About to rent a condo. Advice needed from LLs

[ninjazx12r]

MI
I have put my 2 year old condo up for rent. Any advice from landlords is much appreciated.

[LindaP777]

Wow! Where do I start?

1) Get a great lease with all the details spelled out.
2) Document (details) of the condition of the condo, prior to move in. Pictures are best. Note anything less then perfect. I download the pictures to Shutterfly.com after the walk-through and link them to my tenant so they have a copy as well.
3) Get first & last months rent as well a security deposit. (I will break up last months rent into 4 equal payments if needed, but never, ever, accept payments on the security deposit.)
4) Offer an "early discount" ($25-$50) for paying the rent early.
5) Read MI landlord tenant laws. Then read them again. Follow them.
6) Never make business decisions with your heart. It will bite you in the a$$ every time.
7) If evcition is needed, do it quickly. Putting it off will cost you more money in the long run.

[OHlandlord]

Before you rent out your condo, does your complex have a home/condo owners association? If so, you better check their bylaws and covenents. Many of these places have enacted a limit on the number of rental units they can have in the complex. If they have already reached the limit, you may be unable to rent yours out. Also, they sometimes impose special rules on LLs in the complex. (Such as tenants cannot use the amenities like pool, gym, etc.) They may have extra fees for you to pay for renting, parking restrictions for your tenants, pet restrictions, etc. Check with this association before you decide to rent or you may have an unpleasant surprise later. I have heard some ugly situations that have come from this. Good luck.

[Alaska landlord]

Get as much of a deposit as the state or the market dictates but make sure you know the rules regarding how much is allowed and how it’s supposed to be handled.
Do not rent to anyone on the promise that the deposit will be forthcoming.
If they don’t have all the monies at signing, then turn them away.
If you have anything of great value, remove it and replace it with something cheap.
That includes hanging lamps, chandeliers and ceiling fans. When your tenants are not hanging from your ceiling fans, it's cause they’re busy stealing them. lol
Join a landlord association in your state and get one of their leases.
Perform a credit, background and criminal checks on your applicants.
Employment history is very critical do not rent to anyone with a sketchy employment record. Anyone that is willing to pay cash for 3 or 4 months in advance is someone to avoid. The chances are that they can’t find a rental any other way due to a bad tenant history.
The big question is whether you want to put your tenants on a monthly agreement or on a lease. They both have benefits and downfalls. But when it comes to getting rid of a bad tenant I think the monthly agreements trumps the lease.

[ninjazx12r]

Thanks all for your valuable advice.

Some questions:

1. How do I check employment history if they're self employed, and typically how long a period of non-employment is deemed OK.

2. Should I verify rent payment from at least two prior landlords?

3. Where can I do criminal and background checks?

4. What would be a considered an acceptable FICO score & income for someone if say they were to pay rent in the $1200-$1500 range?

5. Any idea where I may able to find opinions on attorneys dealing with landlord/tenant issues in MI?

[OHlandlord]

Please do check with your HOA if you have one. Some HOA actually have to approve of your tenants before you can rent to them. (There's a lot of stuff in those rules of theirs.)

1. If they are self employed, I ask for the last 2 years of tax forms. This will show the income that they are reporting to the IRS.

2. You want references from at least the last 2 LLs, preferrably from 2 prior LLs and the current one. (The current one may lie about the tenant to get rid of a PITA tenant. Prior LLs have no reason to lie to you.) You want more info from them than if they paid on time. You want to know how many occupants there were, what & how many pets they have, if they had any lease violations, if they gave proper notice to leave, if there were problems with the tenant (police reports, numerous repair requests, argumentative attitude, etc.), if they left the place clean & if they got their deposit back(for prior LLs), how much rent they paid, was it paid on time, etc.

3. There are numerous places online to do these checks. Each is only as good as the databases they check, so be sure they check the databases in your area before you sign up. You can also do local criminal background checks yourself on the internet by looking at the county common pleas court and the city municipal/civil/housing court sites for any city or county they have lived in. (Zabasearch them to find other addresses they forget to tell you about. You can also find other addresses on their credit report.) This will not find crimes in other areas or states unless you check that database specifically.

4. I found this somewhere: Scores above 800 have a 1% chance they will be 90 days or more past due on a bill or file bankruptcy within 2 yrs. Scores to 799 have a 2% chance. Scores to 749 have a 5% chance. Scores to 699 have a 15% chance. Scores to 649 have a 31% chance. Scores to 599 have a 52% chance. Scores to 549 have a 72% chance. Scores to 499 have an 85% chance. (This doesn't mean that the past due bill will be your rent. It could be the VISA payment or the electric bill. It only assumes that A bill could be past due.) However, I am more apt to look at the pattern of bill payment than at the actual score. Anyone can be uninsured and have a medical problem where all the bills added up in a short period knocking down a score. Or a divorce and an angry soon-to-be ex-spouse running up bills. I look to see what, if anything, is in collection or past due. What the payment pattern is (paying continually 30 days past due?) Etc.

5. I would suggest contacting a LLs association or a chapter of REIA to see who they recommend. Alternately, you could go to the courthouse and see who has a lot of cases for eviction and whether they win or lose most. Watch a few attorneys and see how they handle themselves in court. Good luck.