Apartment rental - Credit history important?
I've got a first floor apartment in my home that I rent out. Problem is that the person applying is reluctant to provide me permission for a credit check.
She has told me outright that she knows it'll come back with a poor credit rating.
Should I decline her application immediately? How important is a credit history given that even someone with a good record can still shaft you for rent.
She has suggested putting her parents name on the lease as a way to guarantee payment. But I'm not sure if that will work given they wouldn't be the actual tenant.
She has told me outright that she knows it'll come back with a poor credit rating.
Should I decline her application immediately? How important is a credit history given that even someone with a good record can still shaft you for rent.
She has suggested putting her parents name on the lease as a way to guarantee payment. But I'm not sure if that will work given they wouldn't be the actual tenant.
Comments
It is the very best book out there for someone who ever wants to landlord in any manner.
My best bit of advice for you question is to remember that property management is misnamed. The properties don't do anything. It is people management. You are giving this person possession of a piece of your property and in your particular instance, a part of your actual primary residence.
I don't know if they reach all the way to Canada, but I use www.mrlandlord.com to run my credit checks. Run one because it isn't just bad credit you are looking for with regard to a tenant, it is current status and behavior.
I have tenants I have rented to who have terrible credit but it was an event versus a habit or lifestyle. I've seen credit ruined because of divorces. I've seen people make an early mistake in life and have it come back to haunt them later via a credit score. (Let a car go back, let a boy/girlfriend use their cell phone, or co-signed something, etc.)
That is very different than say, someone who has a whole bunch of very CURRENT lates and wants to let you join the club.
If you look into her credit and see a low score caused by the former versus the latter type examples, you can still consider renting to her if she is overqualified in other areas. My three areas are job/rental history, credit score and income.
Say someone where renting a unit from me for $800. I require they bring home three times that in gross income. Say they have a terrible credit score from something earlier in their life. Perhaps they were married quite young and the now ex-husband/wife ran up a bunch of debt that was charged off/sent to collections. If they are over qualified in other areas I can use that to feel better about the low credit score. For example if they earn $3200 a month and if they have been at their job for several years and have good prior references. In California the law is that a Security Deposit cannot be more than two months rent. You could also consider charging a larger than normal security deposit if you are worried that this person would not be a safe or normal risk.
Then there is the other half of the equation, someone who is basically sinking fast and wants to grab ahold of one more sucker on their way down to the bottom. They have a bunch of current lates. They change jobs and housing chronically. They have no checking or savings accounts because their name is in ChexSystems. They can usually lie/steal/beg some money to get into a place and then that is the last money you see from them. Worse still, the second they move in their baggage comes back around. The baggage is the boyfriend with whom she gets along with like oil gets along with water. The child she doesn't have custody of but now has over all the time because she's currently clean and has a place. The best friend/bitch (depending upon how much is drank that night) who comes over whenever there is a loud screaming fight with the boyfriend, but also starts a fight half the time with her as well, etc....
Also why not hold out for the best tenant you can get? This is your neighbor and someone you are going to have to deal with daily. If she currently can't pay anything on time, how likely is she going to be to pay you on time? If she isn't considerate to the company that loaned her the money to buy the stereo, how likely is it that she will be considerate with regard to you and the volume of that stereo when it is against your shared wall?
The book mentioned in the link has one of the best rental agreements I have ever seen. I use a version of it with a few additions of my own. It is about five pages long and covers all sorts of things people never think about. For example who pays when she keeps wanting the plumber to unclog the toilet for the fourth time because she keeps flushing her tampons down it. (Here's a hint she will choose YOU)Good tenants will have no problem signing the agreement, but the bad ones will run for the hills.
Here is what my rental agreement mentions about noise for example. I think this alone would be worth the $20 for the book.
Peace and Quiet ? Tenants are entitled to the quiet enjoyment of their own dwelling, and their neighbors are entitled to the same. Tenants agree that they will refrain from making loud or bothersome noises and disturbances, that they will keep down the volume of their music and broadcast programs at all times so as not to disturb other people?s peace and quiet.
Hope this helps...
Nick
Originally posted by trumptman
Peace and Quiet ? Tenants are entitled to the quiet enjoyment of their own dwelling, and their neighbors are entitled to the same. Tenants agree that they will refrain from making loud or bothersome noises and disturbances, that they will keep down the volume of their music and broadcast programs at all times so as not to disturb other people?s peace and quiet.
I have found that this is the hardest for landlords/managers to enforce. I lived in one particular apartment for several years. The tenant(s) directly above me were hit and miss in terms of heavy footed walking. While I realize it's no one's fault that the building was constructed like a Japanese rice hut, what is the limit one tenant must tolerate of another tenants heavy walking?
I had one tenant who lived above me for a year who absolutely refused to modify the way he stomped all over my cieling. His attitude to me was, "I'm on top! Deal with it."
The manager sent several notices to him. He never tried once to be a better neighbor. The only reason he was kicked out was because he failed to pay his rent for two months. If he had been an on-time payer I fear he would've been allowed to terrorize me and my wife with his deliberate stomping. It became clear that if it was ME who would have to leave.
At what point is another tenant's "noise" considered normal and acceptable and at what point is considered above and beyond?
Originally posted by Northgate
At what point is another tenant's "noise" considered normal and acceptable and at what point is considered above and beyond?
I had to put up with similar problems when I lived in a converted loft space in a fairly old building. It had wooden floors/ceilings. Here's a couple of them.
Problem #1:
Neighbour downstairs was into loud sex. So into it, in fact, that she and her various suitors would practice it constantly. It was amusing at first. It became less amusing for me after a while, but it was a constant source of entertainment for anyone who was visiting me. Eventually it was just plain annoying.
Solution #1:
In places, where the wooden pillars went through the floor, there were some 3/8 inch gaps that were filled with expanding foam. A swiss army knife later, the foam was gone. What remained was a space just large enough to slip a condensor mic through. One particularly energetic session later we had a great recording of the throes of passion. All it took was a repositioning of my speakers (facing down) and a high volume replay of the past 1/2 hour. We never heard a peep from her after that.
Problem #2:
Neighbour upstairs had two insecure dogs and inhumanly heavy feet. If she wasn't stomping around her apartment - in high heels, bare feet, cement shoes, etc. - then she would be leaving her dogs at home to bark constantly until she returned.
I had asked her repeatedly to take her shoes off when she was home. No dice. Shoes were apparently a neccessity.
I had mentioned that her dogs were wimps and needed her around otherwise they barked continually. She didn't believe it. It wasn't just me that she didn't believe, though. These dogs were getting on a lot of peoples nerves but each time someone mentioned it to her she dismissed it.
Solution #2:
After some of us mentioned it to the landlord, he spoke with her. This caused her to be even more heavy-footed - out of spite, I assume.
The dogs continued to bark. She continued to stomp.
It was a Sunday afternoon. One of those nice quiet days that you just wander around your house/apartment and think about how you could have possibly spent that much on booze the night before. Well, it was quiet until she left at 1pm.
YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP ...
I'd had enough. I wrote a nice letter to her, which started 'Dear Irresponsible Dog Owner'. I explained that vets now had a procedure which can 'de-bark' a dog, and that I strongly suggested she look into it further. Of course, I didn't sign it, preferring instead to let her wonder. I taped it to her door with copious amounts of packing tape, and waited.
I should have thought it over a bit more beforehand.
When she came home that night and found the note on her door, I swear that she had taken to jumping around her apartment in snowboard boots while holding a couple of sacks of potatoes. She was screaming, stomping, and swearing. I counted my blessings that I hadn't signed the letter as I'm sure she would have attempted some form of homicide.
At least with her back at home, the dogs stopped barking.
So, your probably thinking that this isn't much of a solution. Yup. That's because any reasonable attempt to solve the problem was unsuccessful. Luckily, fate dropped the solution into our laps.
My neighbour, Dave, had always thought that the girl upstairs looked familiar but was never able to figure it out until one day he was at his parents place sorting through some old magazines. There she was, on the cover!
Turns out she was busted a few years earlier for running a fairly large call-girl ring. Different name, different hair, more makeup ... but undeniably her. A bit more research and we knew for sure. Interesting knowledge to be stored away in the arsenal.
At this point in time everyone whose loft was adjoining hers was beyond the point of civility. Dave, especially so. Her loft extended over his by a few feet. Unluckily it was the few feet in which she kept a lot of plants. There had been many incidents where she had overwatered her plants and the water had leaked into his place. This time, it just happened to leak onto one of his camera bags. That was it for him.
The next morning when I left the building I noticed that every 5 or 6 feet in the hallways and stairwells were photocopies of the magazine cover with the witty 'Knock on my door for a good time' tagline scrawled onto them along with her unit number.
I wasn't around when she encountered his posters, thankfully.
I do remember the end of that month listening to her pack and move. Despite the fact she packed with the same foot-stomping vigour that she walked around her place, it was the sweetest sound ever.
We had a problem with a family that lived down the hall from our unit. Our building is constructed so that you have to walk down a central hallway to get to each apartment (similar to a hotel).
We had this family of five living in a two bedroom apartment. They always left the front door wide open and played their tv at outrageous levels. But the real problem was that every conversation, every family spat, every fight was broadcast throughout the halls. What was worse was when the brats would come home from school and play catch football and practice pitching baseballs in the friggin' hallway.
Of course, when ever anyone complained they got the ATTITUDE! And the father (no mother in this story) was absolutely intolerant of anyone complaining about his precious darlings.
Well, one day while he was gone his precious darlings got the bright idea of throwing water balloons at the cars driving up and down Yorba Linda Blvd. (a six lane road, btw). Well, one of those balloons startled one of the drivers and consequently got in an accident.
Yeah. The family was kicked out the next month.