lease period for brand new tenant

When you rent your property out to a brand new tenant, do you do a 26 week lease to test the waters first or go directly onto a 52 week lease?

 

Always 6 months but always let them know that if they behave themselves (look after the place, pay their rent ontime, ...), then we happy to renew for 12 months.

 

Generally 12 months in most cases.

If best applicant wasn't really an A grade pick, then sometimes 6 months to let them prove themselves then 12 month renewal at the end of that if all has gone well.

 

5 years as required under the retail leases act & let them offer a shorter term

 

Depends, I would go for 12 months off the bat, however I also look at when the lease would be expiring.

Speak with your PM, but there is a good time around Jan/Feb where the rental market starts to pick up, after a lul around Christmas.

So if that means that the lease ends up being 10 or 14 months, then so be it, because if I do have to turf them out, it will be at a better time for me.

 

12 months.

 

Either, depends somewhat on what they want and how the history is, if not sure of them do inspections earlier if they want a longer lease.

 

I let the property manager decide - I trust their judgement. They're better at this stuff than me.

Cheers

Jamie

 

For my managing agent, they do 6 months first to see how the new tenants are like and then a $10 increase in rent with a 12 month lease agreement.

 

I go 6months, been burnt by a couple of 'great on paper' tenants. I have given a chance to migrants with little or no references though and never been disappointed.

 

Always great to be flexible with people rather than oldschool staunch

 

Depends. We usually took more notice of the end date, sometimes lasting for an irregular time, I.e., 7 or 9 months, so that renewal or reletting occurred at a time of higher demand.
Marg

 

What about offers for longer leases? We're 'rentvesters' and just put an application in on a property for a 24month lease. If we had an application for a long lease from a good prospective tenant for one of our properties I think I'd be tempted.

 

My worst tenant had excellent references and history and offered a long initial lease. Never again! Only 6month initial term here, we'll talk long lease once there are some runs on the board.

 

For new landlords like me, could you let me know what the problems were exactly?

 

I think the problem with longer than a year is that you can not increase prices (unless you put it into the original contract that there will be a price rise and when). Also if you want to change your mind and move into there or sell it, this will cause problems. I would think 12 months followed by option to re-let seems better than 24 month lease. Of course, if you are pretty sure you won't want to sell or move in, and maybe you can put in a 4-5% rent rise into the contract for the start of the second year, and if they have are existing tenants with a good record, I can see a pretty big upside to this.

 

Here are just a few of the issues:

*Late paying rent, when they paid it was always cash. They went into the agency and abused the staff.

*Terrorised the back neighbours and damaged their roof by throwing things up there. Police were involved on several occasions but agent not notified until near end of lease term.

*Built an additional room (badly), no permission

*lots of damage to walls etc

Could go on. When we got them out we were relieved. They managed to get our number and sent us a "Merry Christmas" text the year after moving out...

 

Sadly, even previously great tenants can go bad. Usually caused by a job loss or relationship breakdown.
Marg

 

Holy crap!

Did your agent do background checks on them (employer check, last landlord check, criminal history check, etc) before signing them?

 

No job loss, relationship breakdown or mitigating circumstances in this case.

Full background check. Husband was a minister and wife worked for a charity...