OwnerSecrets.com

I need to rent out my dad’s house in Tucson, Arizona. What do I need to do to rent out my house? What are the steps that I should take. Anything I should avoid? Thanks for all your help.

Well the marketing of your home is easy, use Craigslist. I would say that you should check references carefully and also do a credit check. You can have the prospect pay for the credit check when he fills out a rental application. Make sure that your rental application authorizes a credit check! Google the appropriate rental apps for your city and state.

Get the house clean and in good shape to rent. Clean the carpets, paint the walls, etc. There is lots more tips on how to rent out your house on this blog that you can search for.

If you’re in a hurry, hire a property management company to do it for you. They charge anywhere from 7% to 12% a month. A good property management company is easily worth the 10% a month fee. Tell the property manager that you want copies of the rental application, credit check, lease agreement, and any other letters and emails that are sent to and from the property but don’t tell them why just say you keep very good records. Once you get the copies, study them and learn the wording. After about a year, you can let go of the property management company and manage the home yourself. This is a great way to learn the ropes. You might decide after seeing all the work involved to retain the property management company.

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I am so nice that I let the tenant move in without a lease agreeement. I want to go back and do one now, but the tenant won’t sign it. Guess what? The tenant did not pay the 1st month rent! It’s now 20 days late! He did pay cash for the security deposit.

Since no lease agreement exits, what is the right process to quick this tenant out?

You’re so nice? Nice is not the first word that comes to mind. In fact, nice is not even the top 2 words that come to mind. The word STUPID does. What in the world were you thinking? If you can’t make better decisions as an owner who rents out his home than this, you NEED to hire a property management company. A good property management company will cost anywhere from 5% to 10% of the monthly rent collected. If you don’t have a paying tenant, they don’t charge you a management fee. Let’s say your home rents for $900 a month, this means that a property management company would charge you anywhere from $45 to $90 a month. You would still get to keep over 90% of the profit. So what’s your problem? Stop being stupid. Now what can you do to try and fix the mess you caused?

If there is no lease, the court in your area may define this as an “at-will” non-written agreement. Tenant-at-will agreements are month-to-month agreements that can be verbal agreements.

Serve the dead-beat tenant with a 3 day notice to pay rent or quit. Do not try and salvage the relationship with this tenant by trying to get him to sign a lease agreement. For example, you can’t serve a 3 day notice to pay rent or quit and then kick him out because he refused to sign your lease agreement. The court will see that he paid the rent and yet you still kicked him out. Forget trying to salvage the relationship with this tenant. You need to kick him out for non-payment of rent.

After a total of 30 days has gone by without the full months rent being paid, file an eviction notice with the court or hire an attorney eviction service to do it for you.

Never do this again. Once you kick this guy out, with your next tenant make sure you ALWAYS have them sign a lease agreement. A lease agreement isn’t about being nice or not. A lease agreement is about putting a set of rules out on the table that protect both you and the tenant and give a clear course of action if either you or the tenant violates his part of the agreement.

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