What should you look for in a tenant?
 

Hey guys,

My parents are going to rent out their basement suite. I was just wondering if you guys have any experience or tips about this?
ie. what to look for, specific types of people, etc.

It is a one bedroom basement suite, with separate access and with shared laundry with us. We are including internet and TV

Any help or information is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

I had a couple rental properties, now I'm down to just one. Every time I would be looking for a tenant I would only get ones that I could creep on facebook. Generally you can search for them with their phone number or an email address they provide you. Might seem creepy and wrong, but, I have weeded out people that seem or portray the party lifestyle, drama queens, etc. I haven't had a shitty tenant in a few years. DO NOT RENT TO SINGLE MOTHERS. They attract drama like crazy, and as much as they claim to be independent, they rely on that child support money and child tax credit (I know there are exceptions). Also, I wouldn't allow pets, you can still smell the little fuckers after people have moved out.

I like renting to students, and I prefer guys over girls because girls can be messy as hell! Yes, I also try to search them up on Facebook too. See if they have a job, or how they will afford to pay rent.

It's important for you to meet the potential tenant, so don't let a friend or family member check out your basement suite on behalf of the tenant. Make sure you do reference checks too (i.e. is the person messy, do they pay rent on time, any problems, etc.).

asian students, safest bet in my experience...plus there's a never ending supply ;)

What a fucking garbage thing to say. You are free to rent your place to whoever you want or don't want but to give that as advice to someone? Go fuck yourself.

To OP just meet with the people. First impressions tell a lot, regardless of someones relationship status. Obviously someone who has been at a reasonable job long term is going to be your best bet. Good references from employers, teachers (in students without rental history's cases) or past landlords are a must.

ones who put up aluminum foil plates

^ I feel he has a point though. In terms of overall "trouble" risk, a single parent situation is higher than say, a single professional male/female, but who knows. Maybe the single professional has a drug problem. Overall it is all OP's discretion obviously but he's IS asking for advice...

Again, meet with the person. Speak to them, feel them out, learn who they are and make a decision. To say single mothers are bad renters living off of government programs is the same type of shit as saying don't rent to black people because they are criminals. Its fucking pitiful and shows absolute stupidity.

I agree with Westopher's remark about first impressions. Over the years, I've had a number of different tenants, and my first impression / gut feeling has always been pretty darn good. The times when I felt immediately comfortable with the potential renters, they have all turned out to be pretty good tenants. There was this one time when I felt the viewer was a bit shady, but went against my instinct since his application form and reference seemed solid (that and I needed the rent), that was the time when the guy turned out to be a demanding prick.

Word of advice from me -- don't EVER rent your unit out because you need the money. Find a tenant you feel comfortable with and then rent it out. Also, make sure you sign a fixed term contract!!! You are dramatically increasing your risk, and making life difficult for yourself when you lose the ability to kick a bad tenant out via expiration of your tenancy contract.

Good advice with the "don't rent because you NEED the money"
I've taken less money monthly to have a reliable renter who I knew I could trust and they were perfect tenants for 2 years. I could have made an extra 100-150 bucks from someone else per month, but the 1500 a year or so is completely negated by the headache of a bad renter, or one month of vacancy in between terms. Don't be greedy, then you have the option of picking and choosing from the absolute best candidates.

my parents did this with our previous tenant. my god what a fucking mess that was.. it was a young guy who was on some kind of drugs. piece of shit was smoking in the suite and living in his own filth. there was a huge pile of garbage in the kitchen and HOARDS of fruit flies everywhere, it was the most disgusting thing i've ever seen. the fucker even left a plate of macaroni in the oven for so long that it had turned into this gross pile of brown mush with maggots growing in it.

just do your due diligence and treat it like a business OP. ask for references, check them. get employer references too, hell even ask for a recent pay stub for your own piece of mind.

just make sure you get unlimited internet bandwidth package from Telus/Shaw, if you are going to share internet

you will be violating your TOS with your tv/internet provider.

Strongly agree with this. The current renter I have is worth keeping happy and keeping as a tenant, rather than squeezing them for an extra couple hundred a month.

Just giving advice, the advice is coming from the perspective of experience from both myself and uncle (who manages multiple apartments, each with hundreds of units). There are more types of people he prefers to not rent to (teenage men, multiple people who are not family, families with multiple children under 5, etc.) and that is simply based off of the number of noise complaints and frequency of late payments. Noise and late payments historically for him from those groups, including single mothers, are higher than everyone else. That last sentence from you was uncalled for.

Someone cussing at another for sharing advice... holy shit. That's like me trying to help someone up and they just slap my hand away.

Imagine Scizz denied westopher's mother from renting his place? Scizz probably be on the news the next day.

Although I don't agree with Scizz view on single mothers, I think it's good that he raise awareness about these type of renters and should take extra precautions when renting to single mothers, like finding out where her income is from, how many children is she staying with, is she alcoholic, etc.

This of course goes for all types of people. You obviously want to know their status and then check up on it.

In the end, it's your place they're living at. No matter how stereotype you are, how much of a jerk you are, or if you're somewhat racist, you're saving a hell of a headache by finding out who you're renting it to.

So... minus all the hater comments in the above posts. It's clearly your best bet to find a good tenant is to do research on the person in question and then meeting in person if your research pans out.

One red flag should always be 'my last landlord was a dick/asshole, so I moved out'. While not impossible, I would assume the tenant was the dick and the previous landlord would be glad to be rid of them. You ever notice how people that consistently say others are assholes are usually the assholes? A great tenant will almost never have a landlord that would be a dick to them.

Sorta of agree to that comment. Rented to a woman who was divorce and after first month she stop paying rent. Took several months just to have her kick out. In the end when she was moving out give me some sob story and we are horrible people for doing this for weak and defendless woman like her. Sorry you didn't pay rent you don't get to live at my place.

Also I would never ever rent to students, more specifically international students especially from China. I been for a lot of open house and those that were rented to students were pretty much destroy. A few units rent to Chinese international students were so bad even the real estate agent is embarrassed to show us the unit. Smells like a garbage dump, there are bags of garbage in the kitchen (not just one bag and BAGS!) Toliet smells shit, washroom walls have moles growing on them, walls were chew up by the dogs, hardwood floor had this sticky and greasy feel to it and is startch up, stove is cover is this grease burnt oil. I would said it would like at least 50k to fix up unit.

I used to rent my basement suite to a Chinese international student as well. From the look of things they haven't done any vacuuming for a couple of months and when the move out my mom had to throw the mattress out coz there were blood stains all over it(yuck). The Kitchen didn't do too well either we had to get a new stove coz the old one is pretty much destroy.

My advice talk to them, do a background check and credit check. I had a potential tenant who looks great of paper makes 80k a year single professional male. But one look at his credit score prof otherwise. He had to pay for child support, own a bunch of credit card debt so if he loses his job he is done. There is another couple who I rented out to before and they were great. The guy just got a working Visa and he is from Mexico and his wife is going to school. Sure they don't have much but by chatting with them you could tell they are very responsible, not the partying kind. And I have no issue with them with the time they are renting at all. Not even a call form them.

Maybe you're right about my reaction, but lumping all single mothers and saying "DONT RENT TO SINGLE MOTHERS" is not advice, its stereotyping a group of people that may already be in a difficult situation. Its one thing to explain that they have had a higher frequency of issues as renters in your experience, but imagine some wonderful successful woman needs a place to rent with her kid, would have been a perfect tenant to the OP and he took your "advice" to heart. Theres LOTS of amazing single mothers out there and to lump them all in like that is shameful.

As said, people should be judged as individuals and you will have a lot better chances of finding someone who fits perfectly as a renter.

I use this site to perform a check on my prospective tenants. Won't check if the tenant is an asshole but at least checks their credit history and if they've been flagged for anything major.

https://www.atenantscreen.com/

tbh, I was raised by my brother when my mom passed away when I was 12, and I feel sorry for the landlord because my brother would yell and beat me for 8 hours a day for 4-5 years. So I understand where the dude is coming from.

I have rental units and I also use social media as a tool. Credit checks and references mean shit. The scary thing is when you rent your basement suite you basically have strangers living in your house and you have to see them every day so that's why you need to make sure you do all your checks.

And remember, the BC tenancy board ALWAYS sides with the tenant and you will be fighting for months to get someone out if shit hits the fan.

yup the tenancy board is a bunch of useless pricks that favor tenants over landloards with video evidence and stacks of paperwork to back up their claims

How did your brother find time to raise you if he was beating you up for 8 hours a day? That's full time hours in its own.

tits.