Renting to young families

[gwill]

why not ask your mom to attempt a few showings if you think age may be part of the issue. How are the photos for your ads? Where are you advertising?

As much as people hate Facebook buy and sell groups I've utilized the rental groups quite a bit. I have professional photos that I use as well. You could change your ad so it says rental incentive for long term tenant to help spur more action on the ad.

Lastly try and book your showings at the same time. Last time I did some showings I tried to book 2 people per time slot and would book 15 min apart. It pushed the urgency to make a decision when people see you have other showings.

You could get people to call you during a showing if there is only one happening to make it look like people are applying. Kind of greasy but people want what others have.

[msommers]

Facebook and Rent faster. I do real estate photography P/T and got nice photos when a tenant furnished it quiet nicely. Definitely have tried to book multiple bookings close together! Otherwise a couple here and there over lunch hour since I'm close by.

[Twin_Cam_Turbo]

I’ve had good success with the single mom with younger child in my rental the past four years, however I knew from the getgo she was responsible as I saw that she was running a successful business on her own and her son was very educated and polite for his age. Probably won’t take my chances this time around.

[msommers]

How young was he?

[rage2]

People complain about noise from children in condos? How are we supposed to live in our sprawl free density utopia?

[BerserkerCatSplat]

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You should have bought a condo with concrete walls. You really dropped the ball on that one Matt.

Dang yo

[botox]

If it's not a +18 building that management enforces and is on the lease/purchase agreement then it's fair game to have crying babies. Do your homework with reference, work and credit checks and if all looks good cross your fingers they turn out well. Babies don't destroy houses, the parents do that. If they are living in a place now, go check it out and that will give you a good idea on their cleanliness.

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I had good experience renting to a family with a young child. But they were not a charity case. I had to touch up some walls but damage was very minimal.

I had the worst success renting to a mid-20 year old single female who argued with the neighbor, she was fucking crazy. Kick myself for renting to her and not picking up on the crazy.

This sounds exactly like my experiences. I had two families with infants and young children (two separate rentals) and both stayed with us for about 2 years and no problems at all except minor cleaning of crayon on the walls. Carpet and laminate was fine. The best renters we had were 3 single guys about 25-30 who rented from us for about 2 years as well and they were great and house was spotless when they moved out.

The worst was a single female around 30. She was fine at first then hell broke loose. Kept calling the city on us saying things were not safe or up to code and every time it was fine. It was an older house but I am anal on cleanliness and safety and always kept everything in good shape. Got her out before the 2nd month ended and I paid her moving expenses that was about $600 and another $200 to trash all the crap she left.

We also had a single male in his 40's that was alright. Paid on time but would try to bargain with us saying he fixed this and that, fixed clogged sinks and toilets. blah blah. Good thing he only stayed about 6 months.

[Mitsu3000gt]

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We also had a single male in his 40's that was alright. Paid on time but would try to bargain with us saying he fixed this and that, fixed clogged sinks and toilets. blah blah. Good thing he only stayed about 6 months.

We had one of these too. He was a contractor or something for a living, and we agreed to waive one month's rent in return for him insulating and drywalling the garage. HUGE mistake. He put the work off for months and months until it was too cold to work, stopped paying rent, refused to leave and we had to go to court. He just disappeared one night. Again, good references, had a nice looking family with middle aged kids, etc. Lost about $7K.

These people get judgements against them and they have no problem at all finding other people to rent to them with fake references and whatnot, so they are never on the hook for the court judgements. They just hop around, essentially squatting and living for next to nothing for months at a time.

[msommers]

Fuck, some real horror stories here. I should count my blessings the worst I've had is a noise complaint a couple years ago!

[lasimmon]

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Fuck, some real horror stories here. I should count my blessings the worst I've had is a noise complaint a couple years ago!

I'm always curious on the ratio of shitty tenants to shitty property.

My mom manages a bunch of properties and only ever has issues with her lower end stuff.

[Mitsu3000gt]

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I'm always curious on the ratio of shitty tenants to shitty property.

My mom manages a bunch of properties and only ever has issues with her lower end stuff.

All our issues are with two well appointed ~1,800 sq foot homes in Lake Chaparral. The problem is your only real clientele on places like that are families, and most of those families are either A) Very short term because they are waiting for their own home to be built or B) Financially irresponsible, trying to live way above their means.

The last people we had in there was a wife and 2 kids, with her husband working overseas. We met them all before hand, good references, no pets, etc. etc. Very quiet at first, we thought we finally got some good ones. It didn't take long for the money to stop showing up, the husband was having "problems" sending money home, his "employer wasn't paying him on time", etc. I don't know how many times we heard the money was "coming". Meanwhile they have Internet, Cable, 2 vehicles, and a house full of nice stuff. They lived rent-free through all the warnings and eviction notices. Got the usual court judgement which is 100% useless and they disappeared one day. I don't even want to know what that ended up costing us by the time they were gone.

A friend of mine used to have a Condo in the Arriva building, and he sold it because finding a good renter was impossible and it was nothing but hassle and problems.

My FIL has a really nice condo as well, and it's a revolving door of deadbeat renters.

The scenario I described above with the woman who barricaded herself in the house and started a grow-op was a $850K house in the NW.

Oddly enough the only rental property I know of that is problem-free is one my brother has, by far the lowest-end property of the group in Sunnyside.

I don't think the quality of the property has too much to do with it (to a point - if it's an absolute dump I'd expect low-end clientele), crooks like nice places too and people LOVE living above their means, especially when they learn there are no consequences.

[RX_EVOLV]

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I'm always curious on the ratio of shitty tenants to shitty property.

My mom manages a bunch of properties and only ever has issues with her lower end stuff.

We are at 50/50 with our property. The ones that are in it now are sooo good. They've been there for over 2 years with them and I hope they never move.

[Amysicle]

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[gwill]

you should always do a credit check and yes imo it's made a major difference for me.

[Mitsu3000gt]

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Oddly enough the only rental property I know of that is problem-free is one my brother has, by far the lowest-end property of the group in Sunnyside.
.

This is no longer true - my brother was informed yesterday that his tenant will no longer be paying rent, and will be living for free until physically removed from the property. Complete 180 on the personality too, and the tenant has been threatening other residents in the building. I think I would die of stress if I had a rental property haha.

[88CRX]

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I think I would die of stress if I had a rental property haha.

Word.

When I still had my rental it was definitely the most stressful thing in my life. Was so relieved when it sold.

[Chandler_Racing]

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Bump.

For those who rented to families, did you do a credit check and did it translate to the quality of the tenant?

We did a credit check for the family that rents our place. Their credit was not good but they paid the deposit, 1st months and last months rent. As well as a $500 "pet fee".

They were upfront on the credit issues when it was discussed and have made each payment on time without being asked.

Before we had a realtor in our townhome who was a total flake and broke the lease early. The realtor also caused more damage then the family so far. Sometimes professionals aren't so professional.

[Rocket1k78]

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We did a credit check for the family that rents our place. Their credit was not good but they paid the deposit, 1st months and last months rent. As well as a $500 "pet fee".

They were upfront on the credit issues when it was discussed and have made each payment on time without being asked.

Before we had a realtor in our townhome who was a total flake and broke the lease early. The realtor also caused more damage then the family so far. Sometimes professionals aren't so professional.

100% agreed with everything. I had a similar situation too with my last tenant and i said i would run a credit check(which was a bluff) before i leased and she told me it wasnt the best, going on 9 years with her and not one issue other than the fact shes moving out in july.

Rentals are not an easy game and ive been on the short end twice with 1 going to court(RTDS) and me basically being told tough luck, you can afford a rental so you can afford to be lenient with the dead beat.

[msommers]

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100% agreed with everything. I had a similar situation too with my last tenant and i said i would run a credit check(which was a bluff) before i leased and she told me it wasnt the best, going on 9 years with her and not one issue other than the fact shes moving out in july.

With a longer-term tenant like that, have you raised the rent much or at all? In this rental climate these days, if I found a good tenant after a year, I'm pretty much too scared to raise anything in fear they'll leave!

[firebane]

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With a longer-term tenant like that, have you raised the rent much or at all? In this rental climate these days, if I found a good tenant after a year, I'm pretty much too scared to raise anything in fear they'll leave!

We are with a property management group and were 100% scared that might happen with us after the 1st year but they didn't and we stuck around. Hoping the trend continues.