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Bellflower landlords plan to clean up the blight
There is an exciting and innovative plan afoot in the Southern California city of Bellflower. Property owners and landlords are getting together to try to rid their town of a blighted stretch on Eucalyptus Avenue. A wave in crime and police activity inspired the property owners to get together and form an association to raise tax money to fund the improvements. The improvements will cost approximately 1.9 Million, and the City of Bellflower is expected to chip in an additional $400,000 in city works.
Tenant Screening
According to the article in the Long Beach Press Telegram “The proposal is considering enforcing a tenant screening process to weed out potential troublesome tenants.” It’s unknown at this time whether the proposed budget will provide a fund to help property managers screen their tenants.
We hope that the City of Bellflower will closely examine the issue before mandating tenant screening. It’s unknown if tenants would have to a meet a certain background check threshold (no felonies, FICO score 650) required by the city, or whether property managers would be allowed to make their own decisions. While we wholeheartedly believe is screening all potential tenants, we hope that california property owners rights would be upheld.
Tenant Screening for first time landlords and property owners
With a slow real estate market, the inventory of rental homes has increased, many with first time landlords. The amount of renters has increased as many new home owners cannot afford to pay their mortgages. Sometimes owners will attempt to find tenants themselves or use a mortgage company. Home owners are advised to screen their potential tenants closely, because in a difficult economy it can be hard to find tenants with responsible cash flow. The montgomery advertiser has a piece about a broker with more rentals on his hands.
Harris agreed that getting qualified renters can be difficult. He said his firm screens its renters more closely than many mortgage companies.”We look at credit reports, do a background check and verify income,” he said. The company even checks with former landlords or mortgage companies about payment habits.
Some tenant screening you can do yourself, but conducting criminal background checks and credit reports requires a background screening firm like corragroup.com. You have secure account with online access to criminal data and credit data. This is a significant step towards protecting an investment in real estate if you are planning to rent out your first home.
Does Crime-Free Certificate mean Diet Crime?
We certainly hope the best for Fairfield anti-crime program with property managers in mind. The Police have established a three phase problem to certify housing complexes with the “Crime-Free” distinction. According the new article/press release, “The certification program was developed to reduce crime, clean up rental properties and increase property values”
The program sounds like an effective campaign by the city to remove the blight and scourge of multi-occupancy crime. But really; “crime-free”? Couldn’t they think of a better word. Sounds alot like Carbs-free foods – you know the best of intentions by food companies and STILL you continue to gain weight! Crime-Free doesn’t mean crime-free, because despite the best environmental design, the most advanced lighting system, and the most responsive crisis resolution team, crimes will start with your tenants.
Most property managers have thin margins and cannot redesign their environments, or hire security guards or install video cameras. We recommend you conduct tenant background checks with a web-based provider like Corra Tenant Screening or Tenant Checker. Understanding your prospective tenants criminal history and credit history will allow you see potential patterns of abuse and crime.
Finding Stable Reliable Tenants
Jessica Beganski wrote a great article about how to find and maintain reliable tenants. She makes some interesting points- the most striking is that she recommends allowing for pets. Her premise is:
I think having a pet shows you’re stable, responsible and flexible – all qualities of a good tenant.
Most landlords and property managers look at the wear and tear associated with pets and usually opt for the “NO PETS” sign. While this financial logic is sound, pets do cause damage, Jessica hits them with unusual case of unintended consequences. If you deny pet owners, then you are eliminating a group of potential responsible tenants from your prospective tenant pool. While we are startled and grudgingly agree with Jessica’s position, we would like to modify it to “Allowed Pet” as we all know that the some pet owners have the propensity to titter over the brink of reality and start breeding and hording pets. You do not want video of your property showing up on the evening news when they evict the lady with Fifty cats!
Jessica also mentions the importance of conducting a proper credit check and criminal check on your prospective tenants. Also, she recommends making your applicants pay for the service. If they balk at this, you’ve already weeded out a potentially bad tenant.
Marketing Timing makes unlikely Landlords
With real estate prices falling in most markets, some property owners are renting out their homes while they live in apartments. They are waiting for the property values to increase before they sell and move on.
The housing market morass has created a new class of real estate investors: the accidental landlords. Some, like Mr. Vallance, have moved into new homes and can’t sell their old ones — at least for the prices they want — while others, like Dr. Siqueira, chose to invest in the changing market. Then there are those for whom renting has become a way to forestall impending foreclosure.
If you are a new unlikely landlord, be aware of the pitfalls of renting out your property too quickly to the wrong tenant. Conduct a thorough background check of all prospective tenants, including tenant credit report, evictions report and a criminal records search.
Privacy Rights for Tenants in Albert Lea City
According to the Albert Lea City Tribune, the city council is voting to pass a new ordinance to have all landlords licensed by the city. Apparently the new ordinance will require facility site inspections as well as requiring landlords to turn over names and phone numbers for all tenants. While it may seem that licensing will protect tenants from bad landlords, citizens are worried about the privacy issues involved with providing the city with names nad phone numbers of tenants. What do you think?
Rental housing program teaches responsible property management
The Ludington Police Department and the Mason County Sheriff’s Office conducted a rental housing training program for local property owners, rental homes, mobile home parks and apartment communities. One of the most important topics they covered was how proactive landlord behaviors such as tenant background checks can prevent alot of problems.
For example, participants learned one irresponsible or disruptive resident can easily distress an entire building, causing good renters not to renew their leases.
New screening methods, including criminal background and history checks for possible tenants, is something Larry Martz, owner of Heritage Hills mobile home park, says is one of the things he will be using.
Kudos for Ludington for promoting a responsible and safe environment for apartment dwellers to live. It appears that more landlords are becoming aware of the need for tenant background checks, especially criminal records searches.
Tenant’s Worst Nightmare : Property Foreclosure
In a difficult economy, tenants can a face their worst nightmare: moving into a apartment only to learn that the property has been foreclosed and they must get out. After moving costs, tenants are facing with moving their stuff again. Any legal action is destined to cost money. Also while living in the foreclosed property they might be subject to losing utilites which are taken care of by property managers such as water and gardening.
North Adams Transcript has a full article about a horror story that occurred to one family :
“we all found out the house was in foreclosure and we were all being evicted”
At tenantchecker.com we frequently talk about the need for landlords to screen their tenants; but perhaps tenants need to start thinking about doing some checking of their own. Can you screen your landlord? Part of this will include some common sense. Inspect the building before you sign a lease. Do you see any signs of problems. It’s painfully obvious, but is there any foreclosure notes posted on property? Ask around the neighborhood. Ask the neighbors what they think. Finally, you can conduct a landlord background check by running a Business Partner Owner Check. These reports can tell you who owns the building, and possible liens and UCC violations that might have occurred.
SuperBad Tenants: a landlord nightmare
Channel 34 news in binghamton New YOrk has a great story about a super bad tenant that wil make your head shake and your wallet cringe. There’s a stereotype in our culture about bad landlords but not one about problem tenants. There could be after reading this. According to the article, it’s common for tenants to trash apartments, and leave behind garbage once they have moved out. But the landlord said that this super bad tenant:
It was feces all over the place. There was literally millions, not thousand, but millions of roaches. Where I had totally barfed because there’s so much stuff that was going on. Three days ago this sidewalk, from that pole to that tree, was lined with garbage – furniture saturated with urine and infested with roaches, and garbage as high as I am tall.”
The final price tag for the clean up was $10,000. Apparently the tenant paid their rent on time and never called about any problems. Maybe they should have.
Would a background check help?
It’s worth wondering whether a tenant background check would have alerted the landlord to the potential problem with this tenant. As stated in the article, the tenant paid their rent on time and didn’t cause a problem. It’s possible this tenant would have decent credit and no criminal record. This is why it’s worth it to check for possible previous evictions. Evictions occur according to the local, state and federal laws applicable in the area, adn are usually along financial lines, but sometimes the tenant can be evicted for other reasons, such as trashing the apartment. If this happened before, it good to check again.
Another thing to consider is make sure someone is doing walkthrough on your building. If you don’t have a full time maintenance personnel, make sure someone is aware of the problems in the building and communicate with your tenants from time to time to be aware of any problems. The complaints about the smells would have been a first warning.
Criminal Tenants to face eviction in New Jersey
Problem tenants who commit crimes may have a tough time holding onto their apartments if a new inititive is passed Millville, New Jersey. The City Commission is exploring a new program which will allow landlords to work with the police and speed up evictions for crimes that occurr on their property.
Under the program, police would provide background checks and recommendations on prospective tenants.
Hopefully this program will work to the benefit of the community. We are a little skeptical about the efficacy of the police running background checks giving recommendations on prospective tenants, not because they aren’t informed or effective, only that this is exactly the sort of labor intensive work that boggs down police departments and creates a huge backlog of background research for police officers and non-sworns to do.
To speed up your screening, we recommend you run county criminal records searches in all counties where your prospective tenant has resided. The searches take approximately 1 to 3 business days, depending on your area, and will provide you with a powerful history of your tenants criminal past.
Landlords who attended the meeting in Millsboro shared horror stories:
Ted LaMantia said he has multiple clients that owe him thousands of dollars, including one tenant who declared bankruptcy twice to avoid paying him $6,000 she owed.
Tenant Financial Responsibility
So your prospective tenant does not have a criminal history. Now what? Make sure they can pay you. Also run your tenant credit history and also check for previous evictions, and bankruptcies, liens and judgments. You should also verify their current ability to pay for verifying their employment, either through a pay stub or employment verification search.
