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How to find good tenants

M

Marruss

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Feb 15, 2009
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We just bought our 2nd investment property - a 4 bedroom townhouse in Kitchener. It is 2 doors down from our 1st investment property. We rented our fist property out immediately to someone at my work and have had zero problems. We figured it would be that easy the 2nd time around considering the low vacancy rates in the area.

We have advertised on Kijiji at this point, and have had about 30 interested parties email us. We have emailed every one of them back, telling them there will be an open house viewing on Saturday.

We have had 2 open-house viewings - last Saturday & this Saturday. Only about 1/3 of the people who emailed us bothered to show up. Very frustrating!

We are asking $1200 plus utilities for this townhouse. Not overly expensive, we think.

We had one very good prospect last week, but when we called their previous landlord, she told us that the last 10 out of 12 month`s rent has been paid late. The tenant claims this is untrue, but why would the landlord lie? We decided to err on the side of caution and not rent to them. I`d rather have it vacant for a month than have someone in there who doesn`t pay the rent.

My questions are.....

Where is the best place to advertise townhouses for rent?
Are there services that find you tenants? Are they worth it? What do they do?
Is an open-house viewing a good option, or should we book appointment times with each individual?
When it comes to running credit checks, where do you get the most bang for your buck?

Thanks in advance for your advise!
 
RE:

Where is the best place to advertise townhouses for rent? Kijiji, UW, WLU, The record - online and print, gottarent, craigslist.

Are there services that find you tenants? Yes there are. I offer this. Email me if interested I`d be happy to help you out.

Are they worth it? It may or might not be worth it for you. Your paying for someone else to do work for you - some people would rather do the work themselves and save money, others would rather have more time to do things they enjoy doing. If you`re having to drive into town to rent your townhouse its most likely worth it. If your a few minutes away its personal preference... I manage and rent many places in KW owned by local landlords who wouldn`t want to waste a minute of their time doing rental viewings or management work and know others who even if they make double per hour what they can hire someone for do it themselves. Think of it like painting - you can probably do a decent job yourself if you put the time and effort into it or you can hire someone to do it slightly better for you and save your time and energy.

What do they do? Rental agents can - advise owner on best presentation, terms, and price to offer unit at - prepare advertisements - prepare leases - take potential renters call and emails - coordinate viewings, notify tenants, and take potential renters through the property - follow up with potential renters - do tenant screening and make recommendations to the owner on applicants.

Is an open-house viewing a good option, or should we book appointment times with each individual? You should book appointment times with each individual. You`ll miss out on some potential renters who cant make it during your open house. It`s best to schedule people fifteen minutes apart to give them enough time to properly see the unit. Some might leave if having to wait outside. If having multiple groups in at once it can make places seem smaller, irritate viewers, and is a possible security issue if you can`t keep eyes on everyone.

When it comes to running credit checks, where do you get the most bang for your buck? Not certain whats currently the cheapest. You can run a google search and see whats best - most are around $20-$25 from what I`ve seen.






QUOTE (Marruss @ Jun 13 2009, 06:30 PM) We just bought our 2nd investment property - a 4 bedroom townhouse in Kitchener. It is 2 doors down from our 1st investment property. We rented our fist property out immediately to someone at my work and have had zero problems. We figured it would be that easy the 2nd time around considering the low vacancy rates in the area.

We have advertised on Kijiji at this point, and have had about 30 interested parties email us. We have emailed every one of them back, telling them there will be an open house viewing on Saturday.

We have had 2 open-house viewings - last Saturday & this Saturday. Only about 1/3 of the people who emailed us bothered to show up. Very frustrating!

We are asking $1200 plus utilities for this townhouse. Not overly expensive, we think.

We had one very good prospect last week, but when we called their previous landlord, she told us that the last 10 out of 12 month`s rent has been paid late. The tenant claims this is untrue, but why would the landlord lie? We decided to err on the side of caution and not rent to them. I`d rather have it vacant for a month than have someone in there who doesn`t pay the rent.

My questions are.....

Where is the best place to advertise townhouses for rent?
Are there services that find you tenants? Are they worth it? What do they do?
Is an open-house viewing a good option, or should we book appointment times with each individual?
When it comes to running credit checks, where do you get the most bang for your buck?

Thanks in advance for your advise!
 
QUOTE (housingrental @ Jun 14 2009, 03:29 PM) RE:

Where is the best place to advertise townhouses for rent? Kijiji, UW, WLU, The record - online and print, gottarent, craigslist.

Are there services that find you tenants? Yes there are. I offer this. Email me if interested I`d be happy to help you out.

Are they worth it? It may or might not be worth it for you. Your paying for someone else to do work for you - some people would rather do the work themselves and save money, others would rather have more time to do things they enjoy doing. If you`re having to drive into town to rent your townhouse its most likely worth it. If your a few minutes away its personal preference... I manage and rent many places in KW owned by local landlords who wouldn`t want to waste a minute of their time doing rental viewings or management work and know others who even if they make double per hour what they can hire someone for do it themselves. Think of it like painting - you can probably do a decent job yourself if you put the time and effort into it or you can hire someone to do it slightly better for you and save your time and energy.

What do they do? Rental agents can - advise owner on best presentation, terms, and price to offer unit at - prepare advertisements - prepare leases - take potential renters call and emails - coordinate viewings, notify tenants, and take potential renters through the property - follow up with potential renters - do tenant screening and make recommendations to the owner on applicants.

Is an open-house viewing a good option, or should we book appointment times with each individual? You should book appointment times with each individual. You`ll miss out on some potential renters who cant make it during your open house. It`s best to schedule people fifteen minutes apart to give them enough time to properly see the unit. Some might leave if having to wait outside. If having multiple groups in at once it can make places seem smaller, irritate viewers, and is a possible security issue if you can`t keep eyes on everyone.

When it comes to running credit checks, where do you get the most bang for your buck? Not certain whats currently the cheapest. You can run a google search and see whats best - most are around $20-$25 from what I`ve seen.


I totally agree..Open houses are not the way to go. Try to ensure you are one of the first properties the tenant views and sell the heck of the space.

Because the identity theft laws checking credit has become a little more difficult for us. I`m a firm believer in having the tenants do their own credit checks...have them do it with transunion online.
 
When it comes to running credit checks, where do you get the most bang for your buck?

Thanks in advance for your advise!


If you do a search on this forum you should find plenty of advice/info on credit search companies.
Keep in mind although the credit search is a store house of information it is only about 10% of the background search that a LL should be performing on potential applicants.
I personally do not allow applicants to provide there own credit report. They can be very easily altered by individuals trying to hide something.
Remember you are dealing with strangers and should not be trusted or taken at face value.
 
I use open houses to my advantage. I make sure I have 3 very qualified tenants coming and then anyone else is just gravy. It creates a "buying frenzy". Generally when I do this I have 1 person show up with all their paperwork and their deposit.

It is hard to have them all come at once but if you`ve done your pre-screening and they know all your requirements they won`t need much time to make a decision.
 
QUOTE (epmrentals @ Jun 23 2009, 11:14 PM) I use open houses to my advantage. I make sure I have 3 very qualified tenants coming and then anyone else is just gravy. It creates a "buying frenzy". Generally when I do this I have 1 person show up with all their paperwork and their deposit.

It is hard to have them all come at once but if you`ve done your pre-screening and they know all your requirements they won`t need much time to make a decision.

I do exactly what Carries does...sort of.

I tell my prospects that I am holding an `open house showing` on Saturday morning. Really, it is not an open house showing, rather I am intentionally doing this so that I can cluster my appointments all within a certain time frame.

For instance, if I have spoke to 4 motivated prospects throughout the week, I tell each of them that the open house is on Saturday morning and that I have a couple of time slot available. I then offer a time and schedule them in about 20 to minutes to 30 minutes apart. The motivated prospects will agree to this.

I have had no problems with this approach, and people show up for their showings. On the odd occasion, a prospect will be working on Saturday, if this is the case, and I determine them as being motivated to rent, then I will work around their schedule.

Going back to the original post, you mention that only about 1/3 of the people that you e-mail back are showing up for their scheduled appointment. That is a very low number. Are you doing a detailed job of determining their motivation before you schedule a showing with them?

Also, are you following up with them 24 hours before the showing via telephone to confirm that they will be attending?

1/3 showing up is a low number. I would recommend taking a step back and ask yourself what types of questions you are asking these prospects. Make sure that they are motivated. If they are follow up-follow up-follow up so much so that they will mark their showing with you in their calendar...


Good Luck.

Regards,
Neil.

ps: www.tencheck.com is a good site to check credit bureaus for potential tenants.
 
Thank you all so much for your information!

We gave up on the open house showings, and started booking people at 30 minute intervals. We found that with the open houses, we couldn`t walk people around the house because there were a few people there at once. Once we started doing the 1 on 1 viewings, we found that we got a lot more interest and a lot more people showing up to the appointments.

One mistake we made was not pre-screening properly. We basically booked anyone who emailed us without asking enough questions. Lesson learned for next time.

We now have 3 prospects....2 of which seem very promising. We will be running credit checks on them this week. I think we are going to have a tough time choosing between these 2 families.

Thanks everyone!
 
QUOTE (Marruss @ Jul 1 2009, 02:07 PM) Thank you all so much for your information!

We gave up on the open house showings, and started booking people at 30 minute intervals. We found that with the open houses, we couldn`t walk people around the house because there were a few people there at once. Once we started doing the 1 on 1 viewings, we found that we got a lot more interest and a lot more people showing up to the appointments.

One mistake we made was not pre-screening properly. We basically booked anyone who emailed us without asking enough questions. Lesson learned for next time.

We now have 3 prospects....2 of which seem very promising. We will be running credit checks on them this week. I think we are going to have a tough time choosing between these 2 families.

Thanks everyone!

Good job!!!
 
It is a good habit to screen your potential tenants. You have to engage a reputable professional tenant screening company to run the tenant screening process. There are several things that are required to do a successful tenant screening. These include the name, social security numbers, birth information, driver`s license, address, banks and savings accounts, etc.In these times of increasing identity fraud it`s also very important to carry out thorough Identity Checks.You need to check the credit reports of the prospective tenants.
Get the Previous Address Tenant History or PATH Report.
Get the Eviction History Report Statewide or Nationwide(depends on your budget).
Get the Criminal History Report Statewide or Nationwide(depends on your budget).
Get the previous Landlord Verification Report.
And finally the Employment Verification Report.
 
I wish we had all of those tenant information resources available to us in Canada.

Although we can do much of the verification ourselves LLs would be far better protected if we had country wide records of individual and tenant history.
 
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