Video of Marc Cunningham.

Tool To Catch The Rental Scam Artist (from my PickRent.com site)

Transcription of Video: In the past when you want to find a place to rent, you would turn to the local news paper. Typically newspaper provided not much to go on, usually a short description around 5 lines long.

But today, web sites can provide dozens of photos and long descriptions, even virtual tours so you could actually rent a property sight unseen. However, this new found convenience has opened up new ways for scammers to tick you out of your money.

As we learn from Dan Daugherty from RentalScams.org all you need to run a rental scam is to log on to the world wide web and create a few free email accounts with bogus names.

“A lot of them use .uk email addresses so yahoo.uk. What we are finding now that AOL opened up their emails to be free and of course yahoo is free and gmail is free you are seeing a lot of scammers use .gmail accounts, at yahoo account and now AOL accounts,” Dan Daugherty tells Dave Dugdale.

1st Interview with Andy Jolls of Video Credit Score.

PmDave: Should I Look At My Credit Score Before Applying for a Rental?

Andy Jolls: You should absolutely go look at your credit score if you are a renter and are about to become a prostect and looking for a new apartment a new rental home I can’t remember the exact precentage is of landlords that look at credit reports and credit scores but it is high enough that you don’t want to take the risk.

The other thing is you don’t really want to pull this for the first time right when you are about to apply, you would like to have some time to actually see it in case there is anything you want to try and correct or improve your behavior before rent a place.

PmDave: If the property manager has the file in front of him can I even see it?

Andy Jolls: A landlord does not have a legal

… (rest of the transcription coming soon…)

10th Interview with Marc Cunningham of Grace Management & Investment.

PmDave: What Does Grace Management Use For A Lease Agreement?

Marc Cunningham: (transcription coming soon…)

7th Interview with Marc Cunningham of Grace Management & Investment.

PmDave: Can you fill my vacancy in 3 days for $2,500 a month?

Marc Cunningham: When people tell me they need someone in in 3 days and it has to be a good tenant and it has to be $2,500 a month, they are not the owner that we want to work with because that is not realistic, you have to have realistic expectations as a property owner.

Bad things are going to happen ans what we will do or any other property management company will do is help mitigate the damages and minimize the risk. So we are going to try to get the best tenant we can get we are going to try and rent it as quickly as possible and try yo keep damage to a minimum when the tenants are in the property keep the repair work to the highest quality at the lowest cost. So we are going to bring all those things together as a property management company. Try to keep the risk to a minimum with the least addendum lead base paint mold, there are so many unknowns that can come up. So that is one of our jobs is to keep that to a minimum.

PmDave: What is the typical time frame to rent out a typical property?

Marc Cunningham: Are answer to that is typically 60 days, if we have been doing full advertising on a property and it has been 60 days and it hasn’t been rented something is wrong. Either the property does not show well or it is priced too high or it is in a bad location. Those are the 3 factors the location the quality and the price.

If it is in a decent location and it shows well and we are not going to take on a property if it is junk, if it shows well and it is in a decent location it comes down to price and that is the factor you can play with.

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RentVine.com offers many listings for Charlotte houses for rent.

6th Interview with Marc Cunningham of Grace Management & Investment.

PmDave: What are the advantages of using a property manager verses doing it yourself (DIY)?

Marc Cunningham: People do it themselves until they run in to a problem, if you have a good property and a good tenant there is no reason to hire a property manager. The first time you encounter a problem as an owner which you will eventually you are going to pick up the phone and call a property manager. Because people do not know how to handle problems.

And in this day in age with as much litigation there is, with the legalities and the new landlord tenant law that are coming in to effect. There are so many different aspects to property management you really have to be a jack of all trades to really know what you are doing. You need to have the demeanor as a landlord to be nice to a tenant yet be firm with them as well.

When they say they are not going to pay the rent or will be late, how are you going to handle that? If a tenant knows you are an owner it is much more difficult to deal with them. I have properties of my own and it is more difficult for me to have that conversation with a tenant when they know I am the owner of that property. Hey you are the owner you can bend any of the rules you want to bend. You can charge me a late fee, you can wave this you can repair this.

However when I am the property manager it is much more clear and straight cut and we can continue to keep that relationship with the tenant going strongly. I would love to help you out on this but these are the rules this is what the lease states we have to go by the lease. So there is that benefit to have the mediary relationship with the tenants.

5th Interview with Marc Cunningham of Grace Management & Investment.

PmDave: Does My Rental Security Deposit Make Interest and where does it go?

Marc Cunningham: Colorado law is pretty straight forward on what they allow and don’t allow security deposit wise. Grace Management’s policy is that we hold the security deposit we collect from the tenant that is going to go into an escrow account, trust account and be held in there for the duration of the lease.

And once that tenant vacates it gets returned to that tenant minus any damages, rents that are outstanding water bills any thing that they legally still owe is going to be withheld from them.

PmDave: Does the escrow account make interest?

Marc Cunningham: Colorado law does allow them to make interest in some cities, in the city of Boulder you have to pay interest back to the tenant. Different cities do allow it some don’t, so there is a little bit of difference there.  Yes our security deposits do earn interest but it depends there is no rhyme or reason to it.

4th Interview with Marc Cunningham of Grace Management & Investment.

PmDave: How Long Do a Rental Application Take to Get Approved?

Marc Cunningham: As far what we are looking for we base our applicants on a point system. We look at the rental history, a credit history we pull a criminal background check, eviction background check a sexual predators check we look very thoroughly. We figure that is the key to the whole thing is tenant placement getting a good tenant in pay the rent on time and take care of the property and it is going to make our life’s easier as a property management company and you as a landlord because they are going to take care of your house that is the key to the whole thing so we do focus really heavily upon that.

Owners always ask are the people with a bankruptcy going to keep them out, if they have had a foreclosure and our answer is no we look at all those things together some of the best tenants we have have been foreclosure on in the past couple of years. They had a house with a loan they couldn’t afford they had been there 10 years and they have the home owner process going through their head that is good and they make good tenants so we gotta look at all those things together.

If they score high enough on out points system they will normally make good tenants that way.

In terms of time to process it varies on how complete their information is sometimes it takes us 2 days for us to get a hold of a landlord out of state.

Ideally we shoot for about 24 hours once we receive an application to getting a yes or no either you are approved or you are not within 24 hours.

3nd Interview with Marc Cunningham of Grace Management & Investment.

PmDave: What should I look for in a property manager?

Marc Cunningham: In this market you have to be careful because what we have seen in the past 12 months you see property management companies popping up all over the place. Because a lot of Realtors that find their business a little slow – Realtors that have done nothing but sales they have nothing to do, they are not making any money. So they are deciding to jump in to the property management business so suddenly their are a lot of property management companies to choice from.

Just like any other industry so are good and some are bad. So you look for longevity see that the property management company has been around a while. Make sure they are a company that specialize in property management and they company that just sells homes and doing a little bit to supplement by doing property management. You want some one that specialize in that.

Make sure they have enough inventory so they are not just depending on you Mr. Owner to make their income you don’t want to be one of ten customers this person has because you need to have a bigger base than that, yet you don’t want them so big that they are just rolling in to their system and you don’t get the service that you think you need.

Someone that has been around awhile someone that knows what they are doing. I always tell owners, when you are talking to property management companies – think of your worst case scenario that could possible ever happen to you and ask them how they would deal with that. Because if the property manager has been around for a while and he knows what he is doing – they have seen it all they will pretty much have an answer for any question that will come up.

PmDave: What is a bad situation a furnace going out?

Marc Cunningham: A tenant saying I am not going to pay rent and I am not going to move. Come get me, come kick me out because I am not leaving. It is rare but it happens. People know how to deal with that I get calls from other property management companies asking what they should do. “How are we going to get this guy out, do we hire an attorney do I negotiate do I make a rent concession.” There is no real right or wrong to a lot of these questions.

A lot of it comes down to judgement and experience.

2nd Interview with Marc Cunningham of Grace Management & Investment.

PmDave: What Is The North Denver Rental Market Like right now?

Marc Cunningham: It is strong, I mean the market is so segmented the Denver market over all even in the north Denver market is segmented you will have good pockets in Denver and there will be areas with in Thornton and Westminster that we won’t manage because it is crime ridden too many problems with it.

It is very segmented but generally speaking the north Denver area is strong. In Reunion down in the north east new Commerce City on 104th ave heading to Denver International airport. That are is going gang busters, they over built there so there are a lot of buying oppurtunity for investors there, they make great rentals so we have been very lucky that we happen to do the north Denver are and it has really taken off from an investment standpoint.