Single older woman wants to rent a 1 BR vacancy, and I'm under tremendous pressure to fill it.

She gets disability, about $1000 a month.

The rent for the apartment is $654 plus electric and water.

She has no car.

Surprisingly, I get a reference from a previous landlord. She always paid her rent, was late a few times but paid the late fee. No problems, no damages, no complaints. Her rent was around $600 plus utilities, they said. Similar.

This is gold, I rarely have this. And I may get 5-6 inquiries a day for weeks on end.

She didn't have the security deposit, but her daughter stepped up and loaned her the money. Okay. Daughter talked about getting her "in"..... normally I don't like this sort of language. But she said she would set up direct deposit for her mom's Social Security benefit to go around the 4th, to pay her rent upfront.

I then said to the daughter, well the income is close, but she does have a supporting relative who looks very responsible, and a guaranteed Federal benefit. You got her the apartment, I said.

But would you cosign? Since she has a guaranteed money, and you're setting up autopay, you will never have to worry about having to pay anything.

She agreed!

Then she wants to move mom in sooner.

Great, I said. Just add this much prorate, bring the prorate and first months rent at lease signing day, and she's in.

I leave it at that, and go on to lots of other business.

When I get back to my email, there are dozens of messages. Daughter refuses to cosign, wants her money back. Mom still wants the apartment, will get mother to cosign instead. Mother won't cosign. She wants the apartment, but doesn't want the apartment.

Meanwhile, daughter is hammering me at 7pm, demanding her Security Deposit money back. The bank is closed I said, can't get it till tomorrow.

"WHEN??? WHEN will I get my money???

She doesn't make enough for this apartment."

Good lord. IDK. I pushed for the cosign and I may have tanked this whole lease when I had the deposit in hand, and the signing all but scheduled.

But I just pictured someone with disability moving in, not paying rent, impossible to evict due to disability. Was I wrong to require this, even though she had the rental history?

The search goes on.......

I know I'm getting desparate to get this apartment rented.

I just wanted to see if she would do it, cosign for mom since the SSD benefit was guaranteed. Daughter said she would set up autopay to kick off on the day mom gets her benefit.

So what could go wrong? Rent would be paid automatically.

Apparently the daughter thinks, a lot. At least as soon as she has a stake in her mother paying the rent.

All I can guess.

She would fill out the Cosign information if she agreed. She had to have enough income to come up with a Security deposit for her mother, right. But suddenly daughter went koo-koo and wanted out of everything.

Thats the second time this week I've had someone put down a security deposit, and then want it back the same day!

Geez.

if u ignore red flags, you will regret it.

most are on their best behavior til u give them they keys; it all goes downhill from there

What's amazing is how much of a pain this crowd was BEFORE they got the keys!

I think I dodged another bullet.

Where are the good renters? 2/3 of a month and I'm still looking lol

@ Ken [NY] I totally need to have some kind of penalty for asking for the holding money back. Because this is getting ridiculous.

They put a deposit down, see another apartment two days later, and start harassing me demanding their money.

How does yours work?

I take a nonrefundable holding fee equel to a security deposit, if they move in it becomes a security deposit,if they dont move in i keep it, i dont talk to them,i could care less why they didnt move in but i keep it and find someone else

You might be dealing with a nut case - in which case you dodged a bullet. If people are routinely changing their mind, there is something in your place or how your place is priced that encourages them to change their minds.

Another thing I would do is consider not adding to the rents with proration.

If you are having trouble getting the place filled maybe donating a couple days to the cause would be the thing that kept people with you.

Now if it is a week or two then I would definitely prorate. But a day or two isn't going to hurt, especially since you are empty anyhow.

But in this case I agree you dodged a PITA tenant, or rather the tenant's daughter.

>>>> If people are routinely changing their mind, there is something in your place or how your place is priced that encourages them to change their minds. >>>

Whatever. Currently its the lowest rent for a one bedroom in town. I am getting 5-6 inquiries a day. Everyone is just high risk. They don't have the money, they have things on their legal record, evictions, addictions, too many pets, too many people, don't show up and disappear, and on.

If you've never experienced this, you haven't been leasing or you've been blessed. Because everyone I know leasing in this town is experiencing the same thing.

This has nothing to do with me or the apartment. The woman's daughter paid the Security deposit to "get her in".

How is the woman ever going to pay her daughter back, if she only makes $1000 a month, and the rent is $654 plus utilities?

A supportive relative is one thing, but this looks now as if the woman had no intention of paying rent, and the daughter knew that too. She was just going to get "in", and then be impossible to evict because she is disabled with non-garnishable income.

The woman had a rental history where she paid her rent, so it seemed some kind of test was in order.

So I asked her supportive daughter to co-sign. Suddenly everything changed. Now the daughter says mom can't afford this apartment. That is why she is bailing.

Another vote for dodging a bullet.

"Tremendous pressure to rent the apartment" Umm no. Even if you have a loan on that place. If you live in a tenant friendly area, and you do, NO tenant is ALWAYS better than a bad tenant. Full stop. Better to take the loss THAT way than have to evict and pay 3 times what it would be to just let it go vacant.

Screen to DISqualify not to qualify ESPECIALLY important in BLUE states and BLUE cities where tenants have ALL the rights.

Something SID pointed out (I think it was Sid) is that the 3x the rent income most of us ballpark as a target is just a guideline - but the lower the rent, the higher the income/rent ratio needs to be.

If the rent is $2000, 3x that is $6000, and would leave $4000 to cover the rest of life's requirements like groceries and gas and insurance, etc. Not too bad if you are careful with money, right?

But if the rent is only $200, 3x the income is $600. Ummmm... that leaves only $400 to cover the rest of life's necessities.

But the grocery and gas and insurance prices don't change. That $400 remainder is just not enough.

In your case, it's even worse. $1000 income - rent - utilities leaves...not even close to being enough to live. And it's against the law to earn too much more.

Haven't read all the replies yet but I am curios of a few things.

Do you ask for bank statements?

Do you ask for proof of the last 12 months of rent payments?

Do you ask for a copy of the last 3 months of utilities bills?

Do you ask the current LL for a rent ledger?

Do you ask for a copy of their current lease?

Do you ask for proof of income?

Do you check all of these things against each other and make sure they all add up and none are fake?

The bank statements tell you a whole lot and will verify most of these things but you still need to get all of them. JMO

@6X6[TN]

You're right of course.

But when you just have a few properties.... and another one is coming up vacant on the 30th, and possibly a 3rd on the 15th.

For medical or meteor reasons.

And you're under all this pressure to get the vacancy filled.

And 23 days have gone by, and its getting close to the next vacancy, which will also need to be renovated. And you need the money.

And an endless procession of losers come through your door, all with massive gaping evictions, missing histories, criminal charges, not enough income, a herd of pets, blaring skeletons and on.

Well then you start having to fog your glasses up a little and pretending you don't see things.

Its a terrible position to be in. But send me one of those applicants who meets all of your criteria, has the money and wants to rent a 1 BR apartment in a C neighborhood. And my pen and paper is ready with a welcome mat.

Remember it only takes one to finally rent it. But an empty unit is better than a bad tenant...if you hold on, you lose $654. If you rent it to someone who can't pay, you will lose much more.

@WMH[NC] Youre absolutely right about that, an empty unit is better than a bad tenant.

Everything I'm finding out tells me this was a lucky break not to rent to this woman. Daughter is fessing up now that she got her deposit back how bad she was, and the real story is coming out.

But then I guess you'd have to expect someone who collects disability and never works, and didn't have any money saved... probably isn't that responsible.

I've actually got the lowest rent in town for a 1 BR right now. Getting lots of inquiries.

Just can't get a good one lol.

Will get there.

I use the weird rent amounts so I can recognize which tenant is which when I see their rent deposits. IDK.

How big is your town? Small towns sometimes are harder to find good tenants in. I live in a town of 2,900 and the landlords here have trouble finding qualified applicants unless they are on Section 8.

Yet 25 minutes away is a town of 120,000. That is where all my rentals are and I never have trouble filling them.

JP, I used to do that only I used CENTS not dollars. So Unit X was assigned $.01, Unit Y was assigned $.02 as a "unit identifier." It was not advertised in the rent, only when we discussed lease and paying the rent after all was said and done with app, etc.

Told the tenants that it was cheaper than a check, stamp and envelope and they all agreed and thought it was clever.

I had a tenant complain that the rent raised to a total that ended in three dollars. She said it should always be ending in 0 or 5. I just did 3% and that's what it came out to. Now I raise them to the nearest $5.

By the way, she said she would pay the extra $2 just to avoid the number.

Odd, but OK.

I just tell the tenants to use their name and addy. Used to be just one or the other but then we had three 210 addresses.