Tenants: Be On Time for Your Showings. Find Out Why.

One of the most common problems a Landlord faces is late or cancelled appointments or no-shows. This is why the my most important test of a potential tenant is, “Are they on time for an appointment?”

Why?

Because someone that does not value people’s time will not value getting their rent paid on time.

I can tell you this advice after placing over a hundred tenants. This screening method works 90% to 100% of the time.

The first time I figured this out was with a student that I placed. She kept rescheduling or just not showing up for showings. And when she showed up she was in such a rush that I had no time to screen her with typical questions (this should have been my first clue of a potential problem).

She ended up renting a place and again was postponing getting the deposit to me. She figured her time was worth more than mine and I should be running around the city to collect this. The upshot is she was late on EVERY payment and I had to attend the property an average of three times to collect. And to top it off, she cut her lease 4 months early.

Lesson: Be on time for all showings. If you are going to be late, CALL! Value a Landlord’s time as you would value your own.

Landlord Advice: I call to confirm appointments. I will wait 15 minutes for a potential tenant at which time I will call them. If they forgot about the appointment, are not reachable or are running more than 10 more minutes, I CANCEL and will not show them anymore property. Each appointment can cost as much as $50 to arrange and I am not in the habit of throwing time and money away! Neither should you.

Pets: Landlords and Tenants Face-off

One of the biggest Landlord and Tenant issues I deal with daily is the subject of pets. About 7 out of 10 potential tenants that call me have a pet. The size and the type of pet vary. The face-off comes in the fact that 8 out of 10 Landlords tell me they do not want renters with pets and maybe one or two are open to pets but only small pets.

Legal issues aside, this is a huge problem.

1) Landlords are not open to 70% of the rental market by telling me this.

2) It is a renter's market but tenants have to realize the problem pets create for Landlords.

Let's look at both sides and a possible solution for both Landlord and Tenant.

Background. I have seen, smelled and cleaned many apartments and houses that the renter's pet(s) caused thousands in damage and in some cases created severe allergy problems for future tenants. In some cases, it has taken 2 years to get the smell out of the floors because of a neglectful pet owner.

Each potential tenant tells me that their pet is liter trained, just a small dog, quiet, etc. This maybe the case but again think from the Landlord side. If they let a small dog in for example and it does destroy a door or ruin a carpet, what recourse do they have? They cannot take it from the last month's rental deposit. They can try to collect it from the tenant but this sometimes creates bad blood.

My suggestion and one I am going to recommend to Landlords from now on is to take a "PET DEPOSIT" of something on the order of a few hundred dollars to cover potential expenses.

This is certainly a fair deal for pet owners and Landlords alike.

Current Pet Statitics and Issues:

http://www.legermarketing.com/documents/spclm/020617eng.pdf

Private Exchange's Call to Action!

Our rental service begins. The calls pour in from Landlords looking for help -- looking to try something none of the tried rental methods seem to be working!

John Adams
Rental Systems Expert
Private Exchange Rental Division
rentitnow@hotmail.com

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www.windsorstar.com/Entertainment/Business+Beat/1088661/story.html

Business Beat

By Dave Hall, Windsor StarDecember 18, 2008

New service matches landlords, tenants

With Windsor's apartment vacancy rate hovering in the mid-teens, a new service has been launched to help match landlords with prospective tenants.

Offered through the Private Exchange, the service will help both parties save time and effort by co-ordinating viewing appointments and reducing the number of phone calls it normally takes to set up site visits.

"We're able to show tenants five or six apartments in one day and save them the time it would normally take to contact each landlord," said John Adams, whose company has been merged with the Private Exchange.

Adams, a Windsorite, returned home two years ago and opened his own company catering to student rentals before joining the Private Exchange.

The cost is free to tenants while landlords pay a flat commission fee once their properties are rented.

"With our system, a renter saves having to phone multiple landlords, set up appointments and negotiate leases," said Sandy Armeland, president of the Private Exchange. "Landlords save themselves the headache of having to market their property, show their property, qualify tenants and negotiate leases."

The service will also help homeowners rent their properties if they encounter problems finding buyers.
"We can help them find tenants and help them with the rental process the same way we would an experienced landlord," Armeland said.

For further information on the service, contact the Private Exchange at 519-966-5565 or visit www.privateexchange.com/rentals.

Windsor's Vacancy Rate Almost 15% Highest In Country!

http://www.windsorstar.com/Windsor+vacancy+rate+times+national+average/1062067/story.html

Dave Hall - December 11, 2008

A glut of affordable housing on the market across the Windsor census metropolitan area has pushed the city's apartment vacancy rate to 14.6 per cent, which is more than six times the national average.

A report issued by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation also blames the city's high vacancy rate on "migration by job seekers to other communities, low employment among youth and a buyers' resale market," said Margot Stevenson, an analyst with CMHC.

Stevenson added that "little change in these factors will result in an increasing vacancy rate in 2009."
Windsor's rate increased by almost two points from a year ago when it reached 12.6 which was also the highest in Canada at the time.

The next highest vacancy rates across Canada can be found in St. Catharines at 4.3 per cent and Oshawa at 4.2, two other automotive cities hard hit by the downturn in the manufacturing sector.

Elsewhere across Canada, the rates range from 0.3 in Kelowna to 3.9 in London.

Canada's rate is 2.2, which is down marginally from last year when it reached 2.6.

On the plus side for renter's, the amount of choice on the market has left Windsor's average rental rate of $772 for a two-bedroom apartment among the lowest in Ontario.

Across the province, the only cities with lower two-bedroom rents are Brantford at $752 and Thunder Bay at $719.

The lowest recorded rent among the cities surveyed by the CMHC was found in Trois-Rivieres where two-bedroom apartments can be rented for as little as $505.

The highest rents, not surprisingly, were found in Vancouver at $1,124.

The average across Canada is $828.

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