Homeowners look down upon a lot of landlords. Homeowners don’t like to think that a house on their street will become a rental and rightfully so. Renters get a bad rep a great deal of the time. “Home owners dismiss neighbors who are renters more than any other group living in their neighborhood according to a survey of more than 3,000 adults conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of Trulia.”
Some of the reasons homeowners dismiss renters are that there are a lot of renters who don’t stay long, don’t take care of the neighborhood or house since they don’t own, or don’t respect neighbors by having parties/loud music/police activity. Landlords will never be able to control a tenant’s behavior; but, great landlords can make sure to lease only to tenants who are the very-least likely to engage in those types of behaviors.
We want to create a world in which people are inspired to make their neighborhoods a better place. When Zippy buys houses, some houses we keep and rent out; but, we don’t rent to just anybody who is able to pay rent. Research has shown that most homeowners don’t want renters in their neighborhood. We’ve heard an extreme story of a man who sold his house when he found out a new neighbor was a renter. Not the norm; but, it illustrates how strong the feeling can be.
We do everything we can to make sure homeowners are as comfortable in their homes as the renters who live in ours. So, we screen every tenant thoroughly. How?
- We run every applicant through an extensive credit, criminal, and eviction background investigation through a third party background check provider.
- We have conversations with employers/clients, personal references, and even former landlords or teachers.
- We require our tenants to carry renter’s insurance.
- We require them to have at least three times the cost of rent in monthly income.
- We have our tenants sign a two year minimum lease for residential neighborhoods.
The screenings ensure we’re bringing in the right tenant who can pay and is least likely to cause problems to the property and neighbors. We have tenants sign a two-year lease because we want tenants who will stay at the property for more than just a temporary six months to a year of life. We want tenants who will make their home in our property. Tenants who will plant roots, make nice with the homeowner neighbors, keep up the yard, and maybe even pick up trash they find in their yard.
We create a sense of pride of renter-ship that is rare in rental properties. By providing a safe, clean home for renters we’ve seen them really consider their rental a home and take action to make sure it’s a place they’ll want to live in beyond just a year lease. Homeowners love this because a renter who takes care of their home makes the neighborhood a better place to live in and that’s what Zippy Home Buyer is all about: making our communities a better place.
Ref: http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2013/11/05/survey-home-owners-dont-renters-neighbors
Great article. We adhere to most of your advice.
But I think you can control your tenants behavior by stating things in the lease like, “no loud parties” or “no dogs who are aggressive or excessively bark”.
With rents climbing up so fast, I prefer a year lease term. For current tenants, we generally only raise rents in tandem with rising taxes, insurance and maintenance costs. But if a new tenant moves in, we can raise the rent substantially to current market rents.
We like to notify all interested applicants everything in our ‘mentionables list’, so there are no ‘gotcha’ moments. The list is as follows:
– All preventable repairs are paid by tenant
– The following are not provided: Washing machine and dryer, etc
– All utilities are paid by the tenant
– Tenant is responsible for yard care
– We have a zero tolerance policy for late payments. Rent is due on the 1st. Grace period ends on the 3rd. The eviction process begins on the 4th.
– We perform a thorough background check on all applicants which includes criminal and credit investigations, calling current employers, obtaining proof of income (e.g. paystubs, W2s, 1099s, and/or bank statements), calling current and previous landlords, etc
– One years worth of air filters, selected by the landlords, will be purchased up front by the tenants
– 100% of the pet fee, air filters, rent and security deposit are to be paid upfront (i.e. no partial payments will be accepted)