How much do YOU think YOU need to retire? ...and at what age will you (and spouse) retire? (Part 1)

Parents Forum Parent Cafe
3021

<p>Yes, notrichenough, I would love to know also. I don’t have it figured out, though we’ve never had to evict anyone or suffered much in damage. </p>

<p>Right now we’re going through the process of getting another tenant for one of our condos. I just hate it. We priced it too low, and got tons of calls. But everyone has bad credit, even though we specified good credit only. Everyone is desperate and has a sob story. Just to get it over with, I think we’re going to rent it to this one couple that doesn’t make that much money, 4K/month, no kids, to pay for a $1,350/month condo. They really can’t afford it, but they love it, the location is perfect for them, and it’s probably a great deal. A number of charge offs on loans and credit cards over the years, but good payment history on their apartment. I don’t know how people just decide not to pay on their debts. I’d sell stuff or take another job, especially if I was young. But I am completely suckered when people are nice, and sincere. I’m better off not meeting them at all.</p>

<p>As much as I’d love to get rid of these condos, the rents and value keep going up, and they’re too much of a cash cow to get rid of. We’ll probably hang onto them through retirement.</p>

1 Like
3022

<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>

3023

<p>I think I’m going to print that out when I get home, it looks like good advice. Unfortunately, my husband has already made an appt with the tenants to pick up the holding deposit, we’ve done the entire verification process, so we consider it a done deal and won’t renege. Wow, first, last and one month deposit? We require first month and $1K deposit. We are suckers, I wonder if that’s why we’re getting people with such bad credit. Though we have been pretty happy with most of the people we’ve gotten.</p>

3024

<p>Dave Ramsey doesn’t allow pets in his properties. Pets can do so much damage!</p>

3025

<p>We also never allow pets. Haven’t gotten desperate yet. Expect to have these for many years, so want them in good shape. People say their little precious would never damage anything. Ha.</p>

3026

<p>Interesting:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>We never allow pets.</p></li>
<li><p>As for 12 above, we rent every year to undergraduates. It is very advantageous as their parents are generally paying and it is cheaper to rent our house compared to what the university charges. The parents usually want to make sure that their kids have a place to live. We have never had an issue and the deposit pays for any damages. Also female students are significantly worse and sloppier than the males.</p></li>
</ol>

3027

<p>I’d prefer no pets, but around here it seems like the majority of tenants have them. We’d be really limiting our tenant pool if we had a strict no pets policy. Even people who don’t have two nickels to rub together will have a dog.</p>

<p>As for college students, all my properties are multi unit buildings. I don’t want to deal with parties and noise and complaints from other tenants, some of whom are pretty long term.</p>

3028

<p>Wow, that is really an impressive list. Thank you so much!</p>

3029

<p>That’s my list too although we don’t allow any pets, I charge 1st month and deposit and that’s all up front, and I take lower credit scores. Housing in my state is cheap; if someone is renting there is a reason why and that is usually because they have poor credit. I am for the 30% of income amount too. I don’t care at all what their sob story is (I’ve heard them all…) and I won’t rush the screening process. Rule #1 is absolutely the most important!</p>

3030

<p>30% of income, aye? I guess our renters are in the ballpark, I don’t feel so silly. I am a terrible business person, as far as I let any sob story get to me, and believe them. Before you know it, I’ll be trying to lower the rent for them, help them move in, watch their kids…etc. It’s better when my husband deals with people, and I just email and text them. Some people will completely take advantage of you. Really need to NEVER meet the tenants.</p>

3031

<p>bus, I rented my own home years ago and let the emotion get in the way. I too have a soft spot for the down and under. I came from the family that carries that gene. But never again. My sister and I hire professional managers, they are not emotionally involved otherwise they wouldn’t be in that business. We have never had any problem with renters and I have never had a down time in the last 10+ years except when I had to do some minor painting and small remodeling in the master bathroom.</p>

3032

<p>Though it sounds appealing, since we are local to the condos, and tend to do everything ourselves, we will probably stay that way. But fortunately my husband is a real hard…, not sure if that word is allowed so I won’t try. We tend to balance each other out on this, as there are times when a softer touch is better than coming down on people.</p>

3033

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<p>I have never rented my vaca-rentals for more than 30 days. I think 21 days has been my max so far. I wonder if the issue could have been avoided, if the agreement had been split into two agreements with the person “moving out” midway? </p>

<p>It would be “smart” to have them move out around Day 21 anyway so that the housekeeper can get in there, check on things, and do some general cleaning. Then have the folks move back in for another 21 days. </p>

3034

<p>Bus, did you get a little greeting card from the county saying, "merry whatever day you are having, your property increased in value 25% "? I just did. Make sure you add that to the rent!</p>

3035

<p>Why no, Bunsen, I didn’t get that one. Maybe where I live it didn’t increase that much. I guess that’s a nicer way to say it than, “Merry whatever day you’re having, your property taxes increased in value 25%!” I was shocked at our last property valuation, though, they increased our valuation almost 20%. I don’t really like that, because we aren’t selling. Probably should have added that to the rent, but we didn’t. My husband really likes our new renters, and having good stable people that might stay there for awhile is worth giving them a better deal on the rent, I think.</p>

3036

<p>That’s crazy property tax increase. Our property tax is high but it goes up slowly.
My good tenants get slower rent increase and the not so good tenants, as in annoying tenants that call every time things don’t go right, get very high rent increase, but just under the legal limit. Basically we are telling them to go somewhere.</p>

3037

<p>I didn’t know there was a legal limit to a rent increase. Though actually we have never increased rent on a tenant when the lease expired, ever. We just want people to stay. Our property tax didn’t actually increase that much, because I think everyones value increased, so they just increased it a bit for everyone. I think they are limited on the overall amount they can collect. Just the valuation went way up.</p>

3038

<p>I think the legal limit was 10% for ca, if more then we have to give them more time notice, more like 60+ days. Fuzzy memory here, days might not be accurate.</p>

3039

<p>Does anybody see how ridiculous something that should be so simple is made by all our laws.</p>

<p>We work, we save, live off of a lifetime of saving, leave the leftover to our spouse and children.</p>

<p>In between that simple little retirement scheme is about 10,000 little schemes in the law to take a chunk of that away from us. </p>

<p>Does anybody see anything wrong with that besides me?? Does anybody see how stuff like this will bring the whole idea of retirement crashing down??</p>

3040

<p>“Our property tax didn’t actually increase that much, because I think everyones value increased, so they just increased it a bit for everyone. I think they are limited on the overall amount they can collect. Just the valuation went way up.”</p>

<p>I am shocked. ;)</p>

<p>In SF, if your building was built before 1978 , with a few exceptions, you can raise your rents 1 percent in 2015. </p>