This is a good problem to have....

Well, we've only gotten 2 inquiries so far from the condo in the last 3 days....but lucky us, they were GREAT inquiries! The first was an oncologist with a great job, steady income, etc and loved our place. He dropped off his rental application the next day. The second was a married couple -- also steady jobs, incomes, good credit history and they loved it so much they filled out an application on the spot. We feel so lucky that both sets of applicants are rock stars. Such a tough decision!!! Who do we choose?! (and yes, this is a good problem to have....) We decided to go with our gut instinct and chose the doctor. He's swinging by tomorrow evening with his sons to check out the place--assuming his sons like (which he feels confident they will), he'll move in. He's confident enough that I know he's already given notice at his current apartment. I won't say we have him for sure until I've got a signed lease agreement and a deposit check, but I feel really good about him...and even if he didn't work out for whatever reason, we have this awesome couple as a great alternative. So exciting!

Speaking of this topic, I got a call tonight from a friend who's moving out of the country pretty soon (keeping mum until they make this news public....) and also looking into renting their place. I sent a long e-mail tonight with what I've learned in the last few weeks---in addition to sending some sample lease documents, I wrote:

As for tenant background screening, I ended up really liking SmartMove the most. It's a service of TransUnion and provides a pretty awesome secure environment for potential renters to enter their personal information without having to leave it with you (like their social security #). The resulting report is great -- you get both a credit and criminal report that's pretty thorough. What you don't get is any rental history. You can choose either for you to pay the fee or for them to pay the fee which I also found convenient. Now, even though the renters had to fill something out online, I still liked having them fill out an application form as it allowed me to ask questions I wouldn't otherwise get answers to from a basic credit and criminal check, such as "when do you plan to move in? how long would you live here? what's your residential history? give me personal references, etc.." The combination of having the application and using SmartMove was very helpful. Had I researched which website I was going to use ahead of time, I probably would've not asked for a SS# on the application form.

Other recommended websites I was given:

* http://www.e-renter.com This looked pretty thorough but they have this lame feature where if you want a credit check, the potential renter has to log in and then pay $1.99. Because of that, I didn't like this site. I know others that have used this site and liked it.
* http://on-site.com This also came recommended but after I signed up, they wanted me to fax something in to prove that I owned the property that I wanted to rent. Wha-a-a-? Super lame. Just a hurdle that was enough for me to not continue anymore.
* http://www.tenantverification.com I didn't check them out, so no comments...but supposedly you can get rental history from here.


As for advertising, all I did was put something up on Craigslist and I was really fortunate to get 2 (successful) inquiries within an hour after posting. Sadly, no one else has contacted us about the condo ever since...so I'm really happy that of the only 2 inquiries we got, they were all super awesome candidates that loved the place AND decided to apply. If I didn't hear from anyone or got dissatisfied with who I heard from, I was going to:
- lower the price on Craigslist
- start advertising at Microsoft
- ask someone to advertise at Amazon

I sought out advice from many friends that are landlords and most of them said that craigslist alone ended up being sufficient for finding great renters. The number one advice I got was to go with your instinct and rent to someone that you feel good about.

Anyhow, that's about the extent of research I've done so far. I didn't look into Property Management companies (though we did think about it) because I also got a lot of advice from folks that it was pretty easy to do on your own...but a consideration to do if you were moving out of the city (like you!). I can absolutely see the convenience and I would probably use one if we were leaving Seattle. I only spent one evening poking around at a few companies out of curiosity and found, typically:
- if you use their services for tenant screening and advertising of your property, they will charge either a flat fee or something like 50% of your 1st month's rent
- for management services, it's typically 10% of the rent
- the greatest convenient service I found was one place that would not only collect rent but also pay your mortgage for you to ensure everything gets paid in time (and just bill you separately). I thought that was pretty sweet

Again, you can always try to do this on your own at first...and then decide at a later time to use a property management company. Up to you. That's the way we are thinking---we'll try to do this on our own and if it's a total pain in the butt, we'll start looking into this. Thinking back now, knowing that it would've cost me more than $1000 to use one for the purpose of advertising, background screening, etc., I'm VERY GLAD I decided to do this on my own. Advertising was free and easy (craigslist), background screening was super easy with all these websites (like SmartMove) and I liked being in control of putting together the leasing documents. It would not have been worth $1000 at all.