Here Is Why My Rental House Is Still Empty | 5 Reasons I Don't Have A Tenant

Welcome to the channel and welcome back to another video. On this quick video, I want to talk to you guys about why my rental house is still empty after two months. My name is Eric and I write a blog over at smartmoneybro.com. I also work one-on-one with people, helping people with their money, but also helping them with their real estate if they have real estate or if they want to get into real estate. You can also contact me below. I do 15-minute free phone consultations. If you need somebody to talk to about a specific problem or if you just want to figure out if my mentoring and my coaching is the right fit for you. But on this video, let's jump into these things that are keeping my rental house empty. So I've got to preface this whole video with I manage my own properties. I don't have some management company coming in. I don't sit in California and own a bunch of properties in a whole different state. I manage and live near my properties. So that means I take a personal interest in doing this leg work to find a good tenant. I don't leave it to a property management company to do all the work. I like to do the work because I want to see who's in the property. Now I only have a few properties. I don't have a hundred properties. If I had a hundred properties, I would probably obviously have a management company helping me, but because I only have a few, I can do it myself. So with that said, let's jump into why my property is still empty after two months. The very first thing is that good tenants are becoming harder and harder to find. I've owned rental houses and managed rental houses for 20 plus years. I've noticed over the last 10 or 15 years that the pool of good potential tenants has gone down. I think a lot of it has to do with the economy and the kind of just the environment that we live in nowadays. It's a lot harder for people to maintain good credit or for people to just make payments. Their regular bills on a regular everyday basis has become more difficult. I think as inflation has continued to rise and the price of everything has continued to rise, wages and things haven't kept up, haven't kept pace. So I think all that contributes to the fact that nowadays I see so many people with bad credit or I see so many people that don't make enough money to actually afford the rent or they have evictions on their record. I see a lot more of that nowadays than I saw 10 or 15 years ago. So it's very difficult to find what I would consider to be a good tenant. I define a good tenant as being a tenant that pays rent on time and takes care of the property. So you're saying well why is that so hard to find? It can be difficult to find the right fit for your property because the pool of potential good tenants is lower nowadays. So it's been pretty tough finding the right person to move into the property because a lot of people have a lot of issues in terms of financially and I understand that. But ultimately when you have a rental house you are running a business. I prefer to look at it as I'm not only helping people but I'm also running a business. And so I want to get the best quality tenant and if I have to wait a little bit to do that I'm willing to do that. And thankfully financially I'm able to do that. You have some landlords that they need to get a person in there immediately because they have a large mortgage they're trying to pay and if they if the house is empty that mortgage money is going to come out of their personal money. Thankfully I'm not in that position so I can be a little more I can take my time a little bit more. Number two the second reason my house is still empty after two months is I run into a lot of people that are just flat out dishonest and they tell you one thing and then when you have a conversation with them or you do a background check you find out something totally different. For example somebody will say yeah I do have an eviction I want to be totally honest with you I have an eviction from one year ago and then when you check the record they have evictions from one year ago two years ago two and a half years ago three years ago so they have more evictions than what they told you. They told you the one but they didn't tell you about the three or four that happened previously. So people are dishonest and here's what I always say it's better to be honest and up front and explain your situation than to be dishonest and then when I do a background check I find out something totally different because that dishonesty disqualifies you more oftentimes more so than whatever the issue is. So you're going to be disqualified for being dishonest if you had an eviction five years ago and you didn't say it that's that dishonesty is hard to get over from a landlord standpoint. Number three the third reason why my property is still empty is because the most important thing you can do as a landlord or property owner or home provider is to find the right tenants. You have to find the right tenant for your property. I don't care how beautiful the home is how much you spent on the floors and how pretty the lighting is and that addition to the that additional bathroom you put in none of that stuff matters if you get the wrong tenant. So the third reason why my property is still empty is because this is important. This is not a decision that I just want to make on the fly and get anybody in the property. Who you get in the property can make or break you as a landlord. It can make or break you as a person that rents out property. I don't care if it's Airbnb, commercial property, whatever it is. If you're renting out property to somebody you got to be ultra ultra careful who you put in the property. That's huge. That is the most important thing that you're going to do and so because this is such an important decision I like to take my time. I just don't want to rush and just grab anybody and put them in the property because I want the I want to take my time because I know that if the house is empty for two months that's better than having a bad tenant in there for six months who tears the property up and they don't pay on time etc. So I can live with the house being empty. I can't live too long with the house being torn up causing me more money and more repairs or I can't live too long with a person who won't pay their rent on time. But I can live with an empty property. So it's an important decision. Number four. The fourth reason my property is still empty is because as I mentioned before I'm actually managing the property and I'm managing the property in a solid and responsible way that is very conscientious of the property and of who I put in the property. So if it's a management company that's managing your property they're never going to take care of your property the way that you're going to take care of your property. They're never going to scrutinize and and take a look at the tenants the prospective tenants like you're going to take and look at the prospective tenants. I'm being a little more picky than a property management company is going to be. The fifth and final reason that my property is still empty is that when I screen tenants I don't just have a phone conversation with them and tell them to go to a website and fill out an application. Site unseen. Property unseen. I always pre-screen tenants and I pre-screen the tenants with questions to them because I want to make sure it's a good fit for them. I don't want to have you filling out a $45 application although my applications are cheaper. I don't want to have you filling out an application and spending your money when it's not even a good fit for you. Sure I got the description online and where it's being advertised but I like to have a phone conversation with you and I like to have you actually see the property before you put an application in. Some people nowadays they just want to put the application in and pay their money and don't even look at the property but I don't do it like that. I try to be fair to people and say I don't want you filling out an application and paying your money unless I know that you have a possibility to get the property. In other words if I have a two-bedroom house that I'm renting and you have six children and three adults that's nine people in the property. This property, my two-bedroom is probably not a good fit for you. Therefore I'm not going to have you fill out an application and spend your $20 or $30 or $40 to fill out an application when I know that you're probably not going to be a good fit for the property. Because a lot of these property management companies nowadays what they'll do is they'll say go to this website fill out an application put in your name your address your phone number and we're going to send you stuff every two seconds. We're two or three months after you're done looking for a property but we want to capture you as a subscriber on our email list and we want you to go ahead and fill out the application fee and we're going to give you a lock box to the property where you can just go in the property whenever you want or whenever you can. I don't like to do it like that because I like to vet people in person. I like to see people talk to people get a feel for people before you fill out an application. So those are my five reasons why my property is still empty after two months. I'll keep looking I'll keep you guys updated on when the property gets filled and I get a tenant. Hey the best person to take care of the old you is the young you. Take care of yourself and take care of other people. Until the next video. Peace.