Real Estate deaths are on the Rise

Last month, a real estate agent was assaulted at knifepoint during a For Sale showing in Salisbury, North Carolina. Thankfully, the agent was able to use a distress code to alert her coworkers back in the office of a problem, and now the suspect is behind bars.

 

The Bureau of Laborstatistics reports that in 2012 there were 50 real estate industry-related deaths.  What is most frightening about this is that assaults and/or violent acts accounted for more fatalities than any other cause of death.

 

According to InmanNews, most real estate offices and regional associations offer safety training at least once a year for agents.

 

There’s also an app agents can buy for $1.99 called REALALERT that was specifically designed to help you be more aware of your surroundings & provides quick access to emergency services.

 

For this and more information about added safety measures for those working in the housing industry, please visit our website http://www.alwaysscreen.com.

 

Famous Celebrities Moonlighting as Landlords

Think being a landlord is strictly for the business-oriented individual? Think again! Many celebrities are trying their hands at being landlords, and offering their properties as rentals. One can assume it’s likely the rich and famous property owners are not conducting their own tenant screenings, and instead using a reliable property management company to do their dirty work.

Actor Orlando Bloom owns a 4-bedroom, 3,250-square-foot home in the Hollywood Hills that is on the rental market for $18,000-a-month. The home boasts a library, built-in-barbeque and a swimming pool.

Actress Pamela Anderson put her Malibu beach home up for rent this past summer for $50,000-a-month, but has since lowered the price to the bargain amount of $30,000-a-month. Anderson purchased the home over a decade ago for a $1.2 million.

Leonardo DiCaprio is also sampling the rental market. The actor is asking $70,000-a-month to rent his $23 million Malibu home. The impressive real estate investment sits on a half-acre of beachfront property and includes a 4-bedroom main house, in addition to a 2-bedroom guesthouse. No word on whether potential tenants of this palatial estate will be required to provide employment verification prior to signing a lease agreement.

Many other celebrities are also offering homes to rent all over the country. Oprah Winfrey has a Chicago co-op that is listed for $15,000-a-month, and actress Nicole Kidman has an apartment in NYC with a $45,000-a-month.  In comparison, chef Paula Deen’s Savannah home, which rents for $300-a-night, seems like a steal!

Who knew, nowadays if you are a new landlord or real estate investor, you can say you have something in common with the biggest names in show business!

Contact ATS Inc today to find out how we can help with your tenant screening services. 

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Landlord can’t evict tenants for being Bears fans

We’re not sure how legitimate this claim is, but it gave us a chuckle and brought up a decent point about discrimination in the business of property management, so we thought we’d pass it along:

A landlord recently posted on the Landlord Protection Agency forum asking about the legality of evicting tenants who supposedly lied on their tenant application about being fans of the Green Bay Packers. After the couple moved into the home – which is within walking distance to Lambeau Field – they placed lawn ornaments, flags and other paraphernalia outside the home proclaiming to be Chicago Bears fans. This drew the ire of the absentee landlord, a Packers fan who is renting out his home until he retires in a few years and heads back to his beloved Green Bay.

According to the landlord, the tenants’ Bears paraphernalia had angered the neighbors and he was wondering if lying on the tenant application was grounds for eviction. The short answer is no. Lying about one’s employment or criminal record could be grounds for an application to be rejected, but someone’s affiliation with or involvement in a particular club, sport, team, church or other organization is protected under privacy laws. It’s unlawful to deny housing based on something that does not threaten the life or well-being of anyone, and is none of the landlord’s business.

While we’re on the subject, let’s also review the Fair Housing Act (Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968), which outlawed:

• Refusal to sell or rent a dwelling to any person because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
• Discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin in the terms, conditions or privilege of the sale or rental of a dwelling.
• Advertising the sale or rental of a dwelling indicating preference of discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin.
• Coercing, threatening, intimidating, or interfering with a person's enjoyment or exercise of housing rights based on discriminatory reasons or retaliating against a person or organization that aids or encourages the exercise or enjoyment of fair housing rights.

Visit ATS Inc's homepage for more information about our Tenant Screening Services 

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Thinking about Property Management? Do Your Research First

Are you considering trying your hand at the business of property management? There’s a lot that goes into property management besides coordinating tenant screening reports  and collecting rent. You have to know what property owners in your area expect from a property manager, you have to know what your strengths are, and you have to know how much to charge to stay competitive.

First, decide what kinds of services you’ll offer, and what you’ll need in terms of staff, equipment and other resources in order to effectively offer those services. Then decide which types of properties you want to manage. Commercial properties or residential? Single-family homes or multi-family housing units? Then do some research to figure out what services are most important to those property owners and those types of properties.

Then you have to study the marketplace and figure out what is being offered and at what rates. When you find the clients you want, sell them on your ability to give them better service or more for their money than they were previously getting. Help them to understand the benefit of unloading the more stressful aspects of property ownership to a professional property manager.

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Use Several Websites When Advertising Rental Property

For a long time landlords had but a few options for advertising a rental property. You could take out a classified ad in the newspaper, put up flyers around town, and stick a “For Rent” sign out front. These days, though, landlords have the Internet — an invaluable tool for finding qualified tenants and getting the word out about your property and/or your property management business.

While many landlords now use the Web to find tenant applicants, they typically use just a couple websites to do so, unaware that there are several quality websites out there that are either dedicated to rental properties or include rental properties as part of their listings. After you list your property on Craigslist and the local newspaper’s online classifieds, you should cover all your bases by making sure your listing is being cross-referenced and picked up on other reputable websites dedicated to rental properties. A few to check out are: Rent.com, HotPads.com, and Cazoodle.com.

The next time you’re in the market for a pool of qualified tenants who are searching for a property to rent just like the one you have, try one (or all!) of these services in addition to your tried-and-true internet outlets. (But don’t disregard the power of that age-old “For Rent” sign.)

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Taking on Rental Property Isn’t an Easy Paycheck

On TV it seems simple, right? Buy a house, make a few improvements, find a tenant and start reaping in the cash. In reality, though, the business of property management is not quite so easy. Sure, there are rewards, but there are risks too, and the wise investor considers both before making an investment.

The first step is, of course, to buy the right property in the right location at the right price. This is no small feat, though with the plethora of properties on the market these days it’s easier than it has been in quite some time. The second step is to really think about whether you want to be a landlord. Becoming a landlord is not a magical way to get a check in the mail every month. Landlords work for that money, even when there’s a good tenant in place and no maintenance concerns lurking.

Ask yourself if you enjoy working with people, meeting new people and getting to know and trust them (to some extent, anyway) with your investment. Are you a good judge of character who is also astute enough to not go on emotions but to use an impartial service to screen tenants? Are you comfortable with fielding maintenance requests and hiring professionals when necessary? Do you have enough in savings or other investments to cover the considerable financial risks associated with property management? Are you a shrewd businessperson who can keep accurate and thorough records of all transactions and correspondences with tenants and service professionals?

Be honest with yourself about what kinds of skills are needed to be a good landlord; that honesty will either save you tons of money and hassle, or feed your dreams of becoming a property manager. 

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Rents Climb as Rental Market Gets Hotter

Have you noticed rents in your area creeping up in recent months? Have you been inundated with more applicants for a vacancy than usual? Have you thought about having to increase your rent, or have you upped it recently? If so you’re part of the national trend that’s responding to the fact that more people are renting than buying these days. The national vacancy rate for rental units is down to 9.4 percent — the lowest it’s been since 2003.

The markets for rented and purchased homes usually move in opposite directions. When more people are buying homes, rents tend to stay low or go down because of decreased demand for rental units. But when high interest rates or a weak economy cool the housing market, more people look to rent rather than buy. Since it takes awhile for builders to add more units, the supply-demand mismatch drives up rent prices.

And that pool of renters is growing by the day. Foreclosures have turned millions of one-time homeowners into renters. In response, Research firm REIS estimates that nationwide, rents will rise an average of 3.4 percent in 2011, which is more than inflation or incomes are likely to rise. In cities like San Jose, Calif., Washington, D.C., Seattle, and New York, rents will go up by more than average. And in a few select neighborhoods, rent increases could exceed 10 percent.

If you’re a landlord, be sure your rent price is staying competitive in your market. And if you’ve been thinking about getting into the business of property management, now is a great time to act on that dream!

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How Well Do You Know Your Applicant?

We have become a very transient society, never sitting still for long. Sure, there are still people who are born, reared and live their whole lives in the same small town. But the majority of us move from city to city, state to state, throughout our lives. Because of all this movement, those in property management often needs an atlas to decipher a prospective tenant’s rental application. Previous addresses and employers are often listed in multiple towns and states, and even a tenant’s personal references might not be in the area, or even in the state, where the rental property is located.

None of this is out of the ordinary or suggests that a person won’t make a good tenant, but it does raise the importance of a thorough tenant screening. Doing an in-depth background check on every prospective tenant will give you access to previous eviction notices and criminal records. Tenant screening also includes national searches in criminal sex offender databases that will give you peace of mind as well.

Gone are the days when you’d recognize a prospective tenant’s name or face, when you’d know their aunt or grandmother or boss. These days you are far more likely to have a complete stranger vying to live in your investment property. So do your homework and get to “know” them — thoroughly and promptly — before you have them sign a rental agreement.

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