It's Your Turn To Work The System!

Every month there is a reason for not paying rent. There are annual reasons for not paying rent. Those include: Christmas, Easter, July 4th, Memorial Day Weekend, Labor Day, school clothes, Thanksgiving, Halloween, State Fair. There are occasional reasons not to pay rent as well. Those include: a new junk car, past due utilities, and a death in the family. (The funeral is out of town, of course). When they don’t pay rent and you respond with an eviction notice you can bet that they have three phone calls to make: one to the city code enforcement, one to the fire department, and one to the health department. They call the city because they have a slummy apartment. If you prepared the unit before they moved in, the inspector will not be able to come up with much. The joke is on the tenant. They call the fire department to complain that they smell carbon monoxide! The firemen show up laughing because no one cannot smell carbon monoxide. They come out anyway because it’s protocol. The joke is on the tenant. The Health Department is called because of roaches. (It would be too easy to mop the kitchen floor, wipe off the table and counter, and take out the trash.) You’ll get a letter in the mail ordering you to exterminate. You go out and spray, or send someone, and all three calls have just about been extinguished. You go to court and get a judgment to throw them out. Now you can go in and finish the code list, among all the other repairs. The calls didn’t save them after all. Again, the joke is on the tenant.

Agencies: Reinvent Helping Out!
Tenants know that many different agencies will help pay their rent once every year. In other words, if rent isn’t paid, all a tenant must do is go to the Welfare Office, for example, and state that their rent has not been paid. The agencies will pay the rent under two conditions:

1. The tenant hasn’t used the service in the last 12 months.
2. The tenant must produce eviction papers from the court.

Consider that a family must budget on a very small amount of money. In fact, after the rent has been paid, there is virtually nothing left. Personally, I can’t imagine functioning on such a meager income! In light of this, I feel that agencies perpetuate the non-payment of rent with their offer to help. The tenant could say that they simply spent the rent money with no excuse. The case worker will cover for her by reverberating, “She just doesn’t know how to prioritize!” I’ve heard that so many times I’m choking on it. These are professional tenants. They work the system and all its agencies. In cold weather, they don’t pay their gas bills so agencies, with United Way funds, pay their delinquent bills and get the heat back on. I admit, it’s difficult to budget with such a small amount of money. Considering that these agencies welcome tenants with open arms, why pay utilities? Why pay rent? Contemplate that you, as a landlord, could turn this around and use it to your advantage, and without changing one Streetwise strategy or tactic. Continue to go in person to collect rent. When your tenant says that his check didn’t come, write out the eviction notice and say, “Take this notice to the welfare office and state that your landlord will soon be filing the eviction. When you get your court served eviction papers, again contact your case worker and show the court papers. Hopefully, the outcome will be one where an agency cuts a check payable to you. Your tenants work the system, and so can you! Furthermore, agencies finance some or all of the initial costs involved with tenants looking for apartments. Agencies pay from one half a month’s rent to the full rent and deposit. In other words, if the rent is $400 per month, agencies will pay from $200 to $800, depending upon the urgency of finding housing for the family and their ability to negotiate a better deal with the landlord. If the landlord cuts a deal, the landlord loses his advantage. If the landlord sticks to his guns, he can put up to $800 in his pocket, depending on the agency. In my county, Children’s Services insists that their limit is one month’s rent. When I state that I want $800 or the tenant doesn’t get the keys, they meet me in two hours with a check for $800. No, the check is not from the tenant. The check is from Children’s Services and it is payable to me. When agencies state that you should allow the tenant to move in on Friday night and that they will mail the $800 to you on Monday, don’t do it. Take it from me, you got a raw deal coming. Once you hand the tenant keys, Children’s Services is out of the loop. You’ll probably never get the $800. In fact, you’ll be lucky to get $200. Am I suggesting that agencies will deliberately lie to you? No. I’m just saying that something unforeseen happens on their application that they hadn’t noticed on Friday. Insist that your policy is NO MONEY/NO APARTMENT! It’s surprising, when you declare that you won’t hold an apartment until Monday, how fast you can get a counselor to meet you with a check. Hold your ground. Show some backbone! There are hundreds of thousands of tenants working the system. You can too! Jump on the bandwagon, without altering the Streetwise strategy.

For example:
Only money holds an apartment.
No money, no apartment.
Full rent and deposit before tenants move in.
No deals.
No credit checks.
Month to month leases.

There’s no need to make modifications. Working the system works right into my system! Let’s address why the agencies help. They help when a family is going to be or who is homeless now. Many times the family is staying at a church or shelter. The agencies intention is to hold the family together by assisting in housing. This is both admirable and a good thing. I find that most landlords don’t want these people as tenants. In fact, government housing and Section 8 programs do credit and background checks to weed these people out too. So most landlords don’t want them, and their government rejects them as well. I don’t. I really do believe that people deserve a second chance, or a tenth chance, if that be the case. You wouldn’t believe how grateful many tenants were because I was the only landlord who would give them a chance by renting to them. Aren’t I a great guy? I think so. I also know that by being a wonderful guy, I also make more money as a result of it. Imagine having a tenant move out on Sunday. While you’re working on the unit on Monday, an agency brings a check to the apartment---while you’re painting---for $800. You simply state, “I think the unit will be ready on Wednesday.” You could allow them to move in earlier or later. I don’t have what everyone knows as an open-door policy. Rather, I like to think that I have a revolving door policy. I shuffle tenants in. I shuffle tenants out. It doesn’t matter who lives there to me. My policy is:

“Pay Rent, Or Get Some Boxes!”

I’m candid and like to get right to the point. You now have a golden opportunity to be different than all the other landlords, like I’ve been.

• You can help people.
• You can make more money.

These are innovative concepts where you pay tenants to move, don’t run credit checks, you rent to the homeless, and you work with agencies to place families into your units. Hopefully, I’ve given you enough supporting information to convert you to this school of thought. Rather than subscribing to the traditional mentality of running credit checks, turning families with money away, refusing to work with agencies, and just scratching out an existence like all the other landlords, I suggest, I recommend, I insist that you join me in the arena of success and the world of increased CASH FLOW. Here’s your opportunity to work with HARD-CORE TENANTS. Outsmart hard-core tenants, and even benefit from hard-core tenants. You need to be Streetwise as to how hard-core tenants think and why they think it. You need to outwit them and work with them to get money from these agencies. When that doesn’t work, blind-side them with a cash offer to move. Always be one step ahead of the game. Expect tenants not to pay I December because of Christmas, and don’t get mad. Know what is going to happen before it happens. This is the hallmark of a Streetwise Landlording.