Posted by Frank Chin on January 10, 2011 at 09:08:46:
Ryan:
I go through the classifieds, and in the beginning, I called rental agents posing as a renter describing a place I want, basically, describing my place, and ask them if they have anything for rent in that area, and for how much.
Rent also vary by towns due to the quality of school districts.
As an example, in the last vacancy, I did the research and determined the market rent for my 3BR SFH should be $2,000/month with the tenant paying the utilities. Some landlords for comparable properties charge a bit more, about $2,100, and a few gone as low as $1,850.00 I since found the cheaper ones are where the owners does no cleanup or repairs.
So 10% off of $2,000 comes to $1,800. Then just for good measure, I made it $1,775. When I first did rentals, I found rental agents and tenants talk about rentals in the $1,600’s, $1,700’s etc., and the $25.00 diff puts me in a separate section of their book altogether.
Also, at the time, top of the line 3BR apartments were going for $1,675, with one parking spot and NO back yard. For $1,775, they have a driveway for 4 cars, PLUS another 6 being a corner property on the street, and a storage shed, etc. etc.
As an example, I once rented out a 1BR unit for $480, as the cheapest units around was $500, and I was the only one listed in the $400/section, and I practically got every renter in the whole county calling about it. The funny part was as I was signing the lease in the broker’s office, someone ran into the office, breathless, shouting, “is the $480 apt still available”?? The agent pointed to me and said “NO, the owner is signing the lease right now with the renter”. You should’ve seen the look on the guy’s face. Then the broker said to him, “at this price, you should’ve rushed in the day before yesterday”.
So, the $20 off did wonders.
In fact, I’m even ahead of the game doing 10% off. In the $2,000 rental that I did for $1,775, most renters wanted to give their landlords 30 days notice, so I would have been stuck waiting another 30 to 60 days, depending on how their leases are written.
Here it was around May 5, and my top prospect asked if he can do it as of June 30 as his lease went by months, and if he gave notice, the landlord would only let him off June 30. I looked at him, shook my head and said, “at this rent, I’m afraid this place would be gone by tomorrow”. He asked if he can check with his landlord tonite to see what can be done, and he wanted to pay me a few dollars to hold the place.
I said “NO, at this price, I’m not taking any deposits, why would I want to tie myself up”, but I added I won’t be deciding to later on tonite.
So he called me back later that night to say that his landlord let him out of his lease, after some begging, so he can rent my place IMMEDIATELY.
Had I rented the place at market price, I would’ve had to wait another month or more. Yes, some people need a place right away, but I’ve been around long enough to know these are usually folks being evicted, and landlords couldn’t wait to give a good reference to get rid of them.
I rather hear people tell me they try to treat their landlords right. And I also found that by REFUSING deposits, I’m NOT BS’ing about the place being gone by tonite.