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We Want To Know If The Applicant Can Afford The Rent

Vetting Tenants — How we protect the landlord’s interests. We Want To Know If The Applicant Can Afford The Rent

Income Verification

Landlords and others who are not in property management may be shocked to learn how many people lie about their incomes on rental applications. Not only do some applicants lie about how much they make, they lie about about where they work! This has taught us to verify income for each and every applicant.

After we verify the income amount and source we compare that income to the monthly rent to make sure that the tenant can afford the place.  We use industry standard practices to calculate ratios to determine if the applicant can afford existing debt obligations and still have plenty of income to cover the monthly rent.

 

 

Property Management Basics

If you've never used a property manager before, you'll probably want to learn as much as possible about the process and what exactly property managers do. In the broadest sense, here's what all property managers do (or promise to do):
  1. Collect the rents. Put the rents into an escrow account. Disburse funds to pay bills, income to the landlord and fees to the property management company.
  2. Keep a record of all money and receipts and furnish that record on a regular basis to the landlord.
  3. Deal with HOA/COA.
  4. Manage tenant relations including maintenance requests, late fee notices. Deal with a laundry list of tenant problems: unauthorized guests, unauthorized pets, parking issues, tenant cleanliness, noise violations, neighbor complaints, etc. If necessary we manage the process of prosecuting actions to evict Tenants.
  5. Ensure compliance with state laws, local ordinances, licensing requirements, association rules, Fair Housing laws, insurance requirements, IRS requirements.
  6. Manage and dispatch handymen as needed.
  7. Inspect the property at the time of move-in at the time of move-out and from time-to-time during tenancy.
Money in general does not flow from the landlord to the property manager. Money flows from the tenant to the property manager to the landlord. Fees and commissions are withheld from collected rents. Our standard agreement is a one year term, but either party can terminate the arrangement with 30 days notice. The next step is to learn a little more about what differentiates us from other property managers. [Learn more about our property management services now.]  

Northern Virginia Rental Management Resources