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The last apartment complex I lived in requested pet deposit of $250 refundable deposit and another $250 non-refundable pet deposit PLUS an extra $25 per month per pet. At the time, I had two cats that cost me an extra $1000 in deposits upon move-in plus an extra $50 per month in increased rents. This is in Arizona. I was even considering just adopting the cats out in order to save myself all that money.
What in the world is the difference between a "non-refundable pet fee" and "pet rent"? Why does Oregon keep popping up as having weird LL-Tenant laws.
Pet rent is monthly additional rent, added to the rent, in order to have a pet in the unit. People without a pet might be paying $800 a month and people with a pet might be paying $825 a month. The difference is $25 a month pet rent.
A non- refundable pet fee is a chunk of money paid before you move in. It's like a cleaning deposit, only you don't get it back and it doesn't cover any damage or pay for anything except to coax the landlord into accepting the inconvenience of having a pet in the unit when he'd prefer to not have pets.
A pet deposit is additional security deposit money just in case the pet does damage. That is refundable if there is no dirt or damage at the time the tenant moves out.
Pet rent is monthly additional rent, added to the rent, in order to have a pet in the unit. People without a pet might be paying $800 a month and people with a pet might be paying $825 a month. The difference is $25 a month pet rent.
A non- refundable pet fee is a chunk of money paid before you move in. It's like a cleaning deposit, only you don't get it back and it doesn't cover any damage or pay for anything except to coax the landlord into accepting the inconvenience of having a pet in the unit when he'd prefer to not have pets.
A pet deposit is additional security deposit money just in case the pet does damage. That is refundable if there is no dirt or damage at the time the tenant moves out.
.......How do other LLs here go about doing improvements to your property that the tenants want and that you already wanted to do?
Permanent improvements that the landlord wants, the landlord pays for. Improvements that the tenant wants, that the landlord would not normally do, the tenant pays for and understands that they have to leave whatever it is on the property, unless the landlord wants it removed.
Generally, my tenants are told no, what you see is what you get and if it doesn't suit you go rent a place that you like better.
My experience with tenants doing work is that they don't usually do it right. Or if you buy materials for the tenant to do it, the materials are still sitting there unused when you get the house back.
If you want to rent to people with dogs, it is a very good idea to have a good solid fence to confine the dogs. People with dogs and kids prefer a fenced yard so the fence makes the place slightly easier to rent.
Be prepared because if you pay a fence company to install that fence it is going to cost you a chunk of money. However, it should be there for a very long time.
I have never been a landlord, but I was a renter (of course).
If I WERE a landlord, if I had no fence, I wouldn't allow dogs. That's just asking for trouble. As a renter, I wouldn't have gone for a house that didn't have a fence (and ditto for the house we bought including the ability to put in a fence).
I think this is a good improvement, and one you should consider. But I agree with previous posters about worrying if the current renter can actually perform good work, and if he WOULD perform good work.
You said he works at a remodeling company? Let his company bid on the fence? If his bid "wins", then you have a contract, and he gets the win-win of the profit from the work?
Yeah, I'm starting to lean toward "This has many benefits, I can recoup the costs in a few years and profit after that, and it makes the house easier to rent" side of things. I'll start trying to get quotes in the coming days. Thanks for the opinions, guys
Okay, follow-up opinion. I'm thinking of factoring a decent ROI into the fence of say, 5%, considering there's also the hidden return involved with less damage over time to the actual house. Should I tell my tenant that I will pay for and install a fence but at an increased rent that provides for my 5% ROI over the 15 years of depreciation that the IRS states (I can imagine a fence will last longer, but I enjoy pegging my numbers to something at least semi-official)? In other words, for every $1000 I spend on a fence, I'd like to recover ~$2000 total in 15 years, meaning that extra rent should be $2000/(15 years * 11 months) = ~$12/month per $1000 in up-front cost, considering vacancy. I wouldn't go into the details of where my $12/month comes from, but I would say "Hey, if I put X in that costs Y per month at your request, rent is going up Z/month".
How does this sound? I probably should add in a factor for maintenance costs, but I'm not entirely sure how much maintenance a chain linked fence requires...
Last edited by Pengwuino; 10-13-2016 at 08:33 AM..
Yes, you can tell the tenant that you will have the fence installed if he agrees to a $12 rent increase. Get it in writing.
I have no idea how a tenant would react to that, but usually tenants with dogs are willing to pay a bit extra to have the dog in a safer situation. $12 isn't a big increase to get upgraded to a fenced yard. I don't know that you can get $12 for every $1000 the fence costs. Maybe you should get some bids on the fence before you make any decisions?
The other option would be to just get the fence installed and up the rent a bit at renewal time.
Rough estimate, it is going to cost $10 a running foot to get chain link, as long as the ground is level and not rocky and you don't want anything fancy with the gates.
Speaking of gates, be sure at least one of the gates is big enough to get equipment into the back yard.
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