Tenants with Pets: 5 Steps to Protect Your Rental Home
As a property management company in Charlotte, we sometimes get the most touching letters from owner clients. I’d like to share one of them entitled, “Pets in My Home Please!”
Dear BDF Realty,
Thank you for agreeing to manage our property; we’ve worked really hard to make sure our property is upgraded and clean for the new renter. The new paint and carpet really makes it show well! We know you’ll do a great job with it (BDF side note: thanks!).
We do have one small request. We are huuuuuge pet lovers. Could you make sure that you rent to a family that has as many pets as possible? The bigger the animals, the better! It wouldn’t seem right to have a nice, big house without housing as many of God’s creatures as possible. We’d consider reducing the rent for tenants who can prove they have a large and varied brood of animals. Thanks!
Regards,
Pet Lover
P.S. Not to be too picky, but we’d also like to give preferential treatment to those prospective tenants who have unneutered pets. The thought of them giving birth to a litter in our rental home just sends shivers of joy down my spine!
P.S.S. Think Noah’s Ark on land!
OK, this letter isn’t real. I’ve never had any owner clients who said they liked the idea of having pets in their rental homes. But if that’s the case, then why do almost all of them wind up accepting pets?
It’s simply because most tenants (easily over 50% in my experience) have pets. And most pets do not damage homes.
Let’s take a moment to acknowledge our fears with the following scenario. A nefarious and unkempt tenant has been breeding an even more nefarious and unkempt dog, with the scary moniker of “Gargoyle” (Gargoyle is a great student who has far exceeded his master’s nefariousness and unkemptness). They move into your rental home. Unfortunately, Gargoyle sometimes doesn’t allow himself to be walked and winds up doing his business in the house. Gargoyle is also crazily aggressive and enjoys chewing on all door beams and scratches the paint off the walls. After a year of making your home his lair, Gargoyle and the tenant move out to destroy another rental home…
What happens? After move-out, you (or your property manager) does a walk-through. The damage is clearly above normal wear and tear. Some walls need to be repainted, the carpet either needs to be professionally steam-cleaned or replaced, and some door beams need to be replaced. All of this is taken out the security deposit. In worst case scenarios, the damage is above the security deposit, and the tenant is sent a bill for the balance. And when you have a tenant who is known for his nefariousity, he may not pay it. Then court action to collect the balance would be necessary. It’s not ideal, but not catastrophic.
Fortunately, this is very rare. 99% of the time, if there are any pet issues, they can be taken care of with carpet steam cleaning and a professional cleaning, which usually need to be done after a tenant moves out anyway.
But how do you protect yourself from a Gargoyle experience? Try these five tactics:
- Collect a high pet fee upfront for the right to have a pet on the property
- Collect additional security deposit monies
- Screen the tenant thoroughly upfront. What kind of pet do they have? How big? Is it an aggressive breed? What did their past landlords say about them after they moved out? Was the property left in good shape or was it torn up?
- Put a clause in the lease that if any pet issues arise, the tenant can be asked to remove it within 48 hours
- Inspect the property early in the tenancy to see if the pet is doing any damage
For the most part, pet owners are responsible and will not adversely affect the rental home. Tenants have friends and family over to the house (like you) and would be embarrassed if their house was unsightly and reeked of pet.
Don’t let visions of Gargoyle mess with your head! Take the aforementioned steps to protect yourself and your pet issues should be minimal.
Brett Furniss is the President & Owner of BDF Realty (Charlotte Residential Property Management), the trusted real estate advisor for Charlotte landlords & Home of $100 Flat Fee Property Management. BDF Realty utilizes their innovative Pod System for exceptional customer service in residential property management, home repairs, and home sales for single-family homes, condos, and town homes in the Charlotte-Metro Area. Contact Us Today!
Learn MoreCharlotte Property Management Monthly: Everyone Loves Pets (Except Landlords): 3 Reasons Maybe They Should Too
“Oh, did you see Fluffy. He’s so cute! He’s practically part of the family.”
(Most pet owners)
“Pets in my house? Never!”
(Most landlords)
Almost everyone loves pets. Some people are dog people. Some are cat people. And some like the more interesting kinds, like birds and snakes. Pet enthusiasts are a multi-billion dollar business segment; and those billions don’t count the home rental income from tenants who crave those fenced-in backyards and pet doors.
However, landlords are the one minority group that typically despises pets. They’ve heard the horror stories of urine-soaked flooring, smells that just never seem to go away, and shredded interiors. “I’m not going to allow that to happen in my house!” thousands of landlords have told property managers throughout the years.
But maybe going in the complete opposite direction of this conventional wisdom is the best way to maximize ROI?
Here are the top three reasons why landlords should consider welcoming pets into their rental homes:
1. It’s much easier to place tenants! From personal experience in Charlotte property management, tenants have pets 50%-75% of the time. I really don’t think this is an exaggeration! Property managers turn away so many prospective (great) tenants when pets are not allowed. This crushes ROI as it slows the property being occupied, turns away better tenants, and commands lower rents as a smaller pool of tenants are being courted.
2. Non-refundable pet fees are free money. Tenants will pay extra for their furry (and non-furry) animal friends to be in the house. The bigger the house, the bigger the pet fee the tenant will pay. The more pets they have, the more pet fees they will pay. Try to charge per child for big families and see how that is received! But, with pets, it is industry standard.
Furthermore, there is nothing that says that pet fees have to go towards cleaning up for the pet; this is what the security deposit is for! The pet fee is merely paying for the right to have a pet in the home- nothing more.
3. It is important to have a realistic view about pets and the potential damage they cause. Have pets caused costly damage to rental homes in the past and will they continue to do so in the future? Yes. Flooring, especially carpet, is the usual casualty when pets go rogue. And new carpet isn’t cheap. Now, with that being said…
Tenants who like and can afford nice homes typically like to have clean places that their friends and family can visit. It is embarrassing to most people to have visitors into their home if it reeks of pet urine and there are visible pet feces ground into the carpet.
With lower priced rentals in questionable neighborhoods, the carpet is typically a goner anyway. So instead of fighting this, rip up the carpet after the current tenant moves out, replace it with linoleum, and allow pets! As my friend who invests in lower price rentals says, “Carpet? What’s that?”
Allowing pets often makes for a better ROI. Maybe landlords should consider showing pets more love!
Brett Furniss is the President & Owner of BDF Realty (“Charlotte’s Most Innovative Property Management & Investment Company”), and Rent-To-Sell Realty (“When You Need a New Solution to Sell Your Home”) which specialize in rent-to-own (lease options) and rent-to-sell homes. His newest book, A Real Estate Agent’s Complete Guide to Representing Rent-To-Own (Lease Option) Tenants (Delight Clients, Fill Vacant Homes, and Earn $2,250* Upfront! (*Minimum!)
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