes us total hypocrites but we know renters won't take care of our house like us. They also do not speak English and we don't speak Spanish so I am unsure how us managing the property will work. They want to sign a long term lease. My totally unreasonable concern is that they reminded me of past clients who were from the same area they are from. I loved my clients but they were a nightmare to work with and were very nitpicking about everything. I don't want to be driving back every other week fixing things or having to hire someone all the time. I realize this is totally unfounded.

Neither choice is ideal but we are moving in a week so we would like to get this taken care of soon. We currently don't have any other candidates other than a few ppl who want to do short term leases. I really don't know who to pick.

[zarapipe]

ummmm.... no option 3?

None sound ideal. I would maybe wait it out for a better candidate or go through a property mgt company that maybe has a larger pool of applicants.
I wouldn't do option 1 because of the bad credit. I wouldn't do option 2 because of the language barrier. Do you have anyone who would translate if issues arise? if you had a solid plan of how to communicate it would probably work.

[mellymel]

Landlord here. Neither. Sorry. Hold out for better options.

[marie3246]

Jul 17, 2014 8:25:39 GMT -5 zarapipe said:

ummmm.... no option 3?

None sound ideal. I would maybe wait it out for a better candidate or go through a property mgt company that maybe has a larger pool of applicants.
I wouldn't do option 1 because of the bad credit. I wouldn't do option 2 because of the language barrier. Do you have anyone who would translate if issues arise? if you had a solid plan of how to communicate it would probably work.

I know. We are going through a property Mgt company which is how we found them. They are doing tenant placement only. We have a friend who speaks Spanish and their agent does as well.

[marie3246]

Jul 17, 2014 8:34:19 GMT -5 mellymel said:

Landlord here. Neither. Sorry. Hold out for better options.

I'm not sure we have much better options, everyone has a dog and I understand since we do as well. The credit sucks on the first guy but the girl has great credit and can afford it on her own.

[barefootcontessa]

do you have a good understanding about your liability on the pool? I would be more worried about that than anything else.

[schrodinger]

Assuming you HAVE to pick one of your options . . .

1. How many months can you afford to let the house go empty before you are in a bad spot financially?
2. How often can you reasonably travel back to your rental?
3. How is insurance for the pool managed? I assume you keep insurance on the home, but what would renters insurance cover? Can you require that?

If you are okay financially, I'd up your security deposit to a few months (or require X months of rent in cash up front) and rent to #1. If you can travel back frequently and don't mind doing so, I'd opt for #2, since I'd prefer the longer term renters. The dog makes me nervous, so I'd ask for the legal max you can to cover pet damages.

I'd be hesitant to rent to someone with a toddler due to the pool. I'd worry about renters maintaining the fence and door alarming system.

[Deleted]

Landlord here too. I vote neither. Wait for a better tenant, it will be worth it. We are renting our townhouse at the moment too, and have turned down the first 3 applications for similar issues. Shitty credit, too many pets, sob story about missed payments, blah blah. Neither of your choices are good tenants. Hold out for something better.

IMHO, if you're not getting much interest in your property, it's better to drop the price a little bit to get a bigger applicant pool rather than choose a bad tenant.

[imojoebunny]

I would not rent to either of these people. We don't do dogs and we don't do bad/no credit. If these are your only options, I would take option 2, depends on your market, but here you could get a renter signed up to move in in a week. I would get a management company before I rented to either family. All of supergreen's points are very valid.

[elocrates]

#1 would definitely be a no go. Poor credit in even one of them, particularly if they will be living together for the first time (and therefore unsure whether it will work well), is very risky for you.

For #2 you would need to have a reliable way to communicate with your renters. Both so you can get ahold of them but also so they are able to call you with issues. If you do go with #2, I agree with the larger deposit due to a pet.

Honestly, I would hold out for other options and eat the cost of not having it rented out for a few months.

[bunch]

Jul 17, 2014 13:55:54 GMT -5 @cookiemonster03 said:

If these are your options, 2 for sure. 1 sounds like a disaster.

Exactly.

[bunch]

Also, I still have an active broker's license and have plenty of contractor contacts, but I can't say enough about how much I love my property management co. They even rented my house for more that I thought I could, so it more than covered their fee. The years I spent as my own PM were incredibly stressful.

[leonard131]

Another landlord checking in who has been burned twice now with crappy tenants. RUN from both. Sometimes even the ones who look perfect on paper end up flaking and these aren't even starting out well.

How long has it been on the market? Can you wait another couple weeks to find a tenant? Maybe you will find more people looking to move closer to September then in the middle of the summer.

[speckledfrog]

How is anybody picking #1? What on earth sounds appealing about them?

[redheadbaker]

Jul 17, 2014 14:50:55 GMT -5 speckledfrog said:

How is anybody picking #1? What on earth sounds appealing about them?

I can understand being concerned about his foreclosure, but what does his credit score have to do with anything? 

They were never meant to "measure" anything except risk of lending credit, now they're being to used assess everything, including ability to do a job that doesn't involve handling money at all. And they are notorious for having inaccurate reports on them, and the credit monitoring agencies are not regulated and have no obligation to correct inaccuracies in a timely manner (if ever). 

Where, exactly, are people with bad or no credit supposed to live? 

[imojoebunny]

Jul 17, 2014 16:36:31 GMT -5 redheadbaker said:

Jul 17, 2014 14:50:55 GMT -5 speckledfrog said:

How is anybody picking #1? What on earth sounds appealing about them?

I can understand being concerned about his foreclosure, but what does his credit score have to do with anything? 

They were never meant to "measure" anything except risk of lending credit, now they're being to used assess everything, including ability to do a job that doesn't involve handling money at all. And they are notorious for having inaccurate reports on them, and the credit monitoring agencies are not regulated and have no obligation to correct inaccuracies in a timely manner (if ever). 

Where, exactly, are people with bad or no credit supposed to live? 

The case here is not inaccurate reporting, it is a foreclosure.  As to where people are suppose to live, not in my house.  I can't afford to take on tenants who don't pay.  Every dime I subsidize a tenant is a dime that doesn't go to my kids, or to a charity, or some other event chosen by me,  it is also money I can't spend to keep up my properties, which the neighbors, who paid far more for their properties, expect and deserve.  There are plenty of places where people take on this risk, but they also get a lot more government subsidy than we do.  

[redheadbaker]

Jul 17, 2014 18:57:49 GMT -5 imojoebunny said:

Jul 17, 2014 16:36:31 GMT -5 redheadbaker said:

I can understand being concerned about his foreclosure, but what does his credit score have to do with anything? 

They were never meant to "measure" anything except risk of lending credit, now they're being to used assess everything, including ability to do a job that doesn't involve handling money at all. And they are notorious for having inaccurate reports on them, and the credit monitoring agencies are not regulated and have no obligation to correct inaccuracies in a timely manner (if ever). 

Where, exactly, are people with bad or no credit supposed to live? 

The case here is not inaccurate reporting, it is a foreclosure.  As to where people are suppose to live, not in my house.  I can't afford to take on tenants who don't pay.  Every dime I subsidize a tenant is a dime that doesn't go to my kids, or to a charity, or some other event chosen by me,  it is also money I can't spend to keep up my properties, which the neighbors, who paid far more for their properties, expect and deserve.  There are plenty of places where people take on this risk, but they also get a lot more government subsidy than we do.  

My issue is with landlords who assume that poor or no credit = tenants that don't pay. That is just simply not an accurate or fair generalization. 

[imojoebunny]

Jul 17, 2014 19:13:20 GMT -5 redheadbaker said:

Jul 17, 2014 18:57:49 GMT -5 imojoebunny said:

The case here is not inaccurate reporting, it is a foreclosure.  As to where people are suppose to live, not in my house.  I can't afford to take on tenants who don't pay.  Every dime I subsidize a tenant is a dime that doesn't go to my kids, or to a charity, or some other event chosen by me,  it is also money I can't spend to keep up my properties, which the neighbors, who paid far more for their properties, expect and deserve.  There are plenty of places where people take on this risk, but they also get a lot more government subsidy than we do.  

My issue is with landlords who assume that poor or no credit = tenants that don't pay. That is just simply not an accurate or fair generalization. 

I used to lease apartments for a company that had 2000 apartments, and another that had far more.  It is accurate that people with bad credit are more likely not to pay.  It is so highly correlated that the people we took a chance on, Every. Single. One. even those who pre-paid 6 months rent, universally ended up evicted or fleeing with a large amount of damage to the apartments (think things you would never think of, like human urine on the floor, leaving a big dog in the apartment for three weeks, with only toilet water and a big bag of food, painting the entire, brand new apartment, dark purple, leaving 50 pounds of raw meat in the apartment to rot on the floor when you were being evicted, but before your landlord could legally come in to do so, so weeks, ripping out walls, so you could steal copper pipe, these are just a few fun examples of the people we had, all of whom had to pre-pay at least 6 months because of their credit or lack of it).  Never had anything of the sort with people with good credit.  

Being low income is not the problem, as long as it is enough to afford the rent, having bad credit is.  People have bad credit in every income spectrum.  Sure, there are exceptions, I have seen people on this board who say they have had them, but that was not my experience by a long shot.  

[redheadbaker]

And the plural of anecdote is data?

I am still working on improving my credit that went south due to an extended stint of unemployment (thanks, economic crash) and a divorce.

I rent. I care for my apartment just as well as the house that I used to own. Our rent is paid on time, every month. I even ::gasp:: own two dogs that have caused no damage to the apartment.

[speckledfrog]

Jul 17, 2014 20:30:49 GMT -5 redheadbaker said:

And the plural of anecdote is data?

I am still working on improving my credit that went south due to an extended stint of unemployment (thanks, economic crash) and a divorce.

I rent. I care for my apartment just as well as the house that I used to own. Our rent is paid on time, every month. I even ::gasp:: own two dogs that have caused no damage to the apartment.

Clearly this is personal for you.  Of course good people deserve second chances.  Unfortunately this is a business decision and pity often doesn't factor into it.  There are landlords out there who are willing to take more chances than other landlords and that's where people with poor credit (or whatever) live.  That's where my mom lives.  That's where we lived when I was a poor college student.  We didn't get our first, second, etc choices for apartments.  Having a low credit score doesn't make you a bad person, but it does make you a risk.

[marie3246]

Thanks everyone, we found some more information today and while we are still undecided we do feel better about 1 and decided against 2. We had a phone call with 2 and their questions and it was just impossible, if their ends up being an emergency or something that might be a simple fix we would have to have someone come every single time just to see what they are talking about. Plus the dog. Just too many issues, I feel bad, but its just too hard with the language barrier.

I am in property mgt so I am jaded as I see a lot of crap. I do have it listed on the mls and it is priced below the market for a quick rent. We have had a lot of showings and hits, but most everyone has pets, wants short term or something else. We are not hiring another agent to do the property mgt bc all they do is take calls and line up contractors to come to the property, they do not meet the contractors or come to the property to diagnose. I have the same list of contractors and have several other rental properties so I have a good group of people I work with and trust. I worry less about our other properties since they are condos and we don't live in them.

We are having the first ppl fill out an application, they gave us income verification and they each make close to 100K. She alone can easily afford our rent. They say their currently have no debt and the girl gave us a recent credit score and hers is over 800. The dog is a family dog and staying with her parents no matter what. She said if her parents go out of town they would stay there to watch them. We will see how the application turns out and goes from there.