Can The Tenant Afford The Rent
Does anyone have guidelines they use to determine if the tenant is making enough to pay the rent?
I have a new tenant that wants to rent but have a gut feeling that he is going to be in over his head.
Robert
Get Leases & Rental Agreements by Nolo law books.
It will answer that question and any other you might have about screening tenants....plus it has 20 or so landlord forms in the book. http://www.nolo.com
I like to have tenants paying less than 30% of their GROSS pay as rent...
Good Luck!
[addsig]
I require higher standard for unmarrieds renting. Their split-ups are nasty for collecting rent. Exception is long term relationships.
For single wage earners with kids, and unmarried coulples, I require monthly earnings to be 4x the rent, or 25%. Others I require 3x the rent. I rarely see good credit, so I look for good incomes.
The book, "landlording" by Leigh Robinson has been like a "bible" to me. I recommend you get it and put its principles and pages into practice.
Dan
Thank you all for the feed back.
I am going to look into those books also.
Robert
In some areas, having different policies for married vs. unmarried might be illegal.
In Virginia, in the landlord/tenant laws, almost any financial reason for an action makes it an acceptable action. For example, if it can be shown that it costs me more to house smokers, I can charge them more. If I find pets cost me, I can charge for them. If a certain group or family is inherently more risky, I can base a fee on the increased risk or cost of use.
However, one thing is protected. Children. I cannot charge more for children except as increased bedrooms. I can limit the number of children per bedroom to two.
The federal laws on discrimination are well known. Yet I can keep out habitual offenders, users of illegal substances, tenants who own handguns (except where locally protected) (I never ask, but I recently repaired bullet holes and a broken window sash.)
Show the economic basis for your action, and you will be OK.
Dan