Renting a home after chapter 7

[Slingerland]

That's another thing. If you are considering renting a house or apartment where YOU are expected to pay the utilities yourself, ask to see copies of past utility bills for that address. Some were willing to provide this information, but most were not. The ones who were not, I assumed had something to hide (i.e. the utility bills would be so outlandishly high, that I would be unwilling to stay there) so I looked elsewhere.

Again, jumping in as the landlord, I've have been asked that question, but I'm normally unable to provide the data. To be honest, the tenants rarely tell me! And when the house is vacant, I keep the heat/cooling and the minimum level needed and since I don't cook or take showers, I don't know the costs. My local utilities refuse to provide the information, citing their version of "privacy" concerns. So I give them ballpark numbers and tell them up front the numbers are a guess.

Fortunately, I live in an apartment where all the utilities are included, so I don't have to worry about paying outrageous utility costs. And of course, we have modern energy-efficient appliances, since the owner pays the utility costs. In fact, we just got new water-saving toilets, faucets, and shower heads as well as new energy-saving lighting in all the apartments, and next month they're going to replace all of the drafty windows and doors with new ones. Try getting a landlord to make those kind of upgrades when YOU are the one paying the utilities!

Trust me, you're paying the utility costs in your rent. But regarding utilities and upgrades, there's more than one reason prevwenting many landlords from upgrading than the landlord paying the immediate utility costs. IRS rules on depreciation are FREAKING STUPID. For example, the IRS "lifespan" of a residential rental house is 27.5 years. I have to depreciate the cost of the house for 27.5 years. Assume I've owned the house for 5 years and the furnace or air conditioner has to be replaced due to old age. The IRS does not allow me to replace it as a REPAIR, noooo... I have to depreciate the cost of that HVAC for the remaining 22.5 years. So instead of writing off a $5k repair, I only get to write off $250 a year for 20 years.

Same with replacing older wood or aluminum windows. Replacing a window costs me about $200 BUT the IRS makes me depreciate it over 20 years... I get toe deduct $10 a year??? Where's the payback to me? Windows in fact are a bug up my bum; the Obama energy credits a few years back for replacing old drafty windows with energy efficient windows were NOT made available to landlords. If they had been available I would have upgraded all my houses and the tenants would have saved some money. But no, the "greedy" landlords weren't allowed to participate... and the final victims were the tenants who pay the higher utility bills.

So where the landlord pays utilities, if there is an immediate savings to make uprgades such as vinyl windows, then it makes sense to do them. But to upgrade "just because" is one way that landlords run out of money.

[Drazil65]

We just rented our first place since hubby's discharge last March. I googled Homes for rent in XXXXXX, XX and got pretty much everything for rent in the area (listed and unlisted) for houses and townhomes. I took our prices range and the location we wanted to be in and started calling. Some were personal landlords and some were real esate agencies acting as property managers. I asked what the credit guidelines were and if they would consider a discount to the rent if we signed longer than a yr. Most were willing to discount the rent by $50 for 18 month lease and $100 for 24 mon lease. Not alot but certainly every little bit helps.

We found a landlord (personal) that has several rentals and I offered 2 months worth of paystubs for both me and my husband. He took them in lieu of running credit, just the way he does things. Because we owned our home (sold it in short sale closing 10/31/12) he said he would not bother with rental references because we had owned our house and not rented in the past 3 yrs. My credit is very good (I did not file) and we were prepared to just run my credit if they would do that but did not have to even ask in the long run. So we move in 3 weeks and this house is off our backs. Now if I can get the bank to foreclose on our out of state rental (surrendered in chp 7) some time soon we would be good to go!!!

Bottom line is that it took some research and I looked at places for 3 weeks straight, interviewed many landlord to find the one that would work with our situation and had several options to throw at them if I needed more leverage for them to work with us (ie: could offer the sec dep plus 2 months rent up front or bigger deposit). Good Luck!

[tobee43]

i see you are in NC Drazil we are thinking about leasing a place there around Wake Forest even tho we have a house in florida. i thought i would wait about another year or so. it seems like the area i'm looking in the prices are still SO high!! like this economic crisis didn't hit them or something?

[Drazil65]

Hi Tobee, My husband actually works near Wake Forest but commutes back and forth (they do let his use the oncall suite at the hospital if he is on 3 back to back 12 hr night shifts) as we live about an hour away. We had been looking in Wake Forest for a while (really like the area) and mostly at townhomes (some as large as 2000 sq ft) but since then have decided to let our 10 yr old son finish out he school yr here. We accepted an offer on our home here before we decided to stay in the area so that is why we are going to move to a rental for the time being. At least this home is sold (short sale only $13,000 less than payoff so bank is pretty happy, better than nothing which is what they get as it was discharged).

The rents in the Wake Forest area are running on par with our area but we set a limit and are sticking to it, it just takes alot more research I think as we have schools to think about as well.

[tobee43]

Hi Tobee, My husband actually works near Wake Forest but commutes back and forth (they do let his use the oncall suite at the hospital if he is on 3 back to back 12 hr night shifts) as we live about an hour away. We had been looking in Wake Forest for a while (really like the area) and mostly at townhomes (some as large as 2000 sq ft) but since then have decided to let our 10 yr old son finish out he school yr here. We accepted an offer on our home here before we decided to stay in the area so that is why we are going to move to a rental for the time being. At least this home is sold (short sale only $13,000 less than payoff so bank is pretty happy, better than nothing which is what they get as it was discharged).
The rents in the Wake Forest area are running on par with our area but we set a limit and are sticking to it, it just takes alot more research I think as we have schools to think about as well.

i know my son in law is a teacher but he's goes to durham and they want their kids in a charter school there. also, their child care expenses now since they are both pre-school age are hitting about 2k in that area!

my daughter refuses to buy there, she still owns up north but says there are so many houses to rent (she has a 3k sq ft home for 1500 a month). she says when the roof goes so does she. i'm just getting or trying to get use to her way of thinking. she's got about a half hour ride to work, but the traffic there is awful, but i love the area as well. she was telling me in her HOA the townhouses are going for $900 monthly and are well over 2300 sq feet. still too much for us with a mortgage. i was hoping to find something just small to lease in the general area...we need half that size just being their part time. funny, your husband works in wake forest, and i'm sure they would LOVE to not commute! now if she wants to buy that house it's still in the upper 300 range. i guess i don't blame her for never wanting that kind of debt again.

the other thing i was thinking about was buying something together in that area, now that we are over 4 years out of bk and i have just about another year to pay off this house here in florida, we could go VA, we have no debt, this house actually has equity and will be pd off, we had savings, plus if we buy together our buying power would double. their credit is in the low 800's. but, just finding a place that would work like the old type of mother daughters is going to be hard to find. i'm thinking about building two townhouses? i just don't want anything bigger than 2k sq ft., but know she's raising a family and needs the space.

you were really lucky to be able to get the short sale through!