Posted by Jeff Bliven on February 09, 2001 at 10:51:49:
I had a 3-bdrm in a university area once, and it too was an expensive area! Nice house! Expensive School!
I too had your concerns… Then I realized, these kids need and want some place to stay off-campus! Their parents have money (expensive school)! Let’s see what the market will bear!
What I did was:
- got about a 15-20% premium on the rent overall, because I was willing to rent to students!
- got an extra large deposit!
- I had each separate student get a rental & damage guarantee signed & notarized from each students parents, that way the parents were on the hook also, and the kids knew it! They were all jointly and severally liable!!
Only had one set of students that turned out to be trouble… had some damage, nothing major!
But I didn’t hesitate to contact the parents and complain to them!! They put there son’s in line better than I could have and 2 of the 3 parents sent me checks for the FULL amount of the damage I complained about as well… Because they had credit they didn’t want tarnished… and I could and would have done it!!
Repaired the damage better that new! paid a little extra… because I had twice the amount needed!
When all was said and done, I kept the EXTRA money as an extra security deposit, that I recognized with a letter to each of the 3 parents, explaining that one of them now owed the other two! I didn’t get involved with that… wasn’t my problem!
Anyway, when they left 2 yrs later… I WAS A NIT-PICKER for every little scratch, maybe more so that I normally would have been, and used up just about ALL of there security deposit, almost $2,500 worth!!
So, to make my long story short, GET RENTAL GUARANTEES!! That’s the Key!!
Good Luck…
PS. put a “noise clause” in your lease! Basically I told all the neighbors as well as the students… if I get just “TWO” separate complaints from any of the neighbors where they called the police, eviction would start immediately!! Quite frankly I found that they, as students, didn’t want to be burdened with moving mid-year, so they obeyed!! Again… Knowledge!