Topic: Is it just my sites or are others seeing apartments returned in extreemly poor condition at move out?

Is it just my sites or are others seeing apartments returned in extreemly poor condition at move out? Even with residents who only lived in the unit under a year have way more damages than we saw a few years ago.

The nice thing is that if they are then they pay for all the repairs and you get that stuff refreshed for free.

Miles Scruggs that's great in theory, but their are few that leave a unit in bad conditions that actually pay damage charges or care about collections

Here we find that as soon as 30 days to vacate is given we schedule ours only on Wednesdays to give us time to order and schedule accordingly then we reach out to our vendors so we have no issues with not being able to schedule them in so our turn times at minimum is 3-5 days and ready no later than 7 days with that no issue with conditions either bad or good is a problem

Heather Taylor that simply depends on how well the people doing lease up are doing their job. If you select people that care about their credit in their first place or you have them bring in co-signers that do then that takes care of the majority of the problems. For sure nothing is 100% but if you aren’t collecting the vast majority of that then it seems that would be a sign that something is broken somewhere in the management process.

Miles Scruggs that is all well and good in States where you can take all their info into consideration. However, in NY, we cannot use their credit report, previous LL statements, evictions or court cases to deny them. So basically, they have nothing to lose and just do not care. They know our hands are tied

Donna Mueller Blackman You can still control for that by acquiring or renovating properties to change the shape of the demographic that the residences are accessible to. At that point you just calculate the change in losses against the capital you invest and the return that capital brings. I've found the markets we've been in, both ends of that pendulum offer the best returns. If you can stomach being a slumlord then the returns are great, we never considered that, so we targeted the other end. I shouldn't say we've done luxury in large markets, but upper end of the middle and up seems to perform pretty good both as an investment and being enjoyable to manage. Middle and bottom end of the middle we've just made business decisions to stay away from for multiple reasons.

Miles Scruggs and no my company is not a Slumlord, not even close. We are involved in million dollar rehabs of older distressed communities that are low income/affordable/TC/HUD S8, so we screen as well as we can but without having any background on applicants, it doesn't help.

Donna Mueller Blackman Not suggesting you are a slumlord at all. There is a massive gap between slum level properties and the upper end of the middle though. Without more context million dollar rehabs isn't really informational. You could easily spend 5 million on 300 units that would result in some extremely entry level finishes.All I'm saying is from our experience if the location will support it, and if you can change the residence from $1500/month to $3000/month (numbers will vary wildly from market to market) then you are likely to see a precipitous drop in inability to collect funds due.

Miles Scruggs unfortunately, as mentioned we provide, develop and rehab affordable low income housing, TC, HUD, so there are income limits, as well as rent restrictions. Web are not market rate so we do not have the ability to charge higher rents. Anyway, my only point of joining the post, was to state the laws in NY regarding background informal that we are not allowed to collect.

Donna Mueller Blackman oh ya I did miss that. Sorry.

Miles Scruggs no problem! Always good to hear different views

Donna Mueller Blackman I oversee multiple properties in WNY please read below from the state website On June 14th, 2019, the Governor of NY signed into law a bill that provides new tenant protections. The bill is called the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection act of 2019. It was passed to address some long-standing issues facing tenants. The changes took effect over a period of several months throughout the summer and fall of 2019. Renter protections before and after move-in have been strengthened. The bill also includes major changes to eviction court proceedings designed to preserve tenancies with more balanced rights between landlords and tenants. This blog post explains key aspects of the new law for Upstate NY renters.Before move-inFor many renters, upfront costs as a condition of move-in are an enormous financial burden. For some, these costs prevent them from finding an affordable place to live.Application fees are now prohibited and the cost of credit or background checks has been capped at $20. Tenants can get a copy of the reports in exchange for the fee. Landlords must accept a tenant-provided background or credit check. The tenant-provided report must be no more than 30 days old. Landlords cannot charge more than one months’ rent for the security deposit, nor can they demand first and last month’s rent as a condition of occupancy.In the past, landlords could deny an applicant based on their involvement in an eviction action. Court records and eviction databases could be used to “black list” tenants regardless of whether the eviction action had a legitimate basis. This practice is now forbidden and carries penalties up to $1,000 -- enforced only by the NYS Attorney General. Landlords must give another reason for denying an application. In addition, court records relating to an eviction from a foreclosed property must be sealed and remain confidential. The use of such information is prohibited. Please note that an eviction judgement can affect a credit report. Tenants can still be denied housing based on bad credit.Tenants are now entitled to inspect their apartment after signing the lease. They now have the opportunity to document the condition of the apartment before move-in. They are entitled to a signed written agreement detailing the conditions of the property and specifically noting any existing defects or damages. This document is signed by both the tenant and the property owner. It can then be used by the tenant as evidence in an action in Small Claims Court against their landlord for the return of their security deposit.

Jerry Davis yes, I am well aware of what the June 19th bill says. It has been the subject of many conversations. I've been doing this a long time. I all fine with protecting our applicants and residents, but this prevents us from doing a complete review of applicants to ensure the well being of the community as well as the company. It totally stripped Landlords of the ability to ensure responsible and qualified residents. I have no option but to rent to anyone, no matter their history, which can and has caused problems on the site. I am not going to get into a deep drawn out discussion, so have a good evening.

I was finding that residents had stopped giving themselves a week or two overlap to move and clean so they simply ran out of time to finish properly. We adjusted and are now doing a scheduled pre move out walk thru a week prior. That seems to have done the trick because they are seeing that date as a soft deadline to have a lot of the cleaning done instead of waiting until after the move to clean the oven, tub, etc.

Melanie Underwood good idea!

My best guess is that more people are working from home or staying home sick the past few years due to the pandemic. More time at home would likely lead to more wear

Great process, Melanie. I first learned about the idea of a "pre-walk" when I got into military housing. Also, during that time, we offered a "pay and go" option where the resident would pay us a set fee, for example $200 for a 2 bedroom, then could leave without cleaning. All belongings and trash had to be removed by the resident, and this fee did NOT cover damages, just cleaning. Over time, we noticed that most residents would choose this option, so I have brought the idea to conventional management. It really works!