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Good luck with that. I wouldn't even consider buying your house with that contingency. As a buyer, it shouldn't be any of my business if you find another place to live where you are comfortable so I can purchase your home.
It's a different matter if you're waiting for another escrow to close on another house you purchased. It should have nothing to do if you find a nice place to rent leaving the buyers of your home hanging and in limbo. I doubt you'll even find a realtor to list your house with that clause.
i agree , no realtor would likely touch a deal with such a contingency . they certainly would not be acting in the best interest of their client .
I have a long-term friend who has a 4-plex in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and she relies entirely on intuition to decide who rents a unit from her or not, and she's a very intuitive woman. Not even an application, no background checks, nothing.
What's become of intuition? There's a saying: Tuition destroys intuition!
With all due respect, this woman sounds as though she is ripe for the picking among the scams that abound and which target the elderly in particular. You know, the sweet kind, generous folks who have hearts of gold, who would rather die than hurt someone, and who cannot believe that other people are not the same way.
Hope it never happens to her, but the world and people have changed and one has to protect oneself. Those scammers are slick, and masquerade as the nicest people in the world. They'd fool anyone.
many states do not allow a landlord to take more than 1st and last months rent up front as well as cap security .in fact on our stabilized apartments we can only get 1st month and a month security , not even last month's rent in advance by law . .
the way many state laws can work is they limit rent prepayment to 2 months and consider anything else security but then they cap the security you can ask .
getting 6 months rent up front means nothing if in the 7th month they don't pay and you end up having to evict them ..
The sterling employed applicant who met all the income requirements could be laid off after 6 months and then has to be evicted. Meanwhile, the retiree you turned down who has a steady predictable Social Security check and savings looks like the better bet now.
P.S. Has the OP checked her local Craig's List? There should be a bunch of independently-owned properties for rent on there, although she will have to weed out the sketchy neighborhoods and scam artists.
I agree, people with fixed incomes should be considered attractive as tenants since someone with a job can be laid off, fired, transferred, etc. older people are more likely to stay longer because we don’t like to move around much. I mean, anything can happen to anyone, and just because someone has a job doesn’t mean they will continue to pay the rent. but I know where I live that retirees are very stable. Millennial s seem to move out in a year or two, course some landlords don’t want people who are long term because they can raise rents more often when the unit turns over once a year or so.
Economy is good right now landlords have the upper hand.
It'll change soon when the bubble pops.
Will it, really?
I've seen housing prices go up and down and mostly up, but the rental market just keeps turning and burning. Rents keep going up and up and up.
Even with interest rates at historic lows, there's a group of people that will always be renters.
Rental prices in my area (Southeastern Virginia/Virginia Beach) are running just a hair past $1 a square foot. A 2,000-square-foot house in a decent area will run $2,000 to $2,300 a month.
P.S. Has the OP checked her local Craig's List? There should be a bunch of independently-owned properties for rent on there, although she will have to weed out the sketchy neighborhoods and scam artists.
Great movie! Anyone thinking of becoming a landlord should watch it.
One place that got back to me, said they'd accept 6 months rent paid in advance, but, for some reason, that makes me a bit nervous. Yes, I could prepay a whole year, but what if end up hating the place? Too much noise, poor maintenance, etc.
Why do you think that it is going to take a whole year to find a house to buy with cash? If the place is otherwise acceptable to you, ask the landlord for a liquidated damages clause ("lease buy-out") that says that you can break the lease for the equivalent of two months rent (this is standard), and anything else you paid up front is refundable. That way, if you find the place intolerable, or you find a house in three months, you have an out provision. Move in, unpack only what you need in the short-term, and start house-hunting.
Most people who rent can't get out of their lease for "poor maintenance" unless the maintenance issue affects the habitability of the dwelling (i.e., it's so unsafe or unsanitary that a reasonable person would not continue to live there). That usually only happens when a place has been in poor shape for a long time and the landlord refuses to make repairs, or if it is in poor shape when you move in, relying on promises that things will be fixed. Don't rent a place like that, and you won't have a problem. A responsible landlord who can lease his property at market rents is not going to let his property go to seed around your ears. It's an investment that he wants to hold its value. Taking a few days longer than you would like to fix a leaky faucet is not "poor maintenance" that rise to level of moving out.
BTW, the reason that corporate landlords are not showing you any compassion, is because they can't; not because they are mean. (And based upon what you have written, no one is abusing you. Please do not make frivolous accusations of elder abuse.) They understand very well the anti-discrimination laws surrounding housing. The best way for them to avoid any claims of discrimination is to have their rental qualification terms spelled out clearly, and rent the unit to anyone who qualifies with proper documentation. In most instances, that is what federal fair housing law requires. Landlords who pick and choose and make exceptions for the nice old lady with the ferret living on Social Security, and not for the single mother living on welfare who also happens to have enough cash to pay upfront, risk being sued for housing discrimination.
Some individual landlords are either unaware of the fact that, with few exceptions (related to the "size" of the landlord), the law does not give them a lot of leeway in deciding whom to rent to, or they purposely break the law because they don't care, or because they resent being told by the government what they can and cannot do with their own property. Mostly, they get away with it.
After my husband's tragic death, I had to find a place to rent but I was not able to work so there was no income. I had a little cash, so I offered to pay six months rent in advance.
WITHOUT EXCEPTION, every rental house managed by a professional rental company turned me away. EVERY SINGLE ONE.
So then I had to limit my search to rentals being managed by the owner, and without exception, they all said, "That'll work."
I ended up renting from a young woman, and while I lived in her house, I added a garage-door opener, built a nice backyard shed, and did several other improvements that I left with the house. She was tickled pink.
Modern rental management companies can not think "out of the box."
Individuals can think outside of the box. Professional management doesn't want outliers. You and tjilover are outliers.
Management companies not only manage apartments, they manage risk. As someone else mentioned, why let you move in with six months prepaid rent when there's the risk you won't pay for the seventh month? A management company also knows from experience that while a smoker may promise to only smoke outside away from the house, they do smoke in the house.
I had to evict long-term tenants who were also outliers but "we gave them a chance". It was brutal. (On us, not them. They were happy as clams.) Took nearly five months.
Then it was three years to fix all their damage and remodel the house. Sold it last November. Gullible landlord no more! Wheeee!
The sterling employed applicant who met all the income requirements could be laid off after 6 months and then has to be evicted. Meanwhile, the retiree you turned down who has a steady predictable Social Security check and savings looks like the better bet now.
Not at all.
Social Security can't be garnished. So if that sweet retiree skips town owing three months back rent, the landlord can't get a money judgment to recoup some of his losses.
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