I saw a humorous thread about landlords who go to the residences of prospective tenants. I thought it was a joke, but it's a real thing among downmarket landlords. I'm not making this up!

For the LLs here that do inhome inspections , a show of hands how many would allow a random LL from the interwebs

1) come into their house

2) come into their child's home

Downmarket landlords? Going to the home of prospective tenants gives great insight into what going on. I started about a year and a half ago. About 2 weeks ago I had a couple pass screening perfectly but failed the in home inspection. Their unit smelled horribly of cat urine.

Ken, I just thought it was a satire thing when I first saw it. Too bizarre.

Then I did a little search and it seems real among downmarket landlords with a sketchy tenant pool. Hey, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

I hear that, OPM. No good, solid tenants would ever agree to something like this.

Not only is this creepy and intrusive as heck, it is a huge waste of time. I read that some tenants will agree and then clean up the house, hide the dog, but then when they move in...

Jeff, your wrong about good tenants not allowing this. It's all in the presentation.

I'm not a down market landlord and none of my tenants have any objection at all to a home inspection.

The people who object to a home inspection are the people who lie about smoking, lie about pets, or who live like pigs.

Yes, I would allow a landlord to come and look at my current rental if that is how I got a really nice rental. I wouldn't want to rent from a landlord who didn't care who lived in his house or how his house was taken care of.

I have to add that any tenant who wants to rent a house from me has done an inspection of the house that I am offering for rent. Sometimes they have inspected the rental more than once.

They have had a chance to interview me as I am interviewing them.

It's not like I am a total stranger who wants to walk through their house.

Do we have two different people posting as Jeff (CO)?

Are you talking about the in-home visit? It's an essential part of my screening. I have been blessed with an unbelievable number of unicorn tenants, and not one has objected to the in-home visit.

Been doing them for the last 200 leases.

It’s mandatory. No visit = no lease. Even when inconvenient and awkward for us.

We call it a VISIT. No one wants to be INSPECTED.

The good ones don’t mind. Some tell is they appreciate the fact we care. The ones who refuse just saved me time and trouble.

Even high end applicants can be total slobs.

This simple technic has saved me THOUSAND$$$! I figure it saved me an aberage of $2000 per lease. Turnovers are often perfect. Only done on pre-approved applicants who are still interested and have move in money available.

“Congrats! You are pre-approved! The final step is a quick 2 Minute Visit by someone from our office. Will you be home at 5:30 today!”

Mike TX, I don't tell them that the app is almost done and the in-home inspection is the final step.

I schedule with them to drop off a sample copy of the paper lease for them to review, so they can ask any questions they might have. Once inside the door, I see and smell all I need to see and smell.

If my applicant lives in a local rental, I do. Since most of them have pets (the reason they are moving into my place is they need a pet friendly place) I have to make sure their dog won’t have an issue with mine coming with me if I do a drive by.

What??? Are there LL who don't do home visit of the prospect? I've been doing that for almost a decade. 99% of them the prospects have no problem letting me in. So far I only had 1 prospect who refused to do it. He sent me an email claiming that I was trying to discriminate him using the condition of his current apartment. Huh? I didn't even have a chance to enter his place. He said that he also CC this email to his lawyer. Wow, I just dodged a bullet by not taking this trouble maker to my apartment... The home visit practice has saved me quite a few headache.

Thanks for the reply NE . I have been a LL almost 20 years and have never had a need to do this. All my tenants have always been great and left my places in showroom condition. Believe it or not I have only 1 time had to lightly clean a place and I have never had to evict anyone. That being said I have a couple 30 year old roommates in one of my places and they both screened great. Impeccable credit and references.

They have been there 1 year now and are paying rent on time every month... never been late . And keep the place pretty clean. However. , my maintenance man just told me the other day there is a lot of damage to one wall in one of the bathrooms because they didn’t report a leak to me. I’m going to look at it next week and decide whether I will let them stay or be moving.

the big, professionally run big apartment complexes do not do home visits. full stop. that. is .it.

David (real D?), so what if a M&P LL uses a home visit to weed out bad C prospects? How many other ways can you recommend a "down market" LL achieve this aim? In NY we have to accept "all forms of income" and now cannot use eviction history are a reason to DQ. Are you even attempting to be helpful, or do you really mean to come off as condescending?

There's nothing wrong with it. LL like all small and large businesses have free reign to implement any policy that doesn't violate the law.

As for other ways, there's credit score, former LL reference, court searches yadda yadda.

Sid, people have mocked many of my policies that work. So I don't know what the point of your criticism is.

David I respectfully disagree, Jeff [CO] (the OP) was not simply saying that it is just unheard of in large, professionally run complex’s, He mocked other posters that do in home visits as part of their screening. In the thread prior to this titled “In home inspections” he was asked if he was implying that any LL that did in home visits was unprofessional, to which he replied, “that’s exactly what I am saying”. He then went on to say “A professional landlord is too busy working the business; doing repairs, marketing, searching for deals, etc., and wouldn't want to waste the time doing something as silly as that.

Only a low quality tenant would even consent to such nonsense - someone I wouldn't want.

David,

There's a difference between respectfully disagreeing, and as JKJ point out, mocking.

"I don't think that will work" and/or "Here's why this policy is better" is not the same as starting a thread that makes false assumptions. In this thread alone, I could 4 false assumptions:

1) It only works for downmarket (i.e. low class) tenant pool and no reputable land lord would consider it.

Response: many reputable LL's here have chimed in saying they do them and they work.

2) It's too bizarre / I thought it was a joke.

Response: personal opinion. Just because you don't do it/don't like it doesn't make it a joke or bizarre.

3) No good, solid tenants would ever agree to something like this.

Response: I've had over two dozen who have agreed. Add in others here an my guess is there are many multiples of that. Again, OP's unsubstantiated opinion and is degrading of our tenants who HAVE agreed to it.

4) Not only is this creepy and intrusive as heck, it is a huge waste of time.

Response: Again, OP's personal opinion. Judgments like "creep" and "intrusive" and "waste of time" have been clearly ruled out by those of us who have done it successfully

So the bottom line is Jeff found something he didn't like and proceed to offer factless (and often tactless) opinions. I've seen him make these kinds of attacks on the credibility of many other very well-respected LLs on this board in other posts as well.

Jeff [CO], the most recent Mr. Landlord newsletter (Volume 34, #4) just came out. In it Jeffrey Taylor (Mr. Landlord) states on Page 27 what he looks for in prospective residents is"