Tips for Leasing Your Home

Leasing your home can be one of the biggest steps you will ever take. Knowing what you are doing is essential to taking that step correctly. Understanding your lease and all the components is vital to your business, and from my experience, your sanity. Before even thinking of leasing your home, do whatever you need to ensure you understand every aspect of your lease, because in the end, if a tenant knows more than you, you could lose a lot of money.

The most important thing you need to know is who the person is, that is signing the lease. Sometimes just doing a credit check is not enough. Call the person's references, and contact their employment. Make sure that the person that is actually signing the lease is employed where they say they are and is going to be the one living there. When I leased my home, a lady came and looked at it and said that she was looking for her uncle who was out of town. He was supposedly working with a government agency that was in Iraq and would be back in a few weeks. She ended up liking it, and faxed him the lease. He signed it and faxed it back. We moved to VA content that our home was in good hands. Well, things became very clear to us that it was not going to be a good situation when the tenants asked their realtor for the keys, and our neighbors called us and said they were moving in two weeks early. Yes, they told their realtor we gave them permission. So make sure that if you are leaving the state in which you are leasing the home, that you have contact with both your realtor, and theirs.

Your lease will obviously have a section for you to list the tenants that will be occupying your home. Check and double check with your future tenants that this is correct. Be firm with them that only the people listed as occupants may live there. In my case, the lady that looked at the house was the one that actually lived there. The gentleman that was on the lease never even set foot in my house. In fact, we can't find him anywhere. His place of employment informed me that he quit working there a year before the lease was signed. He has never responded to any emails and never showed up in court. Yet in still, this mystery man owes us over $4,000.