Scraping the bottom of the barrel these days...

Get a call from a lady -- needs a place for her, her pregnant daughter and the daughter's 2 kids. Mom only gets disability (not near enough for 3x rent amount), Daughter in an abusive relationship and due to the difficult pregnancy, she is not working.

Next is a fellow wanting to know if felonies stand in the way -- said we need to see application before we can make any determinations. All persons aged 18 and over must fill out separate application, be approved and sign lease. Says he has to wait for his wife to get out of jail next week to fill out applications......

Get calls all the time from people in their 30's on "disability" -- previous administration must have passed out those checks like candy.

Last but not least, are the ones that have at least two evictions, and still owe another landlord money from the evictions.

Fortunately, most of our current tenants are staying put. Was hoping things would ramp up after the election for our vacant apartments, but it may take awhile.

The good news is that your marketing is working - you are advertising to the masses and you are getting a great representation of those looking for a home during the end of winter just about income tax refunds start coming out.

I am guessing, that you are not wanting everyone to reach out to you. Most folks don't want masses applying for a place. They only want one fairly well qualified applicant who wants the open home you have. So with what ever method you are using marketing, how do you clearly identify the standards that you use and hammer it home - DUE TO FAIR HOUSING, WE WILL NOT ACCEPT ANYTHING LESS THAN THIS STANARD - ABSOLUTELY NO EXCEPTIONS.

Now I wish I could tell you having such a statement should be rather clear.....I still get the occasional call where the person seems still obligated to tell me why they are not qualified. I answer them with a "thank you for clarifying why you are still not qualified."

I am not a fan of shot gun marketing......I prefer more targeted marketing. That however requires the owner to decide what targeted niche residents are and where you can find them. Who are the largest employers in the area?

Remember that real estate is local.

With the Los Angeles floods, rains, fire, land slides and earthquakes, many need a place to call home.

I have many units that I didn't want to rent out because landlords are treated so poorly by Housing and the courts.

But I caved in and offered 20 units for rent.

Singles, 1 bedroom, 2 bedroom and 2 bedroom with a convertible den/closet--making it a 3 bedroom.

I gave wind (notice) to the Housing Department, the County Health Department, Section 8 and the Mayors Office. My deadline for approval and receiving some grant money was March 01, 2025. All other landlords were given March 15, 2025 as their deadline.

I printed out pamphlets, with specific instructions. I asked for proof of income, a recent bank statement, proof of their last tenancy, and other easily proven things.

NOT A SINGLE APPLICANT TURNED IN:

A) A completed signed application

Nor all of the below, only some:

B) Current valid Drivers License

C) Renter Insurance, Auto Insurance, Health Insurance

D) Proof of employment and/or payment of taxes on income

E) Savings or Checking account

Here a Government agency is willing to HELP PAY THE APPLICANTS Rent, and a landlord is willing to overlook a few issues. Maybe a fico score or limited funds....

I am unclear as to what type of properties you have but I have found that higher advertised rent can attract a higher class of tenants. The people who apply to my $800 places are different than my $1500 places. So where I am going with this is: can you make the property a higher value property and charge more thereby attracting a higher value tenant?

If not, my suggestion is making it easier on you by automating the process so you are not bothered by people who do not qualify. Jason (VA) helped me automate my process by prescreening potentials. Everyone is directed to a google form that asks a bunch of questions, the answers populate a google sheet and unacceptable answers automatically send an email declining them. Acceptable answers get an email which sends them to my calendar for a showing.

My area hasn't slowed down much. I am starting to get calls to VM more often. I have nothing open and nothing coming up.

My VM instructs them to go to my website to see what is available and get the rules.

Still getting some that leave a msg asking if I have anything open. Sometimes I text them back. Most times I leave it alone as they didn't follow simple instructions and I am full anyhow.

Annie, the latest inquiry that we received for a three bed two bath home with a 1 acre fenced yard is from two single women who are cousins. One makes approximately $1,200 a month. The second has two children, just left an abusive relationship, homeschools the children, and makes approximately $150 a week from side jobs cleaning homes. One of the girls sometimes gets $500 from her mom. And she also is in school and says she gets approximately $2000 every 3 months from a grant. The home is priced at $1,400. They are desperate for this home and there is absolutely no way they will qualify.

People who are desperate apply for everything and anything. Like others have said, stay strong with your criteria. We have been vacant at this property since the beginning of January and we have dropped the price every two weeks. We are seeing lots and lots of $99 move-in specials here at the apartments. Lots of first months free rent etc. Me trying to get an extra $300 a month we'll take very many months to recoup from a long vacancy.

By the same token, we are ending people's leases if they are slow paying as we do not believe people are going to be recovering very quickly from poor spending habits. We have a small family who is very highly employed they are making almost $80,000 as a young couple and cannot manage to get the rent paid on time.

When their lease expired we move them to month to month and have given notice that the end of March will be there last month.

Don't be afraid of an empty home. Whatever heating costs, water costs, yard maintenance costs that you are carrying when you have gotten rid of a slow or poor tenant will be worth it in the end.

Good tenants become bad overnight same thing can happen with landlords. People go through things all the time. People get hooked on drugs, they commit adultery, their life goes off the rail.

Stay strong with your written criteria! Past performance is a great indication of future performance.

Rick - one and two bedroom apartments in Rushvile IN. Buildings are about 60 years old, so they don't have a lot of bells and whistles, but are clean and comfortable. Rents are $600 - $725. We will accept shorter term leases for those who want them, at a premium on the monthly rent.

Updating units as we go -- vinyl plank flooring, new cabinets, smooth top self cleaning ranges.

Looking for working people that do not qualify to live in government subsidized housing (make too much money).

As far as we can tell, we are the only apartment complexes in Rushville that are NOT government subsidized.

We try and interact mostly through e-mail leads. After we answer their initial inquiry with information about the details of the apartment, we never hear from 90% of them again, because they are looking for something for nothing, or they figure they will not pass background or credit checks.

We have stopped answering the phone, partly because one half of the calls are telemarketers; we feel if they are truly interested, they will leave a message. Get back to them as soon as we can.

Our criteria: Minimum 600 Credit score, VERIFIABLE stable rental and employment histories (living with friends and relatives does NOT count as "rental history", must have had their name on the lease). First time renters can be considered with a strong application, with a double security deposit, or a co-signer that owns real estate. Must not have any evictions in the last three years, more than two evictions is a disqualification, as is owing a former landlord money. Anyone with drug or felony convictions must be clean for at least 8 years. No sex offenders or axe murderers, no matter how long ago it has been.

Would rather have an empty unit, rather than take a shaky resident.

Renne and Anne

You can look at, copy and modify my prequal form to suit your needs. It won't have the automation but it's easy to create the form.

If you use google chrome (and have a gmail account) there are 9 dots in the upper left of a blank page. Click on the dots and find "Forms" it allows you to easily create a form with drop down boxes or multiple choice answers. It drops the results into google "sheets" which you can then look at and decide if you want to send an email to them which says "Sorry you don't qualify" or "Tell us more here's an application and a link to our calendar if you want to see it".

Any inquiry you just send them a link to your pre-qual form and a generic email with whatever info you want them to know. Minimal time on your part.

You would need to decide what your criteria is

income 3x rent, 4x rent ...

credit score 600+ 650+ or whatever

so you can target your questions to match up with your criteria.

If you want to automate it you can get up with Jason(VA) and see if he can hook you up. He's awesome!

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdM0Zs0-958R_qdnrKPOR2KZnuCigd_6xEChDCY9kvqdenRcg/viewform

Bonanza, thank you!!!