We are in the thinking stages of buying land and building a home. We want to rent our current home. We want to be sure that all of our ducks are in a row before we jump into something that we might regret later!

Do any of you rent or have rented in the past? Any tips?

Thanks in advance.

One tip that a friend of ours gave us was to wait to do any expensive repairs, etc. after we start renting because we can take it as a tax write-off.

Also, be kind to your neighbors and really check out the ppl you approve to live in your home.

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Vicki


TLJ Women united in Spirit!

run credit and go over it thoroughly.... have a lease that is detailed... like who will be living there specifically. My lease with my current tenant specifies that only those listed can live there and any additional "visitors" staying past 10 days means that tenant will be charged additional $xx.xx per day. It also specifies which cars can be parked at the house (avoiding clunkers/trailers/etc). Mine is a 5 page lease used by the greater realtors association in my area. Also, in the lease, it states that the tenant is responsible for the first $50 in repairs. Tenant pays water(including watering the lawn, which it says in the lease) and other utilities. I pay trash & landscaping.

Another thing you can add in the lease is a *requirement* that they carry renter's insurance with you as the "additional insured".

My biggest nightmare would be a horrible tenant with clunkers in the driveway/street, a ton of people living there, yard in disaster... you can imagine what would happen if allowed. We have a HOA, so there would be problems.

I have a wonderful tenant. I did the screening myself with an ad in the paper. My tenant NEVER complains, NEVER calls, always pays on time... just a model tenant. I don't use an agency because I think it places too many restrictions for me and the tenant. Many times, agencies are very black and white. I'm very lenient with the lease because my tenant is so good. I've never enforced the $50 repair clause and I don't mind that they have additional cats than what they listed. The house is clean as a whistle (I've gone in to fix things for them), so I know when I've got it good.

Our state is very good with landlord/tenant laws and if rent isn't paid, they are out in 3-5 days. Another thing I was advised to do, but opted not to, was to get a home warranty with a $50 deductible. That way I'm only out of pocket for the warranty not for repairs, since the tenant is responsible for the first $50 anyway.

These are some great tips!

I wonder where I can find my own state's landlord/tenant laws?

Thanks for helping me out. If anyone else thinks of anything else, please don't hesitate to get back to me. I'll keep checking this thread.

We own 4 rentals. UGH. I wish we didnt' sometimes. We are in the process of evicting one of them now. She has not paid the rent for August. I had to give her notice and can not get a court date till Sept 7th. Which gives her plenty of time to destory my property. This is the first eviction we have had to do. However we have had tenants destroy our place before. We can take them to court for damages but you have to find them first. They did not leave forwarding addresses and one moved out of state. So basically we were screwed, Deposits now where near covered damages.
Be careful how much you give in to your tenants. The more you give them the more they think they are entitled to and the more they ask for. My lease will be changing when I get this one evicted. It is going to say that if the police are called over 3 times they better have a darn good reason or they will be evicted. and also if they become a neighborhood nuseince they will be evicted. the one we are evicting now has an 11 year old son that basically has terroized the neighboorhood since they moved in stealing kids bikes, and toys peeing on the neighbors porches etc. Police were called and basically do nothing and then the neighbors call us. Of course we can't evict because the kids is a brat. So I need to change my wording. Good luck renting. If you get good renters it is fine. If you get bad ones UGH. We do have 3 good ones but the 1 bad one is very stressful.

Be very very careful after seeing my brother rent his house out this summer & I went in it yesterday the walls are tore out & the the kitchen is missing cabinets & the house will need new carpet & doors now its really a bad situation after seeing it I would never want to rent out a house ever.

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mom of 3 greats girls

we had rental property for yrs and was thrilled when we sold it. NEVER again will I do that. Its a pain in the a%% and thats all there is to it. to many head aches for what the income was.
renters with the best references and still left the place a mess
renters moving out in the middle of the nite and leaving it in a mess
renters who are not home when the rent is due and you have to hunt them down
renters who painted the walls BLACK
renters who never mowed the yard
it is a MAJOR undertaking to get someone out and lord if they have kids, it takes forever to get them out. expensive court cost just to get rid of a non paying renter.
references will tell you that they were great renters cause they are afraid to tell you just how horrible they were cause they think they will come back and do something to them.
sell the house, forget the renting. it reallllly aint worth it.
like I said. was thrilled when we sold them .

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MY brother also had that problem renters always moved in the middle of the night & these last ones who trashed the house are gone nowhere to be found cell phones shut off & everything.

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mom of 3 greats girls

we do have a rental property, and it has been fine-renters are always on our doorstep the first of the month w/ CASH-I swear to you. But, we are in a Navy town. We rent out a 5 bedroom house to several enlisted ppl. They have been in there for two years, and since they are all really handy, we hardly hear from them about repairs, or if there is a repair, they will pick up a part here and there, fix it, and just deduct the part from the mtg. As a matter of fact, they called a couple of weeks ago, and said they were leaving. DH called them and asked what the problem was-they said they had one guy leaving, and could not longer afford the rent. Since they have been so awesome, we actually reduced the rent for them, and then they said they would raise it once one of them got a promotion. So----I guess my biggest advice would be to go w/ your good gut instinct. I have always liked these guys-and they have yet to disappoint me. P.s.-their commanding officer lives across the court from us-don't know if that has anything to do w/ that.....

AMEN SISTER! We have one slumlord behind us that rents to scum of the earth...I am talking gunshots off the back porch (into my backyard), fights, drugs, couterfeit money, dogs attacking little old neighbor lady & her dog. That particular tenant I found on the internet as having been evicted 3 times in like 6 months...he was rent skipping and the landlord did not bother to do a public records search.

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TLJ ~ Women United in Spirit

Holy smokes...reading this thread really makes me wonder what the heck is wrong with people these days????? I was always worried that I hadn't swept the floor or cleaned the bathroom well enough when I moved out of a rental unit. Would have never dreamed of painting the place without permission....or trashing anything, etc. Jeesh....

cj/

I agree. We've only rented a couple of times and each time, we've probably taken BETTER care of the rental then we do of the homes we own. We have also always done the yardwork and not depended on the landlord to do it.

The last rental we were in was for about 6 months after we moved here and it was much cleaner when we left then when we moved in. We even were given our cleaning deposit, which I have heard can be pretty rare but we really did leave it move-in ready for the next renters.

It has been recommended to us to use the local rental agency who takes care of screening, etc. and then charge a 10% fee. It might be worth it from reading some of your stories... Wow!

To ensure that your prospective tenants are honest I know of a landlord who "forgets" to get important info and knocks on their doors sometimes with a phone call "just happen to be in your neighborhood" sometimes just showing up.
He has discovered several times that the people did not live where they said they did even though upon calling the "former landlord" he was told yes they rented there and were good tenants.
Sometimes he showed up at the person's house and it was the dirtiest junk laden house in the neighborhood. Several time he caught them doing drugs.

You may want to consider commercial property. One big plus at least here in Oregon is that with residential tenants the landlord is responsible for maintainance and upkeep while commercial tenants are responbible themselves.

The best in my opinion are tenants who have been in the place for years. They usually intend to stay for long time if not forever.

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The political system is broke and it's a joke.

I am assuming that you are going to still be in the same general area of the house you want to rent. If not, then sell it and find something closer to you to rent out.

My daughter has a house in Mesa and lives with us in the St. Louis area. She has had some good renters and some horrible renters. So far, with the help of a lawyer in Mesa has managed to get most of her lost money back. The lawyer tracked down, even the worst renter and get her money. The renters also had to pay the lawyers fees, court costs etc. Long distance renting can be very difficult.

If you rent, you have every right to ask to see the property once in a while, but not so often as to be obnoxious. I would think once every half year unless they have shown signs of not keeping up with things. Also let it be known that the neighbors have your phone number and are going to call you if they seen anything disturbing. Even if the neighbors don't have your phone number, they don't need to know that.

That $50 limit on repairs can be good if you have a good tenant but it's bad if you don't because they just don't repair anything. My daughter had rotten bathroom cabinets because of a tiny pipe leak that they didn't want to pay to fix. All it needed was a little sealant at a joint.

There are services you can sign up with to do background checks. The one we used offered two types. The first was fast and gave us basic credit info in about a day. The second was much better and worth the money, took about 4 days, and they looked at past history, criminal check, talked to old landlords, employers etc. My daughter can be stubborn and didn't want to pay for this on the first three or so, but after than became a believer and was happy with the results.

We had one renter who had a "friend" act as their previous landlord. Two weeks after they were in the house and there were signs of trouble brewing, we tried to get hold of the "landlord" and her phone was disconnected. Unfortunately for her, I managed to track her down and she admitted finally that she had just done it as a favor. Another previous landlord gave our new renters good references just to get them out of her unit.

Good luck. It can work, but it takes work and a lot of caution and scepticism, and a good handyman is nice also.

We have a rental agency (property management company) that deals with everything for us. It only costs 8% of the rent (tax write off too). They collect the rent, have 24 hour emergency service (so we don't have to deal with it at 2am), they do inspections of the property twice a year (more if indicated), found the renters thru their advertisement and did all the screening, paperwork, etc.... They have a 98% no vacancy in the rentals they support. VERY professional.

We just bought a two year old duplex in the city our daughter is attending college at. One side is rented thru this agency and the other side will be my daughter and two friends (it's a 3 bedroom/3 bath). Without this agency, there is no way I'd do it. It's only 100 miles from here but I do not want the family on the other side to have to come to our side and bug our daughter. In fact, they don't even know she's the "owner's daughter" and it will stay that way.

Right now I have mixed feelings on this subject as DH and I just spent four 16 hour days (part of his vacation time) trying to get our rental property back in shape to rent it again. Plus, I've spent about 12 additional hours - all together about 140 hours and about $2,000 just in supplies as we did all the work ourselves. Our previous tenants left the house in a very sad state, indeed. Their cats (we didn't know they HAD cats) peed on the walls and all over the carpets. We had to repaint the entire house. There were lots and lots of bugs and I don't know if it had been cleaned the entire time they lived there (the bathtub took me about 2 1/2 hours). We replaced 18 light bulbs! The house has a wonderful screened-in patio and the screens were all ripped, tiles were broken in the house, the gate was locked (so had to be removed and replaced as they wouldn't return calls to bring a key). The garage door had a hole in it, so the panel had to be replaced, and the garage door opener was gone. Hmmmm, what else.... carpets were disgusting and had to be cleaned REPEATEDLY to try to remove really awful odors and stains. They left huge piles of trash and poop on the back patio, so that all had to be removed. The list goes on and on. Thankfully, we were finally able to get it cleaned and rented.

The good news is that it's very beneficial at tax time and I do enjoy knowing that someone else is basically paying for that property. When I'm not tired and grumpy about it, I think about the fact that, in the last three years, other people have paid over $40,000 toward my mortgage on that house and I get the tax break. That's a pretty good deal. One of these days it will be paid off. It is a good investment for retirement.

I've only rented to two families and I've made gigantic mistakes both times. The first mistake I made was allowing the first couple to move out and allow their daughter to move in. I lost a lawn over that as she never watered the back yard. That cost me about $2,600. The second mistake was not checking in on this last family. They were really nice and I never would have guessed that the inside of the house would have been in this kind of shape. The front yard was always mowed and looked nice. I will definitely make up excuses to drop by every three to six months from now on or just utilize my rights as specified in my lease. I do have a statement in my lease that I have the right to view the property. I will do that from now on. If I had done that before, the house never would have gotten to the point it was when they finally moved out.

The other piece of advice I have is save every single one of your receipts. Every sign you buy to rent it, every repair, every nail, etc. All of that can be used at tax time and you want to take full advantage of it.

Oh yes, don't rely on their current landlord's references. Go back a few. Ask if they got their deposit back, paid their rent on time, etc. I wouldn't trust a current landlord's reference at all because if they are trying to get them out of their property, they won't say anything negative!

Good luck and I hope it works out for you!

Update... We decided to go ahead with the purchase of the land as it is *dreamy* and an awesome price. We closed on the deal at midnight last night!

Needless to say, we will still be staying in our current home until the market turns around and we can sell it in order to pay for building on the land. We realize that if the market turns around, the price of building could potentially also go up but we have a good realtor friend who will keep us informed (perhaps because she wants our business!?)...

After thinking this through, DH and I have decided that we do not want to go the rental route. Aah = sigh of relief.... especially after reading ronnang's post: Anyone have to evict someone and try to get damages?