Real Estate Blog

Topics of interest to help homeowners when thinking about selling their home.

5 Must-Do Tenant Screenings

Mario Avalos1 Comment

 

Tenant screening. Fundamentally necessary, but often overlooked. After two years of great tenancy, my client’s dwelling located at the Tuscany Townhomes in the West Kendall, is becoming vacant.

In my quest to find them great tenants, here are my tips to increase their odds of landing the right tenant with 5 basic screening criteria all potential tenants should go thru:

  1. Criminal Background: Ask tenants to get a police report from a local police station. It usually costs less than $1o per person and they can get in minutes. Or they can go to www.sentrylink.com and download their background at $20 per head.
  2. Credit History: Its always best for the tenant to get this on their own at any online provider. Make sure the ones you’re handed were obtained recently, it has the name of that tenant, a minimum of two credit scores are provided, and the history of such scores are also detailed.
  3. Proof of Employment: Depending on the employer, you can get this over the phone, but its always best on the company’s letter head. Each employer has a different procedure for releasing this information. At a minimum, the data provided should contain the tenant’s name and their salary.
  4. Proof of Income: Simply ask for recent pay-stubs which has the tenant’s and company name on it.
  5. Previous Landlord Verification: For this one you have to be sneaky. You simply ask the tenant for their previous landlord info…that is it. Then phone that landlord and ask three questions: a) would you rent to such tenants again b) what is the address of the rented property c) what is your complete name (the landlord’s).

As the previous landlord is telling you their name, pull up the address on the county’s tax records to verify that the address matches the name you are given. It all has to match! If the name of the property is under a company name, then you will have to take an extra step.

Go to www.sunbiz.org and pull up the name of the company. Here you will be able to see if the landlord you are talking to is a manager (owner) of the company.

Bonus!

If you are unable to verify employment on the company’s letter head, then at least get it verbally. THEN…not only ask tenant for pay-stubs…also for recent bank statements. And make sure the pay-stub amounts match the deposits in the bank statements.

So…need a tenant? Please complete below form.

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Your Mortgage Gone M.I.A.

Mario AvalosLeave a comment

Getting that mortgage payoff. You would think that for a lender, the next best thing to getting their monthly loan payments on time would be to get their principal balance paid in the event of a home sale or refinance.

Think again.

My client, whose townhouse is located at Kendall Greens (a small community off Kendall Drive and 147th avenue), had to try three different paper-requests and two pissed-off phone calls to the lender in order to get it done. Why?

Mortgage payoff signatures don’t match!

Yup. My client got the mortgage to buy her place several years ago and she did not remember how she signed. And the signature on the mortgage payoff request had to match her signatures when she first bought the property.

Look for the closing documents from when she bought the townhouse? She did. But it took sometime since they were in storage.

This little debacle delayed closing by seven calendar days. It also aggravated both buyers and sellers since they were both packed and ready to move (buyer was already living with a family member and furniture in storage due to delay).

Now. Under normal circumstance, the delay may not have been such a big deal since average closings take 30-40 days and this is enough time to solve any unforeseen issues.

BUT…due to the fact that this was a cash deal which closed in about 20 days…that is the reason why things got messy. Both buyer an seller were ready to close with a snap of the finger…therefore, its made this hurdle appear like a wall.

Tip: keeping calm is key during these surprises.

  1. Stay on top of the title company to continue to push for new payoff letter with updated request.
  2. Stay on top of seller to not stop phoning lender and demanding quicker response to the request.
  3. Talk to buyer every day so that they know you are on top of it, and not loose deal over something so silly yet critical.

3 Reasons To Live In Kendall

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movie theater in kendallONE – The People: Let me say something up front. I love Miami. I grew up here and I have lived here all my life. I have been blessed to travel to many places around the globe and still choose to come back to Miami…because of the reasons to live here.

The water, the city, the food…it all rocks. However…the people…that is where it gets complicated. Here is my formula. 33% of Miami’s people are really nice. The other 33% are cordial…they’ll greet and go. And the remaining 33.9% are dead-right…not nice.

Now…a good chunk of the 33% of really nice people I have to say live in Kendall, Pinecrest or Palmetto Bay…in my opinion.

I remembered when I moved here, neighbors were bringing me cookies and welcome flowers. Holy Molly! I was so shocked I had to ask my wife…are we still in Dade County? I even had a neighbor bring me a pot of candy…and I don’t even like candy! Needless to say…the latter is just a sample of my run-ins with people out here. Out here…people are extraordinary.

TWO – Silence: No am not dead. And its not that I actually look for silence, but it’s great to have it as an option. When I used to live with my parents near Coral Gables…it rocked for the most part. The homes are somewhat in close proximity to the street. So every time you hear a wanna-be-gangsta blasting their stereo to the beat of Snoop Dog at 2 am…that sucked. BTW…am a fan of snoop…so no harm on him.

Or…get this. Parties. I love parties. Am Hispanic ..my mom gave birth to me in the middle of a party…it’s in my blood. But not on a Wednesday night when you just got home from having a few too many drinks with your buddies and you have to get up Thursday at 7 am to get ready for work. That sucks.

So having the option of silence where you live is great. In these areas, the loudest thing you’ll hear are the dogs barking at the squirrels. Am serious.

THREE – More Bang for the Buck: Palmetto Bay home lots average about 12,000 square feet and you can easily find those 15,000 square foot ones without worrying of how you are going to feed your kids next month. Yes…you may be sacrificing space for location, but…location is a relative word if you plan to not only live here but also work. Want a pool? You’ll have space. Want dogs? They’ll have space. Want Mangos? You’ll have space? Get the point?

I personally wasn’t a fan of living here until I got married. I was shooting for South Miami or Coconut Grove. And now that I got a taste of it…am hooked. The only downside is that “proper” lawn care can get pricey. And am not just talking about cutting the lawn and blowing off leaves. Am talking about lawn fertilizer, sprinkler system, weed control….the works. My lawn needs more care than my two-year old…it blows. But it’s a great feeling to come home to my beautiful house surrounded with thick and well manicured landscaping. It’s worth the buck.

Cash Not Always King

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wood door

In the real estate world, cash not always being king is an understatement. Why? well…in case of a dispute, if checks or money orders were used then you can simply follow the paper trail to help resolve the problem.

Now. You may be asking about the pic. Yes…that is me with a tenant from a unit in Vista Lago in Kendall Florida I rented to (I represented the landlord). The tenant is a woman that simply likes to deal in cash. For rentals, I do tend to make exceptions about not just taking checks or money orders but also cash. I do not advice it, but I do it sometimes if other factors fall in place such as:

tenant has good or better verifiable credit (600+ fico). tenant can verify employment and income commensurate of the monthly rental payment. tenant has no criminal background. tenant can provide verifiable previous landlord reference where I can verify that the previous landlord is the actual owner of the place.

And so on. Notice I often say “verifiable”. This is key as a lot of time, I get information from tenants that blow my mind.

One time, a tenant gave me a name and number of the previous landlord where he lived. So I called that landlord and asked for his complete name. So I pulled up title records and the name given did not match what was on title. Needless to say, the person on phone abruptly hung up.

Need to verify a name on a property’s title?

So…if you do decide to work with a tenant via cash, take a picture just like the one you see on this post. Actually you may wan to add a time-stamp on the pic (which I did not do). And right away, email that pic to all parties involved in the transaction with a note explaining the picture (example: 1st months rent April 1, 20013 by John Doe).

About the time stamp…there is software that detects wether the time stamp was photo-shopped or is legitimate. One less thing to worry about.