Alright, this was a first for me.
Keep in mind, in addition to being an agent I've owned rental properties for about 20 years - and I can't recall a potential tenant having this much resistance to the listed tenant responsibilities of a potential rental.
My office called to give me a rental referral in regards to a townhouse rental our brokerage had listed (we've had a lot come in lately, and because of their low payouts, agents have been hesitant to handle them - but I'll take anything in this market).
When I called the lady back - her first statement was she wanted me to talk the landlord down from the $1500 rental price. She was looking for something more like $1100 to $1200. I did a quick check while I had her on the phone, and the $1500 might have been a little high for the market - but $1100 was a little too low - so I told her I'd do what I can.
The next 20 minutes was her nitpicking everything listed under "Tenant Responsibilities" in the MLS. She's lived in an apartment her entire life. Whenever something broke - she picked up the phone and called the super - and he fixed it.
She didn't know a) why she'd have to be responsible for ANY repairs - including frozen pipe damage. I explained to her that in our market it was customary for landlords and tenants to split these responsibilities and that usually there was a dollar amount threshold associated with the repairs (anywhere from a $50 to a $200 deductible per incident). And that the tenant is responsible for everything up to the deductible and the landlord picked up the rest - unless it was blatant tenant negligence.
She didn't really like my explanation saying "but its not my house - why should I pay to repair it". She then went on and on about how all of her friends told her she shouldn't even have to mow the lawn - since that should be included in the rent. I tried to explain that in some circumstances if you're renting from an individual landlord within a condo community - that might be the case, but I didn't know any landlords that went around in the summer cutting all of their tenants grass.
I ended up telling her she can either get a really cheap monthly rental rate where she has to do a lot of the things around the house, or she can pay a lot and do nothing and have all repairs included - but she wasn't going to get both. Plus, the lowest we could get the rent down to was $1350 and she said she couldn't pay a dime higher than $1200.
Checking the MLS I confirmed my belief that the landlord didn't have any unusual expectations - but it got me thinking - is this the usual behavior for a renter moving out of an apartment complex for the first time?
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