Most landlords who run a reputable rental business pull credit history on likely candidates after getting over a few pre-screening hurdles. It is always a good idea to know your credit score before getting on the phone with the landlord to answer the question before they ever even ask about it.. Most people don’t know this, but it’s a pretty simple process to get a free credit report three times a year from the three major credit reporting bureaus. The three […]
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If you are interviewing a landlord on the phone and he asks you why are you moving, then the answer that you give him may reveal more about your rental situation than you think it does. If you are downsizing to a smaller apartment, then that makes perfect sense. Or let’s say that you are in a two-bedroom apartment, and now you are looking for a larger apartment, maybe a three or four-bedroom apartment. Then that makes perfect sense too. […]
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Probably the second biggest mistake prospective renters make before they call the landlord, is not reading the entire ad. A lot of the questions you may have, are probably already answered in the text for the ad. Say for example, you see an ad for an apartment for rent on Craigslist, Zillow, Trulia, HotPads or some other apartment rental resource. The landlord has already taken the time to figure out how much rent he’s asking for. They have already listed […]
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What can you do to get that Landlord to notice you above the crowd? Like most potential residents looking for an apartment, by now you’ve probably called a lot of different landlords and you may be frustrated with the lack of communication between you and the landlord when trying to find out about the apartment. Landlords also have been speaking to a number of people about the apartments they have to rent over and over again. Sometimes, the landlord too […]
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I have had discussions with all types of landlords big and small that have been renting apartments for decades and the consensus is the same; screening for good residents is job number one. The entire Landlord/Tenant relationship depends on having a pre-qualified renter who will respect the other residents, respect the property, respect the rental agreement, and pay the full rent on time when due. This is the cornerstone to running a successful rental business and you must be firing […]
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This is a great follow-up to the previous Blog post. In the previous post we wanted to know if the property manager owned properties like ours. In this Blog post, we really want to know if they manage properties like yours. Here is a good example. Let’s say you have a B property, in a B neighborhood, with bread-and-butter blue-collar tenants. That’s great. This is usually a property type that has a pretty good solid tenant base and usually has a […]
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We have already talked about some of the trending technologies in the blog post regarding cell phones and all the cool apps available to track and manage properties. I want to push the discussion a little bit further in this section to discuss some of the online technologies available to property managers. There is a host of property management software that could be used on the Internet to set up accounts, track maintenance requests, store tenant profiles, and act as a […]
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