What to look for when renting a home.

This 3 bedroom, 2 bath ranch is a great example of what a tenant should be looking for when renting a property.

I handle some rentals for my company.  Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, Georgia Properties manages the properties. I am the front-end and back-end person.  I advertise the homes, meet prospective tenants, show them the property, arrange for them to make application and when/if accepted, I execute the lease with them and collect the money due and move them in.  At the end of the lease, I do a final walk-thru with the tenant and re-secure the home for re-rental.

We always try to ensure that the home is in turn-key condition before we put it on the market.  It's really no different than selling a house.  In my experience, the better the condition, the faster it will rent. If you are the owner, you always want to make sure that there is nothing broken or breaking.  It will only get worse.  Some tenants are more careful than others with your property.  Some will not report things that need attention - for no other reason than they don't know better.

For example, the home in the featured video needed a new bathroom floor because the original floor had developed a crack.  It was just a  hairline crack, but it seemed to go right under the toilet.  Now, it didn't crack for "no reason".  Since we own this home, we decided to investigate if there was an underlying leak that contributed to the crack.  If the there was a leak, the subfloor would deteriorate and then we would have a major problem.  We checked it out and there was a minor leak, but we think the flloor cracked because of normal settling and age.  So, we pulled it out and  put in a new, modern floor. BTW, we = our contractor, Mike Waldner.

Then, we discovered that the master bath shower had some loose tiles.  With some careful repair work from our very skilled contractor, Mike Waldner, that tile is as good as new.  He carefully removed the tile, cleaned up the back, repaired the wall behind the tile and re-installed it.  The tenat should have told us about this.  Actually, that shower backs up to the other bathroom.  Some of the water from the shower could have been running toward the floor in the other room.  Left unresolved, this could have been a catastrophe and could have lead to mold, rot, unsafe, unhealthy conditions.

We like to give the home in clean, ready to move in condition. All homes need maintenance.  This one had a new roof and fresh exterior paint a few years ago.  This year it had new carpet and fresh interior paint along with the bathroom maintenance.

I have rented in the past and there is no greater turn-off than looking at someone else's dirt.  As a landlord, you cannot expect top dollar unless you give a good, quality property in good condition with everything in good working order.

As a tenant, be sure to speak up if you see something in disrepair.  Make sure any deficiencies ar written in your move-in inspection form. If you don't, any issues could be assessed against you when you create your move-out inspection form.  These forms are for your and the landlord's protection.  Check out this video again.  Good Condition Home

If the home your looking at is not spic and span like this one, you might just want to keep looking.

And, landlords:  if you are not getting a tenant quickly, you might just want to re-evaluate the condition of the property you are trying to rent.