The winter is usually a great time to find an apartment in Los Angeles, especially in the beach cities, where the cold Pacific Ocean wind keeps prospective volleyball players and bikinis at bay.  According to Fox News, the housing slump has also created a renters market saturated with additional rental housing options for prospective tenants.  The reason is because many homeowners can’t sell their houses or condos right now.

“They’re pulled their condos off the markets and they put them in the rental pool,  so now our rental pool is now saturated too”  

Act fast to take advantage of this rare combined effect of winter and housing slump and pick up that apartment you’ve always wanted.  There are attractive rental rates available as well as incentives to move; sometimes 1month or 2 months free. 

If you are looking to live a complex, duplex, or any sort of apartment living in close proximity to other tenants, make sure your landlord screens every tenant.  This usually includes a credit history report, income verification, and employment verification, but should also include a criminal history search.  You can learn a lot about your landlords’ property management style by how they treat you during the lease signing period.

renters market
tenant screening
Los angeles apartments

The Las-Cruces Sun News had an interesting article about a shooting death of a man at a trailer park, who was previously unknown to be a tenant there. 

“We did a full background check,” she said. “He had just gotten out of prison. That’s probably why (his girlfriend) kept it under wraps, because otherwise we probably wouldn’t have rented to him.”  “We didn’t give him authority to live there,” Albert Rodriguez said. 

He had apparently moved in with his girlfriend a few weeks before, unknown to the property management.  The girlfriend had rented the apartment and apparently passed the tenant screening; he had just gotten out of prison and would have been disqualified according to their tenant screening policy.  After several complaints of loud music, the male was shoot to death in the trailer. 

Property Managers are struggling with this all too frequent problem of shacking up with the significant other, especially if presents a danger to the residential community.  How can you monitor your tenants effectively to be aware of this potentially dangerous changes?  You could institute a policy regarding formal notification anyone staying over longer than say three days, but would any tenant effective follow the procedure.  Could you institute incentives and disincentives for not reporting?  How has time to monitor this behavior?  It could be case of Monday Morning Quarterbacking.  The trouble is for these property managers, they might be faced with a laced from other tenants for some perceived negligence.   Hopefully the property managers will come up with a successful and practice solution to this now know hole in the tenant screening process.

tenant screening
background checks
problem tenants
property management

The Wall Street journal had a great article about checking out your potential roomates. They say that “twentysomethings are often too trusting of people they meet through, say, craigslist.org or apartment-finder Web sites” This can lead to big problems if you move in and your new roommate refuses or cannot pay their share of the rent. You can be stuck giving them loans and, if you cannot cover the amount, your landlord may evict both of you. This can effect your ability to secure another apartment. In this situation you are much better off renting a studio, bachelor of one bedroom apartment.

The WSJ provided an excellent list of suggestions for checking our your potential roommate, short of running a complete background check. 

Ask the person for a recent credit report. Consumers can get one report free once a year from each of the three major credit bureaus — Equifax, TransUnion and Experian Group — by going to the Web site AnnualCreditReport.com. Look for warning signs like overwhelming amounts of debt and missed or late credit-card and utility payments. For more on how to read a credit report, go to Web site myfico.com.

• Obtain proof of employment and salary. Ask for recent pay stubs or tax returns. Or call a potential roommate’s current and past employers (with the person’s consent). The human resources department can provide proof of employment, term employed and salary.

• Check references. Call the person’s current landlord. Then, talk to the landlord before that. “The current landlord has every incentive to paint a false, rosy picture just to have a poor tenant leave,” Ms. Portman of Nolo says. Interview any current roommates and visit your potential roommates at their homes to get an idea of how they live. Experts say criminal background checks are often unnecessary — and generally unhelpful if a person is from out of state.

• Put It in Writing. Once you choose a roommate, you should both sign an agreement specifying the rent amount and due date, how to handle utility, cable and Internet-access bills and terms of potential departure.

Roommates can provide some of the greatest benefits for living away from home.  Using this tips can help you avoid the potential problems that will affect your credit history for years.

roommate tips
renter background checks