Pre Tenancy Application: Fill & Download for Free

A2A - Moe than okay in my opinion, no harm in doing so. Rentals in Vancouver have taken a weird turn of late, for the first time in years it’s a renters market. The vacancy rate has more than doubled over the last year. Hundreds of empty Airbnb short term rentals jostle for longer term occupancy in the wake of COVID. A year ago in pre-pandemic times there were bidding wars for vacant rentals, now there’s a good chance of negotiating lower than advertised rent. View as many units as possible within your price range and desired location, submit applications and let the landlord or agent know you’re actively interested in similar properties. Good luck.

The way I first did this in my twenties was by pooling money with two very good friends and buying a house together as a Tenancy in Common (TIC). We found a real estate attorney to help us draft a TIC agreement. This was primarily to agree ahead of time what we would do in various eventualities.Once that agreement was flushed out, we applied to a bank for a pre-approved mortgage. The bank was fine with three people pooling their income and assets for a loan application. It was as if they stapled our individual applications together and treated us as one.We found a nice house in Belmont to purchase and lived there happily together for awhile. As a group of programmers, we called it Geekhaus; Po Bronson even wrote about it. We stayed until folks got married and later moved into their own homes.Though not an approach for everyone, and not without risk, it worked really well for us. I bet many if not most folks in the Bay Area purchase a home not as an individual but as a couple at least, to split the down payment and monthly payments. But then why not as three or four people even?

Not sure where you live but in Australia, when you sell your rented house, you have to pay capital gains tax. Also, most people that buy property for investment negatively gear their portfolio (make a loss) so they can claim some of the expenses as a tax deduction.For that reason, it would be wise to have an agent manage the property on your behalf (as that is tax deductible).If you choose to manage the property yourself, you need to have a very thorough understanding of the appropriate legal act. (In Victoria, Australia, it’s called the Residential Tenancies Act and it covers things like how much bond and rent in advance you can ask for, the types of documents to sign, the periods in which you have to lodge documents and who you have to lodge them with) etc. By law, you have to provide the tenant with a booklet explaining their rights. You can only put the rent up within certain periods and, you have to give the tenant 60 clear days notice in writing. You also need to know when, and how, you can contact the tenant.So, while I expect you were looking for financial advice, I just wanted to point out the property management side of the equation and I haven’t even spoken about tenants that do a runner, and the process for getting your property back, let alone damage.I would definitely encourage you to receive rent by way of bank transfer, rather than cash in hand. That way both parties have an audit trail. In Australia you have to provide the tenant with a rent receipt and, the receipt must contain certain information (specified in the legal Act).Even if you don’t want an agent to manage the property on an ongoing basis, you can still engage them for some of the tasks and I would definitely recommend this for pre and post tenancy inspections, advertising the property for rent, vetting the tenancy applications, preparation and execution of the lease and bond, and representation at the tribunal (called VCAT in Victoria, Australia) - though, hopefully you won’t need that service.You can usually download standard leases from the internet (relevant to your city). And in Australia, you can lodge bonds and tribunal applications using portals on government agency websites. You might wish to write additional things into the lease (like perhaps you are happy to maintain the garden).You may have to pay annual/quarterly local council rates and if your property is not a sole residence, you might also have to pay quarterly body corporate fees.The other thing to be aware of is that some financial institutions have stipulations on deposit amounts etc for investment properties. You may be able to get around some costs by living in the property yourself for the first six months.Over a 20 year period, you will have significant maintenance (replacement of hot water service, possible upgrading of fittings etc) and while some tenants are great and care for the property as though it is their own, you will undoubtedly get some rat bags.And last of all, you will have to have a contingency plan for those periods where the house is not occupied. Sometimes, it can takes months to lease your property.That’s probably enough info for now.Good luck.