- Subjects
- Genres
- Handbooks and manuals
- Published
-
Berkeley, Calif. :
Nolo
2006-
- Language
- English
- Item Description
- Includes index.
- Physical Description
- volumes ; 23 cm
- ISBN
- 9781413327526
- 1. Choosing Good Tenants Makes Good Business Sense
- Ten ways to keep your rental business profitable
- How to use the Landlord's Forms Library
- Why good record keeping is so important-and how to do it
- 2. Complying With Discrimination Laws
- Legal discrimination: Valid reasons for rejecting applicants
- Rental properties exempt from antidiscrimination laws
- Types of illegal discrimination
- Occupancy standards: How many tenants are too many?
- Managers and discrimination
- 3. How to Deal With Current Tenants-Before You Look for New Ones
- Send departing tenants a move-out letter
- Do a pre-move-out inspection of the rental
- Inform tenants of your plans to advertise and show the rental
- Ask departing tenants to complete an exit questionnaire
- How to work with tenants who are not leaving voluntarily
- What happens when you can't deliver the rental on time?
- 4. How to Advertise Effectively
- Prepare a rental property fact sheet
- Identify your market
- Create a marketing worksheet
- Use word-of-mouth
- Set up a tenant referral program
- Post "For Rent" signs
- Drafting written ads
- Advertise online
- List with local employers
- Use a real estate office to advertise for and screen tenants
- 5. How Should You Show Your Rental?
- Individual property tours
- Private open houses
- Public open houses
- 6. Preparing Your Rental Application and Screening Materials
- Your rental policies
- Your rental application
- Consent to contact references and perform credit check
- Credit check payment
- Receipt for credit check fee
- Consent to criminal and background check
- Legal status in the United States
- Lease or rental agreement
- 7. Fielding Initial Questions and Phone Screening
- Make it easy to reach you
- Have your Rental Property Fact Sheet ready
- Prepare a Rental Property Comparison Chart
- Prepare a Tenant Information Sheet
- How to prescreen over the phone or in person
- Carefully document your conclusions
- Dealing with on-the-fence prospects
- Schedule a site visit
- Should you negotiate on the first call or conversation?
- 8. Prepare Your Rental for an Open House or Showing
- Prepare the rental unit for an attractive showing
- Prepare the rental unit for a safe showing
- Prepare the rental unit for a secure showing
- How to plan for and do repairs and refurbishing
- 9. Face to Face: Showing the Rental and Negotiating With Prospective Tenants
- How to hold an open house
- How to conduct an individual showing
- Talk with your visitors and answer questions
- Field questions thoughtfully
- Sell your property, but don't puff
- How to negotiate with prospective tenants
- Discussions with applicants with a disability
- What's the next step for your visitors?
- Conduct a wrap-up
- 10. Evaluating Rental Applications
- Log in every application
- Confirm receipt of credit check fee and consent form
- How to review Rental Applications
- 11. Checking Applicants' Credit Reports
- How to get a credit report
- What's in a credit report?
- The limits of credit reports
- How to evaluate an applicant's credit report
- Rerank your applications
- Handle credit reports, criminal background reports, and tenant-screening reports carefully
- 12. Checking Landlord, Employer, and Personal References
- Contact past and current landlords
- Contact current employer
- Contact personal references
- Reranking and rejecting applicants after talking with references
- 13. Checking Applicants' Criminal Backgrounds
- Your qualified legal right to reject tenants with criminal backgrounds
- How to avoid renting to people with dangerous criminal backgrounds
- The basics of criminal background checks
- The risks of running a criminal background check
- The risks of not running a criminal background check
- How to decide whether to do a criminal background check
- Inform prospective tenants of your policy and get consent
- How to do a Megan's Law search on your own
- How to get a criminal background report
- How to reject following a Megan's Law or criminal background check
- 14. How to Choose and Work With a Tenant-Screening Agency
- How useful are tenant-screening services?
- Obtain written consent from applicants
- How to find a tenant-screening service (and how much they cost)
- How to evaluate services provided by tenant-screening firms
- How to use the screening report
- Accepting and rejecting applicants based on screening reports
- 15. Choosing Your New Tenant
- What to do when you have no qualified applicants
- How to choose among qualified applicants
- How to communicate an acceptance
- Conditional acceptances and adverse action letters
- How to deal with cosigners
- Holding deposits
- Signing the lease or rental agreement
- 16. How to Reject-What to Say, What to Write
- Ten tips on how to reject
- Adverse action letters
- Rejections: How to say them, how to write them
- Communicate post-application rejections by mail or email
- Appendix
- Using the Forms
- Editing RTFs
- List of Forms
- Index