From The SPOA Editor

Since September, our meetings have been focused on Best Practices For The Massachusetts Landlord.  In outline form:

I.             Finding The Right Tenant
A.           Property Preparation
B.           Advertising
C.            Tenant Screening
1.            The Phone Interview
2.            The Personal Interview / Showing The Apartment
3.            The Written Application
4.            Acceptance Criteria (or, How Do You Say NO!).
D.           The Lease
II.            Keeping The Right Tenant
III.           The Eviction Process

Our October, November, and January meetings have concentrated on The Written Application.  (The December meeting, as always, is reserved for our annual Christmas Get Together).  We’ve spent a lot of time on the Written Application because the information gathered from that document is the primary factor on determining whether or not an applicant is worthy of the risk of tenancy.  Our discussions are almost complete on this phase, and a sample document will be included in the April Newsletter.

A quick summary of our discussions to date:

I.A          Property Preparation

Tenants looking for a safe, clean, and attractive home, are usually those who will take care of the property and be respectful toward neighbors.  It follows that vacant apartments should be safe, clean, and attractive: Doors with secure locks; certified bedbug free; fresh paint, carpets, and flooring as required – but by all means clean and presentable; kitchen stove and appliances clean and working; no plumbing drips; toilet works properly.  All stuff that falls under the category of “What would I be looking for if I were renting?”

I.B          Advertising

• Craig’s List
• The Worcester Telegram & Gazette; many of those involved in our discussion on Advertising said that the price was reasonable with good results.
• Contract with one or more Real Estate Agents.  For the price of one month’s rent, they are able to find solid tenants.
• Word Of Mouth:  Good landlords get a good reputation and get good tenants.
• Contact local businesses, either the hiring managers or the Human Resources Department; new employees might be looking for a nice place to live.
• Two online resources were mentioned:
  • zillo.com
  • gosection8.com

I.C          Tenant Screening

As previously mentioned, we are close to finalizing the questions to be asked on the written application.  We did however, come to a consensus on The Phone Interview, and a guideline for that process is included in this issue.  If you have anything to add, detract, or comment on, please send me an email at ronbernard@icloud.com.

As for Personal Interview / Showing The Apartment: That’s the phase between The Phone Interview and asking the applicant to fill out the written application.  It’s mainly show and tell, but it’s your first face-to-face interaction with an applicant.  Whether you are naturally chatty or a shy introvert, it’s worth considering informing the applicant that – for the consideration of other tenants and your own financial responsibilities – you perform criminal background and credit checks on all applicants.

The keyword is Screening; this is a filtering process.  We are all aware that Tenant / Landlord Laws in Massachusetts tend to tip toward The Tenant.  That helps keep the unscrupulous landlord at bay, but all too often it puts the honest small-time landlord in harms way of the Professional Tenant.  Our objective in this series of discussions is to legally filter out applicants who have bad reputations or do not have the means to satisfy monthly rent payments.  It’s a necessarily detailed process because, in Massachusetts, once we accept a tenant – if it turns out to be a bad one - it’s time consuming and expensive to get that tenant out.

Our discussions on Best Practices have been well attended with interesting and informative feedback.  As a local, professional landlords association, this is part of our mission – to share information and experiences that help us manage our business.  If you have any opinions, good or bad, about The Best Practices forum, please pass them on to Dave (president), or Donat (vice president).  We’re all in this together, and we want our meeting topics to be informative, and at least somewhat entertaining.

As you can see from the Cover Page, our February speaker is lawyer well versed in the eviction process.  The topic will provide an excellent backdrop to our future discussion on that subject.  We hope you can attend.

RPB