However, after 6 months she has only looked at seven apartments? That is somebody who isn’t trying. When I was in my apartment hunting days, seven a week was a reasonable effort level. I know it is tougher with a young child in tow (which I had when house hunting), but she should have looked at a lot more apartments.

These differences arise because Landlord-Tenant relations are dictated by state edict. And as such, state edicts vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

The point I am getting to is that the decision to rent to prospective “at-risk” tenants depends on factors that are allowable by local laws. If there are protections against delinquency, damage, blight, etc., then there shouldn’t be any reason to not rent to this person.

State laws should have provisions for you to deny housing based on objective criteria. The key word is “objective”. And the rule of thumb to keep out of trouble with HUD or your equivalent, is that your objective criteria must be within allowable guidelines AND you must be able to prove that you have applied the same criteria to significantly ALL your prospective tenants.

Keep in mind those factors change depending on your particular situation, the number of units you have available for rent being the primary.

As an side, one should know that Real Estate Investing is primarily a legal activity, actual maintenance and management being secondary. It is very much a legal culture, governed more by edict than sound financial principles.

The “it’s my property and I’ll rent to whomever I want” argument seems valid, but of course it IS illegal to discriminate against potential tenants for race, sexual orientation, etc. So it’s tricky.

It’s entirely legal in an owner-occupied building like an SFR or a duplex, but not in a commercial property like an apartment building.

It’s the same reasoning that makes it illegal for restaurant owners to discriminate on the basis of race, gender, etc.

I think there’s something the article doesn’t mention. What kind of apartments is she looking for? Are they specifically for low-income situations? Cause if she’s looking at regular apartments then fat chance she’s going to get one, since she’ll have to come up with first months rent and a security deposit that’s probably equal to the first month’s rent. They probably say ‘okay that’ll be X’ and she, as someone living on welfare, probably doesn’t even have that. I didn’t see anything saying the subsidy would help cover getting INTO the apartment, just the rent after they’ve gotten it. But there are plenty of low income housing around where I live that she could get into EASILY, as they’re not as strict.

This is indeed a MAJOR obstacle for many low-income people. I look and look and look and I find approx ONE apartment per MONTH I can afford, so I don’t look at nearly as many apartments as most people think I “should” be looking at.

Since I couldn’t afford the move-in costs for a monthly rental, I got into an overpriced WEEKLY rental. Since this rental is sucking up a huge proportion of my income, I cannot save up the money required to move into a cheaper monthly rental.

In my area, an eviction makes it very very hard to get any sort of normal mainstream rental housing at mainstream rates.

There ARE a few slumlords who will rent to these people – month to month and at exorbitant rents.

Also, many applicants with credit problems get rejected on the basis of their credit. (Another way landlords deal with bad credit is to require a staggering sum as a security deposit.) It’s entirely legal as long as you establish and follow screening criteria that don’t discriminate in prohibited ways. (Congress added (legal) “source of income” to the prohibited discrimination list in the Fair Housing Act of 1988, but you can still reject someone on the basis of criminal record or bad credit etc.) It’s when you wing it on a hunch without established criteria that you can get into trouble, but it’s still pretty unlikely.

Jim, I have to disagree about section 8 renters. Typically they don’t trash your rental, because if they get evicted, these get kicked out of the section 8 program. While I don’t have any section 8 houses, I would not hesitate to own in the right area.

Note t others not familiar with the Section 8 program:

Section 8 provides rent subsidies up to the area median rent. For example, if the area median rent for a 2BR apartment is $1000, 2BR units priced above $1000 can be subsidized only on the first $1000 of rent.

As a result, Section 8 rentals tend to be found in neighborhoods with below-median rents, and not found in neighborhoods with above-average rents.

This also allows participating landlords to charge more for their subsidized units than they could get if the same units were unsubsidized.

For example, in the scenario above ($1000 median rent), opportunities exist to convert unsubsidized $700 units to Section 8 units at $900, since a subsidized Section 8 tenant would typically pay less for the $900 unit than they would pay for an unsubsidized $700 unit.

I used to rent out my condo, but it was on the expensive side, so I got relatively high income tenants. I didn’t check credit history with my tenants, but I really liked the (very) young couple I rented to – sometimes the first impression is so great that you just go by it. Maybe it was careless of me, but it worked out great – no missed rents, the property kept up better than when I lived there. When I sold it, the buyers couldn’t believe it was rented out and not owner-occupied. But I did know that the guy had a very high paying job. I also asked for both first and last month rent in addition to the deposit, so I had a larger buffer in case of a missed payment.

Mixed feelings about assistance – while checks keep coming it is OK, but what happens if they stop? Still, if I had owned a cheap rental property, I’d rent to poor, but renting a “luxury” condo to poor would’ve been a bit stupid. Not being able to refuse to someone on the basis of income is ridiculous – how do you know they’ll be able to afford rent? Does it mean that if I go to Manhattan and try to rent some nice place on Central Park West (where I probably couldn’t afford to rent a closet), the landlord cannot refuse me because I cannot afford the rent?

“I notice they say “credit history” and not “tenancy history” or whatever that is called. Can the latter be considered separate from the former? Obviously landlords care less about your credit cards and more about the fact that you’ve always paid your rent despite other debt. So is that an entirely different thing, since it’s renting and not mortgage?”
Both are important. Renting history can be a bit misleading. The previous landlord may want to give you great reference just to get rid of bad tenants. Other history may not be available. Regardless, bad credit history means lack of responsibility. No credit history or short credit history may be OK under some circumstances – e.g. your tenant has something against credit cards or your tenant is young and had no time to build credit or if your tenant is an immigrant. You may want to ask for additional deposit in this case or just go by impression – it is a judgement call. But bad credit history means somebody didn’t pay his or her bill(s) on time. This shows lack of responsibility. Debt is debt whether you owe money to a credit card company or to your landlord. It’s important to know that your tenant pays the bills on time.

You want to be at least as careful with tenants then banks are with people they give mortgage to, if not more. You cannot foreclose on your tenants, you can only evict them, but you may lose money in the process. You are an individual, so you have less capital than banks. You have your bills regardless of whether or not rent is coming. You also want people to be careful with your property. So responsibility (or lack thereof) is important.

I cannot understand how these women keep on having kids when they can’t afford to take care of themselves. At some point you have to wonder when they make the connection that they can keep doing what they want and someone else (we stupid taxpayers) will take care of them.

That said, I can’t bring myself to discriminate against someone because they are poor any more than you judge them because they’re a woman, gay, black, young, etc. You have to judge on the basis of things that matter or else you’re a bigot. All the the landlord needs is their rent paid on time and the asset kept up. If the tenant can provide that then you have no reason not to rent. Maybe this woman is on a good road now.