Category Archives: tenant

As a landlord, your responsibility under the law is to provide a safe, livable home. This is under the legal doctrine called the “implied warrant of habitability.” This is a pretty broad st,atute, but it basically means the property should have: Heat (and air conditioning, depending on where you live). Water (hot and cold). A roof that doesn’t leak and won’t collapse and hurt your residents. An inside of the home that is free from known environmental hazards like unsafe electrical outlets, lead paint, or asbestos. Safe floors that can hold […]

It used to be all tenants paid their rent with a check or money order and there really just weren’t a lot of options. However, that was before online banking. Now with the ease of smart phones and the Internet, it’s very easy to request, send and receive money electronically. There are so many services out there these days. As landlords, we take them all. Our philosophy is that we want to make it as easy as possible for our tenants to pay their rent on time. So long as […]

There is no exact science to setting the rent. All units, blocks and neighborhoods are a little bit different so it makes it hard to compare apples to apples. What I do when it’s time to set the rent, is I look on platforms like Zillow to see comparable monthly rents for nearby properties. I also sometimes include sales comps as my general rule is monthly rent is about 1% of sales price — more or less. You can do this yourself or a friendly realtor can help run some […]

For folks trying to get into real estate, probably easiest place to start is buying a home where you can safely have an income property as part of your primary residence. There was a great show on HGTV about it and it’s worth finding the old episodes to watch (see Income Property). The basic idea is finding a home to make your primary residence that also has a unit that you can rent out for profit. Depending on where you live, that could be a duplex or triplex that was […]

As a landlord, the most important thing is having someone take care of your property and pay rent in a timely manner. Empty properties cost money. Evictions cost even more money so it’s important to do your due diligence to find good tenants. Good tenants – people who pay their rent on time and take care of your property – are like gold so it’s important to take care of them. Taking care of a tenant means making timely repairs and dealing with other issues they have, such as problem […]

Here are generic more questions to ask your landlord when deciding to rent a home. How much income do I need to rent this unit? How will you verify this information? The industry rule is 2.5 times your monthly income. That means if you earn $2500 a month, you can safely afford a unit that costs $1000 a month. How much is the security deposit? The security deposit is typically one month’s rent. Texas law requires landlords to give tenant back his or her security deposit within 30 days along […]