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What To Consider When Adding A Roommate To Your Lease

There are many reasons why you may want to add a roommate to your existing lease. Maybe your existing roommate is getting married or moving out of state, or you just need someone to share your rent. This is very common.  Many times, there are great advantages to adding someone new to your household. This includes sharing utilities, expenses, and having company. Allowing someone to reside in your household without taking the right steps is not only considered illegal subletting but can set you up for eviction and/or fees and fines.  There are a few boxes that you need to check before allowing someone new to move into your home. 

Check your lease

First things first, you need to check your lease to see the protocol for adding a new tenant. It is likely that your proposed roommate will have to complete a new rental application and go through the screening process. Once they sign an application, they are now legally responsible for the rent, just as you are. Furthermore, it will help to know what you have to do on your end to make sure you are following the agreement you signed. 

Are there fees? 

Additional tenants occupying a property can mean more wear and tear so there may be some costs associated with adding a roommate. Here at RentWise, we request a $250 fee to process the application, screen the proposed tenant, and completed the required documentation needed to update the resident’s file. 

Communicate with your property manager

Communication is always key in maintaining a healthy relationship- especially when it comes to the professional managing your property. Talking with your property manager prior to committing to a new household resident will save you all a logistical headache. Your property manager will appreciate a heads up that you are considering adding a tenant and will be more open to working with you. 

Be sure that  you choose your new roommate wisely

Last but not least, make sure that you have truly thought out your decision to add someone new to your residence. Having a new roommate can be exciting, but may not actually be the best choice in the long run. Once you complete the steps to add a roommate, it is a hassle to undo them. Releasing a roommate requires you to submit income statements and additional documentation. This will show your property manager that you are able to handle the lease requirements on your own.

If you want to know more about our services, reach out to us at 208-949-3083 or courtney@rentwisepm.com. Less Hassle. More Happy.

SW Idaho NARPM Q2 2021 Vacancy Survey

The Southwest Idaho Chapter of the NARPM(National Association of Residential Property Managers) has released its findings from the Q2 Vacancy and Rental Trends survey. The report is as of June 30, 2021. This survey tracks key performance indicators and market trends for single and multi-family homes in the Ada and Canyon County region. There are a total of 9,740 units managed between the counties with a total of only 145 vacancies.

 

Q2 Vacancy Survey Results

The rental market has seen some very intriguing trends this quarter! The 2nd quarter closed out strong with a market vacancy rate of 1.66%. The data collected indicates that vacancy rates have decreased by 2.64% from the 2nd quarter of 2020! This is exciting news but also shows the vacancy rate may be approaching its eventual plateau.

 

Rental Rates

Ada County single-family rental rates increased this quarter by an average of $177 per unit. However, multi-family rental rates increased an average of $129 per month in the second quarter. The overall marketed rent rate for the combined single and multi-family comes in at $1,679 per month.

Canyon County rental rates showed a lower increase in the second quarter of 2021 than the first. The rental rates for single-family homes showed an average increase of $58. This puts the average rental rate at $1,398 per month. The current data illustrates that rental rates in Canyon County come in lower for both single and multi-family properties.

 

Rental Rate Comparison By County

Here are some of the key metrics for review that are broken down by respective counties.

 

Stay tuned for the Q3 results! If you would like more information on this report or would like to discuss how we can use our motto of “Less Hassle, More Happy” to assist in making the most of your investment, visit us here! 

 

 

 

 

Top Reasons Why Real Estate Agents Should Partner with Property Managers

Why should real estate agents partner with property managers? 

 

We get questions like: ” Why wouldn’t an agent just want to do the property management themselves, and it just becomes another stream of revenue for them?”  There isn’t a short answer to that. Agents can do it themselves, but you will find many real estate agents don’t want to. Working with property management companies like RentWise Property Management in Idaho’s Treasure Valley area makes life for real estate agents easier. Real Estate agents find that partnering with property managers saves them time, money, and many headaches. If you are a real estate agent, you will find that working with a property management company might be what you are looking for. Here are just our top reasons you should partner with a company like RentWise, especially in Boise, Idaho, and the surrounding area. 

 

Increase your Customer Experience

As a real estate agent, you might feel like one fish in a vast sea, which can be pretty intimidating. You want to be known as the real estate agent to use. The agent that goes above and beyond even when it’s not your area of expertise. There’s nothing like receiving the best customer experience because you want to tell people about it when that happens. You want to share that business with your friends and family. Word of mouth is an incredible tool for a company. When you work with RentWise Property Management, we handle all the heavy lifting for you and your client. From picking up the keys, switching utilities, walk-thru punch list, and estimate coordination, we take care of it all. Therefore, giving you back the time to service more clients and leads us to our next reason. 

 

Increase your revenue and time:

You will find most real estate agents that aren’t partnering with property management companies are wasting a lot of time managing properties instead of building your real estate business. Many tasks come with property management; you have to deal with maintenance, rent collection, background checks, and applications coming in. Imagine getting that time back and investing it into showing homes currently on the market or increasing your leads. 

When you lose out on time like this, you also lose revenue. Real Estate Agents also have the potential to increase their income through partner programs. Partner programs like ours at RentWise encourages real estate agents not only to refer us their clients, but we promise to send them right back to you when they are ready to sell or purchase more properties. We also guarantee our agents a paycheck when their client signs a 12-month rental agreement.

 

Our personal goal at RentWise Property Management is to make you look good. Real Estate Agents have always been a large referral source. Contact us today, and let us show you how we create “Less Hassel, More Happy.”

 

 

Paying Rent Online

Paying rent online has become the norm across the board these days however; the convenience of doing so comes at a cost for most tenants. While we here at Rentwise can’t control what the credit card companies and banks charge we do our best to mitigate any expenses we can. We do not upcharge these fees or charge any other fees related to paying rent online so having options is just one way we try to serve our tenants.

3 Ways to pay rent online:

Pay your rent with a checking account:

This is the most cost effective way to pay rent because it’s FREE! Simply log in to your tenant portal, plug in your checking account and routing numbers and you are all set! You can even set up auto pay if you don’t want to worry about paying your rent on time each month.

Pay your rent with a credit card:

This method comes with a 2.99% fee of the transaction amount. So if you rent is $1500 per month you would pay a fee of $44.85. We know some of our tenants like to rack up those air miles or maybe they are just short on cash one month, so this option is great for those satiations.

Pay your rent with your debit card:

This is a new feature that Appfolio just rolled out that enables a tenant to pay rent with a debit card, any amount, for a flat fee of $9.99. This is much more affordable than paying with a credit card so we are super happy about this change for our tenants.

If you would like to know more about how we can help make renting LESS HASSLE, MORE HAPPY please reach out to us! We are here to help! Call 208-949-3083 or email us at office@rentwisepm.com.

 

What will my property rent for?

What will my property rent for? The most asked question of any property manager I would venture to guess. (It’s either this or how much do you charge? That is an entirely different blog) Every investment transaction hinges on this factor so you can imagine how important it is to have the most accurate information as possible. We know there are a plethora of resources on the internet to assist any investor in determining what rents could be however, we would caution against making an investment decision based solely on the internet numbers alone.

Here are the 3 resources we recommend:

Rentometer – this website offers a rental estimate based on percentile and requires very little information about the property making it a quick and easy referral point, it is free to use up to a certain number of inquiries. We are not directly affiliated with this site but we do utilize it via a subscription service as a professional property manager which allows us unlimited access.

Zillow – oh how we have a love/hate relationship with Zillow but they are the largest resource for available rentals so it is a necessary evil to take a look. We find that Zillow is usually $50 to $100 within range.

A Real Life Property Manager – this is ultimately the BEST way to determine what your property will rent for. We as property managers have the most accurate real time knowledge and expertise to determine what a property will rent for based on the location, age, size, upgrades and nearby amenities. While online resources can consider a limited amount of these criteria, a local property manager who knows the area you are investing in is the best resource by far.

If you want to know more about our services or how we can help you get the most out of your investment reach out to us at 208-949-3083 or courtney@rentwisepm.com. Less Hassle. More Happy.

 

Self Showing Lockboxes

Self-showing lock boxes became very popular after several agents where attacked and even killed in our industry as well as the real estate industry. Unfortunately this has become something that happens more often than people probably know (or want to know) so we initially started using self-showing boxes for the safety of our staff.

Most property managers do not have the staff available to have more than one person at a showing at a time. I will admit that I have definitely felt a little “uncomfortable” during a showing from time to time. We also found that utilizing the self-showing services helped us rent properties much faster than before. We had a pandemic if you will, of missed appointments, no shows and difficulty coordinating schedules with all the other responsibilities we have as property managers.

Utilizing this technology enables us to be more efficient with our time and energy, focusing on qualifying tenants, managing maintenance and being more available to our existing clients and tenants.

Below are the questions and answers from an existing client who was concerned about our showing method. His reply: “Thanks for clarifying things for me. I can see both sides. It makes me more comfortable that you are able to work the lock remotely. It seems to provide some assurance that the access for people is not unlimited. Let’s continue the process as is. Thanks Mike”

Q & A’s:

Do you change the code after each showing? Each person that accesses the property is given a unique code to do so after they answer a series of questions about themselves and uploads a copy of their photo ID to the system. That is how we track who/when someone accesses the property.

Do you have to go there physically to do that or can you access the digital lock remotely? We assign lockboxes to the property remotely, and codes are assigned remotely.

Are there any cameras recording and/or warning visitors that they are being monitored? There are no cameras. There are several signs hung throughout the property to ensure that lights are turned off, doors are locked and they key is placed back in the lockbox. When we perform vacant house checks we have a checklist of several items we monitor to ensure all things are the way they need to be.

If someone duplicates the key while the rest in his party is viewing the house, would that allow them access at a later time? I can not say that this is not a potential issue however it has never happened. The viewing code is only good for 1 hour. When we perform vacant house checks one of the items we check is if there is a key in the lockbox. Typically several people are viewing this house over the course of a day or few days so we would be notified very quickly if a key is missing. Again, that has not happened. A potential applicant must go through a process to receive a code and most criminals do not go to that kind of trouble.

I am sure there are many more possibilities that I am not thinking about right now, like squatting, cooking up meth, stealing the appliances etc. Who would be liable for the damages and any claims arising from those activities? Either your home owners insurance or our liability insurance would handle any issues that would arise on that front. If we were to find a squatter in the property we would take the steps to have them removed asap obviously. Idaho does not have laws that “protect” squatters. We have not had an negative incidents to date using the self showing boxes. We have heard all of the stories and which is why we have taken steps to ensure that these things do not happen. Once an application is approved the lockbox is disabled and only vendors or staff can access it. That typically takes between 3 to 10 days lately.

Maybe things haven’t happened around here yet, but the “Big City” is moving into Boise as we speak. Watching Portland, Seattle,Chicago ……. inner cities and now suburbs burn and get looted without consequences makes me wonder how much to trust anyone. I have to assume that I bear all the risk? You do not bear all the risk, our insurance is aware of our practices and they are quit common across the united states with property managers. We have taken every precaution we can to ask the right questions, set the limitations on showings and we check our vacant properties on a regular basis.

If you would like more information about this or how we can help make owning an investment property Less Hassle, More Happy, we would love to speak with you. Give us a call at 208-949-3083 or email courtney@rentwisepm.com.