Landlords: Would you care if tenant ran a home based business? (apartment, lease)
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I make a living in online retail. Ebay mostly. I have been running it out of my apartment and am now looking for a bigger place. Nobody here has ever said anything to me. When I started I was already living here and hadn't planned on this home based biz. On the next lease I want to make sure its Ok'd as I want to make sure I don't run into any problems.
Basically I never have any customers come over. They are all online. I just have a daily UPS pickup. I pickup inventory once every two weeks or so in a cargo van and it takes me a couple hours to unload it. Outside those two things an outside observer would probably have no idea what I do. Inside you will see that I have a bedroom stacked floor to ceiling with cardboard boxes of electronics. It basically looks like a small portion of bestbuy in a bedroom.
From my point of view I see no issue, but sometimes people are skeptical.
Would you have an issue renting to me?
If you use a standard lease that states place is to be used for residential purposes only would you be willing to alter that?
I have good credit and even though my income is not so stable, my wife's is and plenty large enough too. Plus we have more then a year's rent in savings. So I wouldn't be concerned about credit.
If my Homeowners Association had found out that I had been selling on Ebay, they would have made me stop. We are not allowed to have a home based business or even park a car outfront that has an advertisemet on it for ANY business. The one exception are police cars for officers that live in the neighborhood.
Our HOA rules state that the reason is that it brings increased traffic to the area.
Good luck on Ebay and finding a larger place. I think considering the times, you have to find a creative way to make money, just like your doing.
Our HOA doesn't allow home based businesses but I wouldn't have any issues with this since no customers are coming to the house. What is different to realtors and other people having a home based office for their business?
We also have a home based online business in our community and the HOA hasn't anything about it and this one is very obvious...they sell birds online from their home. They have the windows open on several occasions and you ca hear hundreds of birds making sounds. Sometimes they sit in the drivway with a big bird on their shoulder and every couple of days a big rental truck comes to bring or pick up bird cages and huge shelfs with birds accessories...if that is allowed!
Hindukid, I don't think you need to worry- as long as you don't have an office in your home open to the public, most landlords won't care. And fortunately, most of us don't have HOAs.
The only issue I would have with you running a business out of my rental would be if it would put me at liability for anything or if the neighbors complained. For instance, if you had customers coming to the house. Or, if you were running an auto repair business or something like that which decidedly doesn't belong in a residential area. What you're doing though, doesn't sound like it brings too much added traffic to the neighborhood, with the exception of the delivery trucks, which if neighbors complained about those, might be an issue.
Our lease reads that rentals are to be used as living quarters only, with no business taking place there. However, the intention is to keep tenants from having customers coming and going all the time and having excess cars on the property. I specifically tell new tenants when filling out the lease that we don't care if they do the ebay thing out of the house.
Our HOA does not allow a home business. We have one owner who does run a business out of his home. We investigated when we recieved a complaint.
We reviewed our rules, and then reviewed the rules the City uses.
The man complies with all of the rules the city makes, so we gave him a pass... We are not the nasty HOA everyone here tries to portray...
He has no one coming to his home, no signs, he keeps his truck on the side yard behind a fence. There is no noise of any kind, and the neighbors on both side do not have a problem with his business. If you weren't aware, no one would ever guess he has a business..
On a different front, we have a rental property in another state. It is zoned commercial, and is on acreage. We encourage a business, because we could get more rent. That City wouldn't allowed us to run a business out of that home if someone lived in the residence..! We can either live in it, or run a business out of it, not both at the same time, so rules vary greatly from area to area...
We also have a few tenants who have a home office, but no excess traffic is created, there's no signage etc. Others who have had a little booth or shop of some sort stored extra merchandise in the property but again, no big deal as they were not selling out of the condo or house. We had no problem with this either.
With so many kinds of businesses out there... I would say it would depend... the biggest problem is my Property Insurance Policies all have business use exclusions and loosing my insurance would certainly be a reason not to allow a home based business.
In reality... I'm sure there are lots of E-commerce that no one would ever know about because they are very low profile.
Speaking of Home Base Businesses...
I did have a real problem with a tenant that opened a license Daycare from my rental home and I was powerless to stop it and almost lost my insurance
The legislature declared a childcare emergency and passed a law making it illegal for a landlord or Home Owner's Association to prohibit Licensed Daycare operated by the Tenant with 6 or fewer children with very limited exception... such as the unit being in a Senior or Retirement community.
The were a number of added issues and requirements placed upon me by code compliance and the Fire Marshall's several inspections...
Code Compliance had issue with a floor furnace and the tenant had to "Fence" around it to be in compliance... at first she told me the furnace is hazardous and must be replaced with a wall unit or central heat... After much investigation it turned out to be strictly a day care issue.
The Fire Marshall also made several visits and notified me of deficiencies found such as accumulated newspapers held for recycling and such...
I was clear when I told the tenant I was not renting a Daycare and any required Daycare changes are her sole responsibility...
She ended up getting a divorce about 6 months after getting licensed and moved...
I currently rent and work out of my home. However, the big difference between the 2 of us is that I do not carry inventory in my home, except for brochures and marketing materials, so nobody really cares. My nosy neighbors just figure I'm lazy or inherited a lot of money! lol My landlord only cares if I pay the rent on time. However, I rent 1/2 of a duplex in a residential area, so there's no HOA. Although there are some deed restrictions and this neighborhood is not zoned for commercial use, most people don't butt into their neighbor's business unless someone is being a nuisance.
My suggestion is to rent a house or apartment/condo that isn't governed by an HOA. However, I would always tell the owner what I'm doing anyway. One thing I've often done when renting or buying is to knock on doors. Really. I've been house hunting, and if I find a home I'm serious about, I go back and talk to the neighbors.
As a (prior) owner, my main concern would be liability as others have written. I'm sure you know that stacking cardboard boxes can be fire hazard. Boxes are also are a common hiding place for cockroaches and other insects. However, a responsible person can avoid these problems.
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