How good is to rent

With any situation in life or business you have good and bad situations you need to deal with. Unfortunately, the bad situations make people stronger. It may not seem like it at the time, but this is the true learning curve or the "school of hard knocks". Real estate renting and tenants is not an exact science but a little advanced preparation can avoid headaches later.

You want to have new tenants complete an application and give you the authorization to run credit and check referecnes. You can start by running credit, background check and checking references. You want to try to get at least 1 to 2 months of rent in a security deposit. Be fair but stern when it comes to the lease and explain if the rent is not paid by the 10th of the month the eviction process will start.

Every state is different regarding how long it can take a tenant to be evicted so check on your local area. Then hire an attorney that charges a "flat fee" that specializes in evictions. A good attorney may be able to get somone out in less than a month. My friend contacted an attorney that has a standing court date every week because he only deals with evictions. It cost him a flat attorney fee of $400 and the tenant was out in less than 3 weeks. I hope this helps. Believe and Achieve! - Joe

You can't look at renting to tenants as a bad phase of being a landlord because of someone else's failure to plan for the rainy days in their life. It's a harsh reality; but it's also fact. Most tenants (not all) don't plan 3 months, 6 months or even a year ahead. So that's why it's important as a Landlord to put some or all of your positive cash flow aside for such an event as eviction. Or work with your tenant; let them know to come to you early to let you know instead of hiding their situation so that something can be work out between you two. You can check a tenant's references, background and credit. No one can predict whether they're going to get a pink slip or wake up the next day and not have a job to go in too if the business just ups and close overnight after signing a 6 month or longer lease.

Don't just look at the negatives. There is always a risk to many things, but you need to take those risks in order to succeed. Altho things like this can happen, they don't happen everyday. If you don't try, you will never get anywhere. If you just look at the bad, you will not make money in real estate. It is ok to be scared, but you must get out there and try in order to make it at all. Renting is a GOOD thing, my best advice is invest in a multi-unit, this way you will have more than 1 rent coming in. And find a deal where if 1 tenant leaves, you will still be covered on your mortgage with the other rent. Never say never without trying! Now get out there and buy a rental property! Just do it, you won't regret it!

Jeremy

I just learned the other day that you can go to the county magistrate (at least in WV)and pay a small fee to see if a potential tenant has ever been evicted. What I don't know is if that will only give you evictions in the county where you check the records or if it is state wide.
I thought this was a good idea because no renter in their right mind is going to give you a landlord's name that would give them a bad reference.

I've certainly lost some sleep over problem tenants. . .but am grateful for what I've learned; recently, I held a property for a woman for one month with a deposit; everything checked out.. then, " the check is in the mail" started and downhill from there, lies, dodgings, failures..excuses.. Luckily, I have a good relationship with an attorney who happens to own a title company that we use often; he advised, sent me copies of state statutes that can put fear in slacker tenants; it was not painless, very uncomfortable for me always, but "just business" and that seems to help me when I have to do these things.
I agree with the others, set money aside, be prepared, do homework,trust, and get em' outta your property as soon as it is obvious that you must; also,the advisors all say, never threaten to evict, unless your're willing to follow thorugh. I am!
I'm a flexible, good, honest re investor with over $4500 monthly in rental income and I am so grateful for how re investing has changed my life and given me control. I will accept the potential trouble that comes along in order to keep haing rentals. . . ."landlords grow rich in their sleep".
Grady.
out lookin' crosstown' for another good deal

book written by Leigh Robinson gives extensive information about renting. We have no rental properties but had only 1 a few years ago. We started with our real estate attorney creating a very thorough lease agreement (it was about 20 pages long!) We did back ground checks on everyone.

They moved into a clean house and we gave them an inspection sheet of what was clean (we also took pictures before hand.) When they moved out they had the inspection sheet to refer back to that explained what needed to be cleaned when they moved out to ensure their security deposit was paid in FULL.

All in all it was a very good and profitable experience (made $50K and pulled 9K worth of equity from the house.) We sold the property as the market was changing and the rents were going down.

In our area now I would be very hesitant to rent properties out now but that is only my humble opinion. There are others here that are doing just that. Some happy with it and some aren't. Lease options would be more appealing to me.

When our tentants moved in we wanted to start off on a positive note and left them a friendly quick letter with a gift certificate to a local grocery store. Moving day is so hectic so it made it nice for them to run to the store and get sandwiches or pre-made meals. This suggestion came from the Landlording book.

Wishing you the best in all you do.

Lea
SPR Property Solutions, LLC

1)Like others have said, the BEST way to avoid evictions is to do your homework ahead of time: buy properties in decent locations (therefore drawing a decent "pool" of tenants), calling references, not ignoring "red flags", credit checks, etc.

2)THEN the tenant/landlord relationship comes into play once you have "accepted" a family. Always do what you say you will and expect them to do the same. Keep it "business" and keep that part separate from the "relationship" part (there actually can be both).

3) IF something happens to put your tenant family in an impossible situation, DON'T let it drag on. It will do neither one of you any favors. BUT, helping them out of the situation can certainly be cheaper and more favorable than going through a long eviction process. I will first try to figure out a plan with them, and if they are willing to go over their finances, direct them to "help". If they are in a desperate situation they may just not be seeing clearly enough to realize WHAT they have to do (people go into survival mode). I will then help them to find a cheaper housing alternative (a place with lower rent, perhaps, or housing) and we've even have used our van/truck to help them move if they have no other way (eliminates that excuse, too). I have only had two times that this has happened in 19 years (no other "horror stories"), but both times have been worth the extra effort, both financially and emotionally. And I've had people even send their last month's rent owed a month later.

In the end, you do want to allow for such setbacks, but do your best to avoid/correct them. It's a learning and growing experience always, but MOST DEFINITELY profitable. The amount you can make FAR, FAR, FAR, outweighs any negatives.

Just my thoughts..

Rina