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I'm renting my house which is 1 mile away from a MAJOR university. I plan to move back in it in two years OR renovate it and sell it for a profit. Naturally, my neighbors and I would prefer not to have college students move in. Our block is holding the line with families and retirees and empty nesters. I will confess to you that I chased three college boys away by refusing to be flexible on my move in date. (Which I actually can't be flexible on) I accidentally deleted a request to view the property from someone else.
Are college students a protected class? I've shown it to a couple of divorced dads with one kid. One I really thought would be great (he's handy) has not applied. I have two couples coming to see it tomorrow.
I got one application from a nice young professional gal. One of her roommates is a grad student, and one is a lifeguard (maybe also a student?) The two roommates have not yet applied, they are probably trying to avoid spending the $29. They did not seem like party girls but I have two daughters of my own and I know from meeting their friends that you can't really tell who is going to trash your house and who isn't. My kids tell me everything. The wild children are not dressing like stoners or vandals or gangsters in our town, they are dressed like every other preppy young adult. That aside, they did seem like the kind of girls who would have to call their dad to figure out a troublesome light switch or to change the battery in a smoke detector.
I'm hoping one of the couples tomorrow will work out. If that is the case, is it okay for me to tell the three roommates that they did not meet my financial criteria? How do I set financial criteria? Am I allowed to say No Cosigners? (or does that just mean that mom and dad can't sign the lease for them?) Or do I just tell them that someone beat them to the punch because only one out of 3 women applied? Their current lease ends on July 30 and they can't move in here until 8/15. (I could see them thinking how to work that out)
Can I change the move in date to 9/1 so it becomes very inconvenient for them?
I don't want to be mean and I don't want to be judgey and I don't want to break the law, but I'd prefer to rent to adults with more home experience.
Age is a protected class as is family status (kids, married, single, divorced, etc.) Federally you are exempt from the law as long as you don't "publish or cause to be published" any discrimination against a protected class. State laws vary though so figure out what the fair housing/anti-discrimination laws are for your state.
Federally you as long as you are exempt you can verbally tell people you are too young, too white, too old, too male, etc. and they can't do anything about it. Again, check your state laws for the exemptions.
You are way over thinking your issue with the group of women. Tell them someone else qualified first if someone else did that. Otherwise tell them you just aren't interested in them becoming tenants before you waste their money. Really I don't get why you would have taken any money when you knew you didn't want to rent to them in the first place.
Grow up a bit and end the games would be the best overall advice anyone can give you here. Stop lying, be forward, and be honest when dealing with other people and their money.
My advice is would be to stop playing games. It’s a bad look for someone who is going to be renting a property to be changing the criteria, moving the available dates, etc etc.
If you have no interest in taking on a tenant, do not take an application fee. As a renter, if someone took an app fee, and I found out I wasn’t seriously or properly considered for the place, I’d be pretty upset.
Age is a protected class as is family status (kids, married, single, divorced, etc.) Federally you are exempt from the law as long as you don't "publish or cause to be published" any discrimination against a protected class. State laws vary though so figure out what the fair housing/anti-discrimination laws are for your state.
Federally you as long as you are exempt you can verbally tell people you are too young, too white, too old, too male, etc. and they can't do anything about it. Again, check your state laws for the exemptions.
You are way over thinking your issue with the group of women. Tell them someone else qualified first if someone else did that. Otherwise tell them you just aren't interested in them becoming tenants before you waste their money. Really I don't get why you would have taken any money when you knew you didn't want to rent to them in the first place.
Grow up a bit and end the games would be the best overall advice anyone can give you here. Stop lying, be forward, and be honest when dealing with other people and their money.
Actually, just being honest is what I would prefer to do, I just don't know what the general expectation is. I'm sure landlords lie to tenants all the time, because many people lie when it is easier. I actually told them if they paid the fee and someone beat them to the punch I would reimburse them, because I was expecting an application from someone else. Zillow charges the fee once but they can use the application with multiple properties. And still, only one of the 3 has actually applied.
Of course I am overthinking this, and I'm not going to apologize for that, I over think everything and this is my first time renting out my home. My post was probably too 'stream of consciousness' so I'll clarify back to my basic question. I know I'm not necessarily required to take the first person who applies. I think it most renters consider it common practice. I think most landlords do not.
1.What criteria do other landlords use when screening applicants?
2. Do you not take multiple applicants and use the information on the credit/background check to your advantage?
You can legally say you don't allow co-signers. You just have to be sure that's really your rule, and you always stick by it. That way, you never have to take anyone who can't qualify on their own.
Basically, you just need to know who you can't discriminate against. And that's actually a really short list. You can legally discriminate against anyone else. You can discriminate against people who don't apply on time, who don't show up to appointments on time, who don't make enough money, who smell like smoke, who show up and act stoned, who show up with friends who appear to be obnoxious, who have children who scream loudly and the parents don't seem able to control the child.
You just can't discriminate against the protected classes.
And, you need to be able to defend yourself in case someone ever files a discrimination suit against you.
Now, let me tell you that in CA, if you file a discrimination complaint with the state, it will be about a year before there is any resolution. In the meantime, the landlord could rent to someone else. And the person who filed the complaint probably found somewhere else to rent. So, what happens if they actually win? Well, maybe you'd have to rent to them after all. Maybe the state or feds will say you owe them some money. But, they'd have to prove a lot as far as you actually intending to discriminate against them based on their protected class.
The reason I know this, is because I had a valid discrimination case in CA, and even though HUD agreed my case was valid, it still took nearly a year, and the landlord finally agreed to give me what was fair. But, even with HUD on my side, they could have still decided not to defend my case, if the landlord hadn't finally capitulated.
Just saying, the odds of your actually suffering a consequence is pretty slim.
Just make sure any denial is based on something other than a protected class. And make sure you have rules that you implement across the board. If you always say no co-signers, no matter what, then nobody can say it was because they had a kid, or were of a certain race, etc.
if your local university has a law school, I can highly recommend renting to law students. If I was you and renting to law students was an option, I'd look into renting the rooms separately to law students. I'd then also hire a cleaning service and yard service. Law students usually stayed for at least 3 years for me (I managed an apartment building next to a university in Silicon Valley for many years). They were super low maintenance, all they ever did was study, and no partying. The only thing I had to do was remind them to pay the rent because they were just too exhausted to remember.
I understand that medical students are the same.
I had a lot of students, but I wanted grad students. What I did, after learning the ropes, was I would just advertise at the law school. You don't have to advertise to the general public. You can just advertise where you want. I actually went and talked to the law school about how to advertise to their students. The university was short on housing, so they offered to advertise my vacancies on their facebook page, because it was in their best interest to find housing for their students. They often sent students my way.
I also told my tenants that if they referred a tenant to me that I rented to, that I'd give them a $100 rent credit. My law student tenants often sent more law students my way, without me having to advertise. I'd just let them all know when I had a vacancy.
At any rate, you just need to write up a list of criteria, and to cover your rear, email it to yourself, so you have a date of when you implemented this criteria.
For a new landlord, though, until you get good at screening, etc., your best insurance is to only use month-to-month agreements. That way if there are any problems, some tenant moves in a pet or boyfriend, or whatever, you just give them 30 or 60 days notice (whatever is required) and get them out.
We only used MTM agreements. If they balk as far as worrying about the rent going up, then you can write in the agreement, "if the tenant is still in the unit and in good standing, the rent will not be increased for 12 months," or something to that effect. I did that a few times. Sometimes tenants want a lease just because they are worried about the rent going up.
But, a lease really only benefits the tenant. You can't kick them out, and they don't have to leave - unless you can prove a breach of contract, etc., which usually means eviction, lawyer, court, etc. So, just go with a M2M agreement, is my advice. Gives you the power to kick them out if there's a problem.
You just need to set a criteria a availability date and what you accept. If you don’t want co-signers then don’t accept any applicant who needs a co-signer. Same with income credit etc.
On a different note your neighbors aren’t paying your mortgage so truthfully while 8 have neighbors who I care to keep on the friendly side, ultimately I’m running a business. If the applicants who qualify aren’t wha5 my neighbors want....the6 are free to give me money t9 keep the place empty. Until then I’m going to rent to whomever fits my criteria.
If they end up not being good tenants then I’ll deal with that matter if it comes up.
You really need to settle down and look at your application and acceptance process and stop letting outside influences change your mind for you. Most college students don’t have the time to party like you think they do. Not if theire serious about school.
I highly recommend the Nolo Press landlord books, by the way. Their CA landlord book was my bible. They have all the forms and contracts you need, too. I used their month to month agreement. You can also edit them to suit your needs. They're written by lawyers.
If you need to get your house rented soon, take MikeJaquish’s advice to get a property manager while you are getting up to speed on this. Get a landlord book for your state and perhaps join your local landlords’ association. You will need to keep good records and have a list of screening criteria to apply across the board to all applications.
Landlording is a business, not a charity. Don’t fall for sob stories and avoid like the plague anyone who wants you to “work with them.”
Please don’t try to do this all on your own with no experience. A bad tenant will trash your house, cost time and money to evict, and alienate your current neighbors. An ounce of prevention...
Last edited by Gusano; 07-22-2018 at 07:18 AM..
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