If you follow the Real Estate markets or own rental property it is incredibly easy to get depressed about the current market situation. As you scan the Real Estate headlines and find out sales have dropped 41% from the last year. Or as you can talk to Realtors, who will tell you about the huge amount of inventory currently for sale or you can even talk to your tenants about how they feel you need to lower rents because there are so many vacancies out there. The last trap was the one I fell into with my tenants help.

With this many options and this many negatives, it’s easy to get worried and it’s important to understand where your sources of information come from. My mistake began with talking to a tenant of mine, who was requesting a rent reduction due to the changing market. I am aware there are more vacancies and I know the market is a bit more competitive, I also know what a headache it can be to move. But they were good people so I caved in and ended up offering her a $75 reduction, which wasn’t good enough for her. So I agreed to switch to month to month while they explored their options, without doing any rent reduction!!.So now, here is how the trap unfolded.

When I collected the last monthly rent check, I listened to her story about how she felt bad for landlords like me, since there were so many vacancies out there and so many choices for renters, I may be vacant for quite a while. It was all rather depressing really.

To help elevate the potential depression, I also had another property that was just getting some renovations completed and was currently vacant, plus two more vacancies coming up. It all looked rather glum.

Next, came the reality versus what I had been told by the wrong source, or at least a source with a different agenda. Late one evening as I stressed about how long I would have empty properties, I finally had my ads all written and proceeded to post them online with less than stellar expectations. Much to my surprise by mid morning, I already had my first viewing booked for that day. Then another one came for the following day. Then two more for the other property, then a friend’s son came out of the woodwork interested in the third.

The response took me off guard as I was expecting a disappointing response, but it quickly became better and better. Now the key from my viewpoint is as follows, we like to keep our properties well maintained and updated and this is an example of this tactic paying off. Here we are not even a week later and I have all three properties lined up with new tenants. One will be vacant for less than 24 hours!

When chatting with the actual tenants looking for new places, the real view of the market emerged versus the one I was fed by the current tenant. Yes, there are a significant amount of rental properties out there, many at very low monthly rates. However, it appears there is a reason many of them are languishing on the market and steadily reducing rates and it has nothing to do with an over abundance of vacancies. Rather it has to do with tenants having options of where they want to live and they don’t want to live in dumps!

Resoundingly the tenants informed me that a majority of the “cost effective” properties were not places they would choose to live if they had options. During the economic boom earlier in the decade, people took what they could get, now the landlord and property owners that took advantage of tenants and just pocketed all the profits are feeling the results of their decisions.

So the real message behind this article? You really need to talk to the right people to get the real answers. The neighbour, or the tenant or the Realtor may have an opinion, but you have to do your own research to find out how valid their opinion really is and what is actually happening in the market.

It seems like wingnuts are flying off the shelf these days and I am receiving even more content for a potential book about tenant stories. Here is the email I received the other day in response to one of my weekly rental ads on Kijiji;

I want your condo for 2 days, i m planing on having a party. It’s going to be my Birthday Bash so yeup
let me know if you agree, also let me know how much for a day & i’ll let you know when i want it.
email me asap Please and thank you

So, what do you think, should I contact the person? Seem like a winning solution? Just to show how confounding this is,below is a section from my ad,

To ensure a great experience for our residents the property has the following rules in place;

• no smoking in the home
• no drugs
• no overnight visitors
• treat the other guests with respect
• no parties

These rules help create a safe quiet environment and also discourage the types of roommates we are sure you do not want to share a place with.

I highlighted a couple spots the potential short term tenant appears to have glossed over! Bottom line, I think I will take a pass and not bother to reply, I know, I could be throwing away money, but sometimes you just have to take a chance and pass on an exceptional offer!

Love to hear any stories from you!

I follow a fellow by the name of Bill Gray who is known as “The Landlord Doctor”. He is a seasoned debt collector and has some great advice about screening tenants in the following article. I’ve mentioned some of this previously, but it’s always great to get a fresh perspective.

Screening Tenants – Don’t Miss an Important Component to Screening New Tenants

Be sure to check out some of his other great articles as well.

Great title, lousy article. At least that is how many of you will feel when you read this hoping to find an easy way to collect money from tenants you have evicted. Although some people have had success with collecting money from evicted tenants, unless the outstanding amount owed is over a couple thousand dollars you may be better off letting it go.

The time and energy you waste trying to collect could probably better serve you by spending extra time finding and screening for exceptional tenants to replace the less than stellar former inhabitants. For those of you looking to collect, though here is some information to help you with the process of either garnishing a former tenant’s wages, or potentially seizing tenant’s assets to pay outstanding deb.

If you are planning on doing this yourself, here is the link to the governments PDF on Getting and Collecting a Writ of Enforcement in Alberta. This 40 page document (yes 40 pages!!) walks you through the various forms and processes, but most importantly, it says this.

“Legal enforcement of a Judgment is often complex and difficult. Many aspects of creditor law and legal procedure have not been explained in this brochure. Court employees are not allowed to give you legal advice. Please consult a lawyer if you have any questions.”

They also include the phone number for the Lawyer Referral Service sponsored by the Law Society of Alberta which is 1-800-661-1095 or can be found at this link, Law Society of Alberta Lawyer Referral Service. You can receive up to half an hour free legal counsel by using this service. Once you have received some advice you can decide at that point whether to pay for additional advice or whether it may be worth it for you.

Due to the complexity, the other option is to have one of the collection/bailiff services do the process for you. Costs for this start at about $700 and can move upwards for additional services, so be sure you are receive a breakdown of what the potential charges will be prior to committing to anything.

Also, this is different from simply sending the tenant to a simple collection agency that attempts to collect outstanding money for a percentage of the debt. Companies like Foster and Co, Kurseshi and Company or Serv-it offer the full service of going through the courts and garnishing wages and can offload the time you would spend on the process.

If you have had experience collecting, or attempting to collect from former tenants, we would love to hear your thoughts on the process.

This particular post could have also been titled “Google Knows All”, but it does revolve around tenants, so I thought I would share. Hopefully there are a couple lessons and some laughter for everyone in this.

Around mid December I received an email from a lady named Marla for my mixed residence shared accommodation property, it looked like this;

What is ur address? I am looking for a place
temporarily. I am a non smoker and very quiet..

Other than bad spelling it looked acceptable, perhaps she just texts a lot which accounts for the “ur”?  I responded by provided the district (I don’t like to give out the address until I can confirm it is worth my time) and at the same time asked when she needed a place.

She replied back as early as the upcoming Friday and asked for the address and inquired if she could see it first. We passed a few more emails back and forth and then I received a call from a private number the next day from a lady asking the same questions. I asked if the lady was Marla and she said yes (should have been a sign that she didn’t mention it first!!) and we set up a 2:00 meeting on the Friday at the property.

As is my practice, I asked her to give me a call about an hour prior to the meeting in case something came up and to verify I wouldn’t get stood up. She immediately said no, she couldn’t. Ok, that should have been warning sign number two, but we had a couple vacancies, it wouldn’t be too far out of my way, so I said fine, no problem.

Now I had two lawyers meetings that Friday morning and late Thursday afternoon the second lawyer’s office called and informed me we would have to move the meeting to 2:00. This was a refinancing that had to be done before Christmas, so I had to accept the new time, but now I didn’t have a number to contact Marla, and she wasn’t going to call.

Fortunately I did have her email address, so all I could do was email her and hope she read it prior to leaving to meet me. Luckily enough she did receive it Friday morning and called me. I explained the situation and we rescheduled for Saturday at 1:00. Being the “nice guy” I am, I explained it’s for reasons like this I like people to call an hour prior. Since the Saturday stop was semi on my way home from other rent collection it would work.

Anyway Saturday rolls around, I complete my rent collection early, get to the property about 45 minutes ahead of schedule and start doing some work while I wait. This property has an onsite manager, but he had to work the Friday and the Saturday, otherwise he normally would have met and shown the property.

So it is a few minutes before 1:00 and Dave the manager suddenly appears, he ended up not having to work that day, so I said perfect, he could hang out and meet Marla and show her the place. So I packed up, headed home and then checked up with him about an hour later, Marla never showed up.

Here I had worried about her the previous time, made an exception and strayed from my system of calls an hour before and in the end it just wasted my time and Dave’s. This however is where it really starts to get interesting, or should I say fun?

I festered over it the remainder of the weekend and Monday morning I sent an email off to Marla that read like this;

I hope you can understand now why I ask people to call an hour prior to the viewing, it saves the hour plus of wasted time I had sitting at the property only for you to not show up. Just another reminder to me why I shouldn’t make exceptions.

Merry Christmas

Well my new best friend Marla took exception to this and later in the afternoon I received this back, just without any asterisks in it;

F**k you you Canadian  scum. I don’t know you and don’t bother me again  or my boyfriend and his buddies will punch your f**kin head in .

Oh my gosh, did I hit a nerve?!!! A threatening email, what should I do? At this point I had a couple of options; drop it in case the threat was real, or push buttons. Since I am a natural button pusher I went that route.

There is where the “Google knows all” comes into play. I simply plugged her email address into Google and did a search and lo and behold I had pages and pages of links with her email address in it. **For you landlords, this is a great way to find out more about your potential tenants as well, think of it as a unique screening technique to acquire additional information about your tenant.

From the web search, I was able to ascertain the following. She had a history of placing ads in the Rossland, Kelowna, Trail, Selkirk and Nelson areas offering to housesit. She offered excellent references and would also pet sit. As I looked through more of the ads, she also rented out furnished rooms in properties, hmmm.

Now I am only assuming this, but from what I could see she was getting free places to stay, then subletting rooms out and making some quick cash, nice little scam. Flipping through more of the ads she had posted, she was now offering to housesit in Calgary, Canmore and Vancouver in separate ads over the holidays, so I am sure she was just between places when she found me and was waiting for an “opportunity” to open up.

It only became better the more I looked as I also found her putting ads out as a qualified legal assistant experienced with family law, personal law and litigation and as a medical records assistant with plenty of experience. and as a housekeeper, also with plenty of experience. The kicker was when I found one of her ads renting a place out in BC with her BC phone number. This led to me sending out the following email back to her;

I thought with your background you would have been slightly more eloquent? The problem with the internet is that is makes a wonderful shield for threats and bravado when in reality it just makes the threatener feel better about themselves. Maybe you need to go back to all your old haunts like Rossland and Nelson and continue with your house sitting program. After all with your excellent references you should have no problem finding a place outside of Calgary to housesit over the holidays.

Don’t threaten to send your boyfriend after me, if you have one, I don’t live at the property which is why I originally asked you to call in advance. If you want your boyfriend to come find me, call an hour in advance! With your previous litigation experience ( or could it pertain to personal injury law? Definitely not family law?) you should be well aware this email you sent me wouldn’t help your case. Anyway, I am done with you, unless you want to push it, so remember the internet offers only partial anonymity. If you do want to push it you can reach me at 250-308-XXXX, ooops sorry, that’s your old number.

Merry Christmas

My wife particularly liked how I ended by my emails to her with Merry Christmas. Oh and I did include her phone number without the XXXX’s as well.

Strangely enough that was the last I heard from her? So a couple lessons to be learned from this. 1) Don’t stray from your systems, in my case if I would have stuck to my guns and demanded the call an hour before I would have recovered some of my time and never had to deal with this. 2) Google Knows All, if you don’t want your information on the internet, don’t use it, otherwise be careful what you say or do, Google your name someday to see what comes up, you may be surprised. It can also be a useful tool for checking out potential tenants.

The positive part of all this is one more chapter in a potential book, so thanks for that Marla and thanks for providing what I hope was an entertaining post. If you have some fun tenant stories I would love to hear them!

The capacity for people to continually astound me never seems to end. Here is an email I received today from someone looking for a room.

Hello! The following is a reply to your “Rentals For Women, Short Term Shared Accommodation” Ad on Kijiji:

From: sleaze.queen@h******.com Hi! I am very interested in renting from you. How long wouldI be able to stay? And what are the monthly rates?

You can respond to “sleaze.queen@h******.com” by replying to this email.

So what do you think? Should I rent to her? People, take a minute to think about how your email address represents you! Hopefully it’s just a prank email, but unfortunately it probably isn’t. On the positive, my book of landlord/tenants stories grows a page a day lately!

For those looking for a picture for  the post, sorry, everything I found wasn’t appropriate!! This is the best I could come up with.

I told you I had made some upgrades, so here is a new option, if you want to listen to this bonus tip, it’s available just above, so click on the arrow above (or triangle whatever you think it is) to get hear the new audio version!

I like to throw in a couple bonuses in these tips and that includes bonuses for the tenants. You have gone through the work, you have screened the tenants and you finally have your new tenant picked out. It would be nice if your work is done, but there are a few more steps you can take do to make you a memorable landlord.

Many landlords I know provide gift baskets to the tenants that include everything they might need to get started. A few snacks, some of the small sample size laundry detergents and other household items. It can make a wonderful first impression. Our little trick is to leave a couple of nice bath towels in the closet with a note welcoming them to their new home. You can pick up on the towels months in advance and stock up when they are on sale!

How about tenant handbooks? These can be presented to the tenants when they move in and you do the walk through checklist with them. Then you can leave their copy of the checklist in the front sleeve of the binder. Inside the binder, you can include all the house and area information that you already prepared for the info sheets, but in more detail.

We include location of water shut off valves, furnace filter size for units with furnaces, manuals for all appliances and any specialty items like digital thermostats. Of course, make sure you have copies of most of this info for your own records! We also like to grab some of the menus that come in the junk mail and throw them in the binder as well. It’s always a challenge when you first move to an area to find some of the local delivery places and this can really help new tenants.

Of course, we have our contact information in the book, but it’s also good practice to have the information somewhere where they can quickly access it in an emergency. We have a small piece of paper that has emergency numbers on it, along with some of our most trusted contractors so they can call them directly if need be, that we laminate and Velcro into their cupboard door close to the kitchen phone jack.

It’s also important that you put the emergency numbers in the correct order on this sheet. 911 goes on the top, police numbers and fire numbers and then other emergency numbers with yours at the very bottom. If there is a true emergency such as a fire, the idea is they call 911 first and tell you later.

Hopefully this is another batch of enjoyable information for everyone, if you have suggestions you would like to add or comments please feel free to add them.

A KatSid Housez Podcast

  [podcast]http://www.investors.housez.ca/feed/podcast/Bonus Landlord Tips.mp3[/podcast]

This landlord tip seems like common sense, but it is amazing how many times landlords show up just moments before the tenants do, or worse yet after they do. You never know what could be awaiting you and if you have ten sets of tenants coming in thirty minutes, that half hour hopefully gives you time to right whatever is wrong. During the winter, this is time to shovel the walk if it isn’t done. During spring or summer, it’s time to open those windows to freshen the place up.

This is also your preparation time to make sure everything is just right, the floor is clean, dust bunnies in their pens, toilets cleaned and flushed, all the lights on to brighten the property and all your information ready to go. So you must also make sure you have a package of cleaning supplies, rags and air fresheners with you as well.

If you haven’t been to the property for a few days, it is an excellent time to spray some Febreeze around or plug in a couple Glade plug-ins to help the place out. Make sure you pack some extra light bulbs just in case as well. With some of the modern fixtures you run into the new R20 or  A16 or new halogen bulbs and you cannot be expected to carry all of them around, so if you do have any bulbs out, make sure to note this and bring them next time! With the hard water around Calgary if toilets aren’t flushed regularly they quickly develop water marks, so be ready to possibly do some scrubbing.

For the adventurous and to create an even better environment, it never hurts to bring a vase of aromatic flowers in. Or if you are especially energetic, you can even pick up some of the cookies you just spoon out onto a baking sheet and bake away so the potential tenants are greeted with the scent of fresh cookies when they arrive. Tell me that doesn’t help push the popularity up of the property!

Your goal as a landlord at this time is to not just be a property owner, but also the best marketer of their property you can possibly be. Don’t forget your goal is to fill that property with the best possible tenants out there. If you are just one of five places they are viewing that day you want yours to stand out, be memorable and be the one they not only want, but feel they need to live at! Being a landlord involves wearing many different hats, hopefully this landlord advice is helping you not only become a better landlord, but a wiser one as well.

The previous landlord tip went through the process of pre-screening tenants to ensure you make the most of your time. This tip gets down to the process of filling that property with great tenants once you have finished screening .

Book Crowds

This particular landlord tip can really depend on the state of the rental market and the property, but if you can schedule viewing periods for prospective tenants to all show up at once or in a certain time frame, you are set. Usually this is most effective the first week ads are running and calls are coming in.  It does  becomes harder as the ad gets older which is why it’s important to work on right away.

This works by booking time slots when you will be able to show the property and then booking viewings into those slots. As people call in, and after they get through your screening questions, then them know the two time slots you have available for viewing.

I like to pick say a Friday evening from 7 until 8 or 9 depending on the response to your ads, (OK, I don’t like to work Friday evening, but hey it’s a business and if I sacrifice one Friday to get it filled versus twenty different days, I’m happy!) and then a Saturday afternoon from 1 until 3. This covers off the best times for tenants to view, although I will do a Saturday and Sunday as well if it works better for me. This also works best if there are two of you showing the property.

I prefer to book the viewings in 10 to 15 minutes intervals depending on how many people are coming to view. This also creates a sense of urgency as I make sure to tell people there are people before or after them, whatever the case may be and once again raises the concern that someone else may get the property instead of them.

Whichever you choose, use the time you have with them to show the features of the property and get a feeling as to whether these prospects would make good tenants for you. It’s very handy if you have your list of questions along with the notes you had during your original pre-sreening chat with them. You can re-ask some of the questions for clarity and to confirm you receive the same answer!

As your prospective new tenants go through you should be able to gather a sense of whether they will be a good fit for you or not and as the tour ends you can have them fill out one of your applications right on the spot. Your goal should be to gather three or four good applications with each set of showings, but this can depend on the current market, your advertising and your times.

The other tactic I use with less than stellar potential applicants is to hand them the application (if they even ask for one) and ask them to fax it back to us. Realistically if they don’t fit the profile you are looking for to have as your renter you shouldn’t focus to much on their application. Unless someone was crunched for time the hand filled applications receive first priority, plus you can review them while they are there and clarify any messy hand writing or unclear answers.

The biggest aspect of coordinating the showings like this is to get that excitement going, it’s all part of the complete system of putting new tenants in as quickly as possible and ensuring your time isn’t wasted. In the upcoming tip number 3, I will give you an excellent process for ensuring you save even more time!

If you missed Landlord Tip #1 it is available here, Landlord Tips – Filling Vacancies 1 of 5 in a Series of Tips

If you are reading these landlord tips and don’t already receive updates in your email as new tips or blog updates come out, click the following link to register,  Investors Housez Blog Updates and be sure to share with other landlords!

I seemed to get a pretty good response with the last series of landlord tips I put together from our own experience and from information we acquired since joining REIN. To extend the series I have put together some specific information for landlords on some tips and techniques to fill vacancies. Hopefully this helps guide a few more people to a better experience as a landlord and to possibly help curtail a few more negative experiences that could show up without following these tips.

Every landlord no matter how good they are has a vacancy at some time.   Let’s start the series with;

Pre-Screening Tenants

If you blindly accept every call or query about your property and madly dash off to show your vacant unit with the thought that this could be the one, you are already doomed to hating life as a landlord. You need to qualify each and every call, email or form of communication you have with any prospective tenants. Sure you could ask the question in person, but why not do it prior to using up any of your precious time?

Start by creating your own list of questions you would ask each prospect if you met them at the property. Hopefully you have specific questins you normally ask already, but if not, don’t fear, I have some for you.

• How long were you hoping to sign a lease for?
  If you are looking for a long term tenant, and their answer is three months, well you may have already saved some time!
• How many people will there be renting the place?
  If it’s a two bedroom suite and they answer just the seven of us, well you may have already saved some time!
• When would you be moving in?
  If they answer in a couple of months and you need to fill it at the end of the month, well you know where I am going.
  If they answer tomorrow they better have a great story or you could be saddled with tenants that don;t prepare very well!
  - Side Note – our absolute best tenants came to us this way. They were in the process of moving here and the place that was supposed to be ready fro them was a mess and their moving van was 12 hours behind them. They had an impeccable list of references and I called each and every on and had glowing responses back from them within two hours confirming everything. So listen to the story, but never forget your screening and if they are golden, it all works out!
• Have you already given notice to your current landlord?
  If they plan on skipping out early on their current landlord, what would stop them from doing the same to you?
• How long have you been at your current address? And the address before that? And before that?
  Your goal here is to ascertain if they only stay six months before moving on, or whether they are the long term equity building tenants us landlords love. On the other hand if you like meeting lots of new people every six months, skip this question!
• Are you currently just looking or serious about finding a place right away?
  If they are just checking out places right now and won;t make a decision for a month or two, do you really want to rush across the city to show the property? Once again if you like meeting lots of new people, skip this question.
• The security deposit is XXX which is equal to one month’s rent. Both are due in cash prior to moving in, will this be a problem?
  If this is a problem for them, this should raise a red flag about their ability to pay rent in the future, or maybe they just aren’t ready to move into your place yet and you can let them move into another landlords place who doesn’t screen!

The real goal of all this screening is to obviously protect your time, but it also helps point out the more positive prospects you may have. If you have properties that take you thirty minutes to drive to (because you buy where tenants line, not where you live!) wouldn’t you rather know there is very little chance the people calling would ever rent from you before you met them?

These questions are just a guideline, you can easily create your own list of screening questions and run with them. Just be sure to have the list always near the phone when you are running ads and be sure to keep appropriate notes. Then if they pass all your questions with appropriate answers, you will be ready for tip #2!

If you are reading these tips and don’t already receive updates in your email as new tips or blog updates come out, click the following link to register,  Investors Housez Blog Updates and be sure to share with other landlords!