Rent-To-Own Application: Fill & Download for Free

Having an eviction on your record does not make you look like a criminal. I’d rent to many people with criminal records, but never in a million years to one who had been evicted.I immediately reject any application from someone who has been evicted, and 99.9 percent of those from people who have had eviction filed against them or been involved in litigation with a landlord, for reasons that should be obvious. Being a landlord can be a good business, but at the best of times it’s not one with incredible profit margins. Things are pretty great when everything goes well, but a single problem tenant can cost a landlord tens of thousands of dollars – not just in lost profits, but out-of-pocket costs. We don’t have a crystal ball to predict the future behavior of applicants, so we have to look at their past. It sucks if you’re a good person that made a mistake, but the statistics show that this is an area where past behavior is a pretty good predictor for future behavior, and you really cannot blame me for declining to accept high risk tenants unless I have to.Your own actions determined this outcome. You may have been the victim of unfortunate events outside of your control that made it impossible for you to pay rent, but not paying rent never got anyone evicted. Not paying rent earns you a notice to vacate, and the only decent responses there are to either pay up or move it. It might be terrible for you, but you must acknowledge that you have no right to continue living in a home that you are no longer paying for. There are other causes for eviction, of course, but they all mean that you did something to lose the right to inhabit a home, and that you refused to leave as you ought to have done. And can you really expect landlords to ignore that? Are you going to let someone with a DUI drive your kids to school? Ask a robber to house sit? Or eat potato salad made by someone who recently gave the whole family food poisoning? No, probably not, not unless you have a compelling reason to ignore the precedent, and in most rental markets landlords have no incentive whatsoever to rent to you once you’ve been evicted.

The message is that he’s going to run a white-supremacist-themed campaign.I’m reminded of Clarence Thomas’s comment after hearing that his hard-right world view might “evolve” after some time on the Supreme Court. Thomas said, “I ain’t evolving,” and to date he certainly has not.Trump has also never evolved; he seems to be incapable of evolving. He’s the same racist he has been since he and his father devised a code to tip them off that applicants for Trump-owned apartments and condos were black, so they’d know whom not to sell or rent to. The man who wondered why so few Norwegians immigrate to the United States has no interest in reaching out to Americans who are neither Norwegians nor Norwegian wannabes.

I learned the hard way that it’s best to look for tenants who meet very specific and non-negotiable criteria:No Evictions: Evictions might be a part of this business, but strictly speaking they shouldn’t happen at all. Everyone can get behind on the rent or make mistakes, but an eviction on your record means that you screwed up and went on to make as much trouble for your landlord as you could. I have never felt tempted to break this rule, and I do not know of any owner or agency that would rent to someone with a previous eviction.References: We need written references from the landlords of any place you have lived in the past five years, no less than two. We want to hear that you paid consistently and on time, that you kept the home clean and left it in good condition, that you did not violate the tenancy agreement, and that you were not involved in any disputes with neighbors. When I first started out I made the mistake of renting to a group of students who lacked references as this was their first time living away from home, and I learned my lesson. Today I only allow first-time tenants in the cheaper apartment units, and only if they exceed all other requirements and provide other personal references.Good Credit: Evictions are a hassle, and so is turning over a unit for new tenants, even when the former left voluntarily, which is why I want to be as certain as I can that prospective tenants will manage their money well and pay me on time. I accept credit scores of 650+ for the cheaper units that start at $950, but anything less than 700 means that everything else must be in perfect order. For all other apartments and houses, a score of 700 is the firm minimum.Steady Income: This might sound obvious, but we get a surprising number of applicants who tell us that their rent will be paid by parents, boyfriends, or vague hustles. We only accept tenants with proof of steady income.Rent/Income Ratio: That income has to be at least three times greater than the rent, because once you add in other expenses and perhaps a bit of debt to pay down, that is what a person would need to bring home in order for the rent to be easily affordable. This is something that a lot of applicants disagree with, but it’s for their own protection as well.Criminal Record: Unlike some landlords, I am willing to accept tenants with certain convictions. Violent crimes are absolute disqualifiers, as are most felonies, but anything else is evaluated on a case by case basis.These are my requirements, but they are fairly typical. Do keep in mind that all my properties are located in or around a city that is growing rapidly, one with a serious scarcity of rental homes. We have wait lists for all units which allows us to be extremely picky and charge for applications, but certain requirements are almost universal. If you have a steady job, decent credit, and can get good references from past landlords, you should be a suitable applicant if the unit is within your budget.