<p>
Then re-advertise with a higher price, and tell everyone you’ve decided to rent it for more! You are not locked into that price just because you placed an ad or whatever.</p>
<p>Here’s our process in a nutshell:</p>
<p>1) An empty apartment is much preferable to a bad tenant.</p>
<p>2) If you ever feel yourself wavering just to get the place rented, see rule #1. I can’t overstate this.</p>
<p>3) Every adult over 18 must fill out an application and be on the lease. The application collects information about prior rental history, job history, etc, and has a release so we can pull a credit report. There is a $30/person non-refundable application fee.</p>
<p>4) We don’t hand out applications when we show it. We tell you that if you are interested, email my wife who will email you back an application. This simple step eliminates 80% of potential tenants, who won’t even have their act together enough to send an email. And it saves trees.</p>
<p>5) If you make an appointment to see a place, and don’t show up and don’t call us to cancel or reschedule, we will not rent to you, as you clearly have no respect for other people, and by inference other people’s property.</p>
<p>6) We have income rules - the rent should be less than 30% of your income, and under no circumstances over 40%. Between 30-40% we will examine your credit report for other debt obligations and then decide if we think you can afford it.</p>
<p>7) We pull each applicant’s credit. This also requires having a social security number, which means we don’t rent to illegals. If your credit score is less than 620, there is almost no chance we will rent to you. We prefer to see credit scores over 700. If you have recent delinquencies we will not rent to you. If you have old (> 1 year) delinquencies or write-offs and everything else looks ok, we will ask you what happened, and you better have a good explanation.</p>
<p>8) We rigorously check job history and rental history. And we don’t just call the number the applicant gave us - look up the main number for the business and call that one. We have had people try to have their friends pretend they were their boss. If you don’t have a job you need to prove your other sources of income. The best landlord reference will come from the person before where they are living now, as the current landlord might be motivated to get rid of them at their current place. </p>
<p>9) We check for eviction history. If you’ve ever been evicted we will not rent to you. Period. One strike and you are out.</p>
<p>10) We limit the number and type of pets you can have. If you have a dog it can’t be on the un-insurable list, and my wife will meet the dog. It’s amazing how many people have pitbulls, and will call them “american terriers” or a bunch of other things to try to trick you.</p>
<p>11) We require first, last, and a one month security deposit up front. We will sometimes collect the security deposit over a few months’ time if you are otherwise a strong candidate. If you can’t save up the required funds because your car broke down last week, not my problem. No sob stories. I don’t really care if you are sleeping on your brother’s couch and he is kicking you out and you are going to be homeless.</p>
<p>12) No undergraduate students, no groups of young males in general.</p>
<p>13) The screening takes several days, calling me on the 29th and telling me you have to move by the first is not my problem, I won’t rush the screening.</p>
<p>We require a one year lease for the first year, then switch to TAW. We won’t consider anyone looking for anything less than a full year.</p>
<p>I’m probably forgetting a few things, as my wife does the screening. She rents apartments for a living, and she has a pretty good gut feel now about who will be a good tenant.</p>