Eric is up 2-1 on Steve in the game of Landlord Balderdash.
In this episode Steve tries to battle back and see if he can guess which landlord story is real and which one is fake.
Interesting takeaways from this episode:
Story 1: Tenant moves out and leaves trash all over the unit and calls the landlord in to child services and the fire department.
Story 2: A strange package is delivered to the landlords home.
Story 1 Takeaways: The take away is that a tough tenant eviction can cost you money and emotional hardship. Do your homework and make sure you’re talking to their current AND previous landlord.
Many times the previous landlord can be a great resource that can save you from an awful situation.
Mrs. Murphy law is something you want to be familiar with when you’re a live-in landlord because you’re renting to a tenant and a neighbor.
When stories like this come up with a tenant who does serious damage it is likely that they could be screened out because they have a murky past.
Story 2 Takeaways: Checks are an inefficient way to collect rent as other services have become more prevalent. Eric uses venmo.com, but if you’re collecting many rent payments it becomes problematic as you can’t run a business from your venmo account. Be sure to make your account private if you do decide to use the service.
In the episode we discuss the state specific rules when it comes to rental application fees.
There are three main identifying factors we use in running a background check.
- Name
- Date of Birth
- Social Security Number
Frank Abagnale is the person that the “Catch Me If You Can” story is based on. He says to remove your birthday information from Facebook (at least the year) and possibly change your name as well.
It’s also a good idea to look at social media profiles and see what kind of information you can dig up on a tenant applicant.
In conclusion:
Steve is now .500 and sitting at 2-2 in our Landlord Balderdash series.
Subscribe to our podcast to find out who wins in round 5.