Adding a New Tenant to a Lease Whether someone is adding a roommate or having a romantic partner move in with them, you’re likely going to encounter plenty of instances where a tenant needs to add someone to the lease. Like most things, having thorough and clear processes documentation are essential to protecting your business and your property. So how do you handle adding someone to the lease? Here are a few important things to consider before your new tenant moves in. What to Consider Before...
The Pros and Cons of Turning Your Rental into a Smart Home
Over the past decade, home automation has gone from science fiction to...
Where Should I Invest? Hot Rental Markets for Property Investors
Real estate continues to be an asset that investors want in on and when the...
What Is An Adverse Action Notice and Why Do I Need To Use One?
Adverse Action Notices are utilized to inform consumers they’ve been denied...
Virtual Reality: Social Distancing Reshapes Property Showings
The COVID-19 outbreak is challenging landlords who are looking to fill vacancies, especially in tenant-occupied properties. Where it may have made sense a few weeks ago to run tours through a unit before the current tenant moves out, that's no longer a viable option,...
These Landlords the Big Winners?
As many landlords are scrambling to shore up cash flow, there are some who are enjoying relative stability: those who manage affordable housing units. Proponents of government housing assistance programs like Section 8 have for some time been touting the benefits for...
Canada’s Plan to Help Tenants, Landlords
The Canadian government has announced an economic stimulus plan to counteract the financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Several provinces have pledged supplemental assistance to individuals and businesses. Rent Supplements At this time, the most robust rental...
Damage Control: 7 Real-Time Strategies for Landlords
As landlords work through the financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, it's important not to lose sight of the need for active property management to minimize income loss day to day. For now, focus on the immediate: Calm Your Tenants As frightening as it is for...
How to Protect Your Credit During a Crisis
Good credit is an important asset for both landlords and tenants. Throughout 2020, landlords may need to qualify for operating loans, pull cash out of investment properties, buy properties, or refinance to stay financially sound. Tenants need good credit to find...
Will a Pandemic Transform the Short-Term Rental Industry?
Investors who purchased residential properties with the hope of renting them out on short-term sites like Airbnb and individual tenants who have come to rely on extra income from renting out a room to travelers may have cause for concern now that the current pandemic...
New Rules on Criminal Background Checks Run the Gamut
New Bedford, Massachusetts lawmakers are mulling a "problem property" ordinance with an eye toward reducing local crime statistics. According to a news report, City Council is considering adding a provision requiring landlords to purchase -- for $30 -- a local...
How to Screen Tenants (Without Wasting Your Time)
The way to save time and avoid bad tenants is to take a surgical approach to tenant screening by focusing solely on qualifications. Detours and tangents only lead to irrelevant information. Use the checklist below to help you stick to the basics: First Contact Begin...
Colorado Lawmakers Push to Suppress Eviction Records
A series of pro-tenant rental regulations are moving through the Colorado General Assembly, the latest of which is a bill that would prevent courts from reporting evictions unless the judge ultimately signs an eviction order. Under the proposed measure, if the...
Landlords Win Reprieve from Voter Registration Law
Twin Cities landlords no longer are required to provide new tenants with voter registration information after a judge found the ordinances unconstitutional. In 2016, Minneapolis lawmakers passed a measure requiring landlords to provide city-approved voter registration...
Landlords Forced to Pay Off Deadbeat Tenant
When confronted by his landlords for bouncing his first rent cheque, an Ontario tenant informed the couple that he and his family intended to stay in the home -- rent-free -- for as long as it took the landlords to obtain an eviction order. According to a news report,...
How to Spot a Nightmare Tenant
It's heartbreaking to hear landlord horror stories, especially when they start with "I thought I found the perfect tenant," or "I was trying to do something nice." Problem tenants are the exception to the rule, but they are out there, and they tend to repeat the...
$60,000 and Counting: Tenant Damage Not Covered by Insurance
A Nova Scotia couple faced the landlord nightmare of a lifetime when they discovered the condition of their rental property - a mess so egregious that the news agency videotaping it warned that viewers may find the images disturbing. One landlord, a 10-year veteran,...
Airbnb Places Restrictions on Canadian Rentals
Short-term rental platform Airbnb announced that it is adding two new regulations to host listings in Canada. Guests under the age of 25 no longer will be eligible to book unsupervised or "whole house" listings in their own communities. Additionally, Airbnb has...
Lawmakers Tinker With Late Rent Fees
When rents spiked in Denver five years ago, lawmakers resisted the urge to overregulate. Instead, they encouraged developers and added more inventory -- much more inventory. Over 12,000 new units -- four times the previous average -- were added last year alone. Rents...
6 Mistakes to Avoid When Prequalifying Renters
The prequalification process is a crucial step in screening tenants. By asking a few questions on that first phone call, landlords can weed out unqualified renters before wasting time showing a unit to someone who won't be living there. Prequalification should be...
New Guidance on Companion Animals
HUD has issued a new guidance paper aimed at clarifying the process for handling companion animal requests. The move comes after HUD agreed to investigate growing concern over fraudulent companion animal requests -- those made by pet owners attempting to avoid a...
Oakland Bans Criminal Background Checks on Tenants
Oakland, California City Council last month passed an ordinance that prevents virtually all landlords there from researching a rental applicant's criminal history. The measure prohibits landlords from inquiring in any fashion about an applicant's past criminal...
Landlord Asking the Wrong Questions
"You don't have to answer that." That's the advice given to a tenant after she showed a landlord's rental application to a legal services volunteer. And for good reason. The landlord asked applicants to identify if they were alcoholics. Another question asks...
Investigation Underway to Address Delays at Ontario’s Landlord and Tenant Board
After a spike in complaints over serious delays at the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board, Ontario's Ombudsman announced an investigation to address the problem. According to Ombudsman Paul Dubé, complaints about long wait times in obtaining hearings and decisions by...