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Cruising with Kids

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After each trip, I typically summarize how much it cost us. I like talking about money, mostly to work towards eliminating the stigma about talking about money. The more information you have, the better informed you are when it comes to decisions, so here’s a reference point to file away. We sailed Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas. I loved it!

COST BREAKDOWN

Flights – 25,000 miles + $273
We looked at several different flight options now that we’re a family of 5 flying and that adds up quickly. The first night we were looking to book the cruise, there was a group of 5 tickets for just under $700, which we thought was a great deal, but once we were ready to book, it wasn’t there anymore. We ended up going with Frontier for one direction and using American Airline miles for the other direction. When booking with miles, you only need to pay the taxes on it, so that’s what we did.

The flight options were very limited for the way home. We ended up just sucking it up and picking a 9 pm departure. Not long after the booking, we received an email saying our itinerary was changed and now the departure is 12 pm. While that seemed concerning at first – to get off the cruise, through the airport, and to our gate before noon – I had hoped it would be just fine, and it was. We got off the ship around 8:30, took an Uber to the airport, and arrived too early to check in for our flight. They built the airport expecting this isssue, so they sent us to the waiting room. We sat there for about 45 minutes and then checked our bags and got to our gate. We sat at our gate for a couple of hours and got home on time.

On the way down, we each got a checked bag because of our American credit card. However, we still needed to prepare for “carry on” status on the way home with Frontier. Then, once we were already packed, Frontier offered us to upgrade all our bags to checked bags. Had I trusted that they wouldn’t have said “no, you have to check a carry on size,” I would have happily changed our 3 carry on bags to one big bag to make traveling through places with 3 kids easier. So while some parts were harder because we had 3 rolling suitcases to account for, it was nicer through the airport to not have suitcases to manage.

Hotel – 34,000 points
If you’ve ever had to fly into a cruise port, you know it’s less stress-inducing to fly in the day before. I went on a cruise a year and a half ago, and we were flying out during a snow storm that was affecting travel all over the area. We ended up arriving at our hotel near midnight, so we were happy to know we were there for the cruise boarding time and not stressing about delays that morning. That means there’s a cost for a hotel one night.

The hotel was booked with points, so it wasn’t a literal cost to us. We stayed at the Tru in Dania Beach. They had a shuttle from the airport to the hotel, so when we arrived, Mr. ODA called the hotel to come pick us up, and it worked out well. We had to wait 20 minutes for a crib to arrive, even though it was on our reservation as a request. This isn’t a huge deal, but when it’s 10 pm and I’m just setting up a crib to get over tired kids to sleep, I’m not thrilled. Otherwise, the hotel was nice and it provided a good breakfast.

Uber – $58; Airport Parking – $70; Dog – $289
The hotel provided a shuttle from the airport to the hotel, so we didn’t have to pay for that part. Then we needed an Uber from the hotel to the port, and then from the port to the airport. We requested a car seat in the Uber on the way to the port, so that limited our options. Then she was 23 minutes late to our pick up time, didn’t get out of the car to greet us or help set up the car (pick up the 3rd row to fit our 5th passenger we disclosed ahead of time), didn’t acknowledge being late, and generally didn’t speak to us except to say get our IDs out for the port. That’s not an Uber issue, it’s a specific driver issue, but that was not a great experience. On our way from the port to the airport after our cruise, we got charged a wait fee, even though the wait was because security was stopping our Uber from getting to us. Uber removed that charge though.

The CVG airport parking is $10/day for economy. That’s my first economy experience instead of the ValuPark lot, which is $12/day. I didn’t really think anything of it, but it wasn’t a great experience. I always thought it odd that the ValuPark lot has shuttles that pick you up at exactly your car, but the economy lot has the shelters. I didn’t properly account for the time to wait for the shuttle and then to have the shuttle drive through all the shelters.

Food – $44
Obviously most of the food was part of our cruise fare. We had McDonalds on the way to the airport, Burger King during our layover, and then McDonalds on the way home.

Cruise – $3,099
The big one! We did not prepay gratuities, so that was billed as we left the ship. Gratuities are $18.50, per person, per day. We had $50 on board credit. Ironically, and just coincidentally, we spent $50.40 between drinks and child care (the babies room (0-3 years old) is $6 per house before 7 pm and $8 per hour after). Royal Caribbean only requires $100 per person as the deposit, and then the balance is due a few months before the cruise departure. We booked right at that threshold, so we paid our deposit and then a few days later paid the balance.

LOGISTICS

The booking of the cruise could have been a bit more forward. Cruises are not family-of-5-friendly. There’s an option on Royal Caribbean to book a “guarantee” or GTY room. You get a discount for allowing them to assign you in an open room (of the category you picked (e.g., interior, ocean view balcony)) about a week before the departure. I did this for a cruise I took in January 2024, and it worked out perfectly fine. So we see these prices quoted online for GTY rooms, but they always make you call to book for more than 4 people. We’re expecting the cost to be just the taxes and port fees for the 5th person, but when we call, the difference is over $500.

We tried to explain how that feels like a bait and switch and that there’s no indication of that on the website, and they basically said “well, that’s the way it goes.” They can’t guarantee a 5+ room available at the time of sailing. This makes sense, but it also eliminates our ability to use that cheaper booking option. We asked if there was something they could do to help make us feel whole since we were being forced to spend $500 more than if we could be put into the guarantee-pool, and they gave us $50 on board credit.

Mr. ODA’s parents book Celebrity (same parent company) all the time, and if they book their next cruise while on their current cruise, they are given OBC. Turns out Royal Caribbean doesn’t have the same philosophy, and they hardly give OBC. We tried to see if there was a special deal for a cruise if we book on the ship and they had nothing to offer.

Our departure experience was horrific, and I’m not even sure how we timed everything so poorly. At CVG, the kiosk jammed printing our tags, so we had to wait in line to get to the counter for the last luggage tag. Well, the line took forever because there was a large group in front of us that couldn’t speak English, so the workers couldn’t get everyone checked in quickly. Then we were too late for her to print checked bag tags because it was 30 minutes before the flight. So now we’re stressed trying to get through her attitude, us being late, and having to get through security and run through an airport with 3 little kids. This is the first time I’ve ran to my initial flight (ran for connections countless times!). I’ve never had this issue before, but everything along the way took just a few more minutes than I had planned for, and the luggage tag issue stole about 15 minutes of time from us (plus, our flight was delayed by 20 minutes and then 45 minutes before the original flight time, they said it was on time… we hadn’t delayed our departure from home, but it was wiggle room we thought we had and then suddenly didn’t). After the attitude from the ticket counter, then we encountered two more attitudes from the gate agents. It was a rough start, but the flight attendants were nice, and we had plenty of time to catch our breath at our connection.

Child care is provided on the ship. They have a few hours in the morning (maybe 9-12?), then 1-5 for the afternoon, and then 7-1 am. For the kids 3-12 (split between two rooms of 3-5 year olds and 6-12 year olds), it’s free until 10 pm; then it’s $10 per hour per kid after 10 pm. For the babies (0-3 years old), you need to make a reservation for times when you arrive on the boat. We prioritized the buffet, so by the time we got to the kids area, lots of time slots were booked already. She offered me 6 hours worth of booking, which I split between 3 days. Our youngest is 7 weeks shy of being 3, but he wasn’t 100% potty trained (although we did try) so they wouldn’t let him move up. If he was potty trained, they would have let him go up to the 3-5 room. The first 2 hour block, we only used 1.5 hours worth of it based on the activities we were trying to get done. The second 2 hour block, we only used 1 hour worth. And then we didn’t use our final day worth of time because he got sick, and I didn’t want to contribute to the spread of it. We dropped the big kids off a few times and just took the baby with us to activities, which worked out fine. He’s so good when he’s alone, but the 3 kids feed off each other!

I brought lots of hook magnets. I used them to hang everyone’s lanyards with their seapass cards, hats, and to dry bathing suits. I also used them to hang from the ceiling and utilize curtains that I brought (actually, I bring these curtains everywhere we travel because a really dark room is important to getting the kids to sleep past sunrise when bed time is 2-4 hours later than usual). There were 2 hooks in the shower, 3 hooks on the bathroom door, 2 hooks in the bathroom with 2 towel bars, and 2 hooks outside the bathroom. We’re going on another cruise next year, and I’m going to bring more hooks because we could have used more space to dry out bathing suits. Having the curtains hanging to separate the kids from each other and then from us was great.

I also bought a pack of decorative magnets. This is very unlike me; I don’t like anything extra. But I put them on the stateroom door, and it helped the kids identify which one was ours. The door is textured, so they didn’t all fit. I put them inside the cabin on this big blank wall, and I actually really appreciated the decoration.

You’re allowed to bring on 12 cans/bottles that are less than 17 ounces each, so we did that for Mr. ODA’s sodas. We didn’t buy any drink packages. I don’t know what sodas cost on the ship. At the buffet, we have lemonade, iced tea, and water available. At some of the included restaurants, they have other flavored water type drinks like strawberry melon. At breakfast they had apple juice and orange juice. There are enough options for variety if you’re not looking to buy a package. I had Mr. ODA bring a non-diet/zero type drink in case I wanted some variety, but I was so full that I didn’t end up wanting any sodas and had a couple of lemonade and juice options throughout the week. The alcoholic mixed drinks are about $15 a la carte. They offer a happy hour special of margarita (and maybe one other option that’s $6-7) and have a drink of the day that’s $8. I didn’t know about the drink of the day special until day 3 and didn’t know about it at all on my last trip, so that’s a positive to know. I think the Truly/beer type option was around $8-9 each.

When buying the drink package, that’s your baseline. Are you going to drink 5 mixed drinks or 8 beers/Truly each day to make paying up front worth it? I’ve heard some people say “I just like not having to think about what I’m ordering.” But, do you enjoy paying $65 for 2 drinks? I understand it’s vacation and many people have the mentality that money is no object, but it is something to pause, have the perspective, and make an informed decision on.

The app is really good. There’s a little room for improvement, but everything you need is there. We’d like to see a search feature, where you can search “bingo” or “laser tag” and see the offerings instead of scrolling every day and hoping you catch the times. I like the daily tips they post about what’s happening that day and some good reminders. I also like how many activities are offered. I wish there were a few more things in the 6-8 timeframe for those with a 5:00 dining time, but I understand that’s not the worst problem. There is so much offered for other times, and I found myself juggling wanting to do all the things, but also not wanting to be on a schedule.

A few weeks before your cruise, the app will have most of the shows and activities available. One example that we didn’t have until we were on the ship was laser tag’s schedule. But you should get on your app a month in advance and keep checking for the show reservations to be opened. They seats go fast. We were able to reserve the ice skating show and Cats, but we weren’t able to get a seat at the aqua show. I was really bummed about that, but we went to the aqua theater at the beginning of the show and were able to get a seat.

We did not pay for a wifi package, nor did we set up our phones for an international plan. I was looking forward to being completely cut off from the world for 4.5 days. To my surprise, iMessage worked the whole trip. It wasn’t too bad, and I got to share stories as we went with some people.

LESSONS LEARNED

  • Book any 0-3 year old child care slots ASAP
  • Pack half the pajamas you need (our kids wear pajamas through breakfast at home, so there’s no re-wearing, but they don’t eat anything in the cabin, and they don’t leave the cabin once in pajamas, so don’t use up the space)
  • Prepare accordingly for theme nights (I may have not planned well for my oldest)
  • Bring as many magnets as you can hold (although you may get flagged for a bag check in security)
  • Read the daily tidbits in the app each morning
  • Don’t pack lots of snacks (I thought I’d be looking for breakfast faster than everyone being ready to go, so I packed granola bars. I also thought we’d want more snacks, but we’re so full from eating bigger meals and being on a different type of meal schedule that eating in the room was never a thought)
  • If you’re on the cusp of 52″, 48″, age 3, or age 6, I may wait until those milestones are hit. While it’s not the end of the world and doesn’t kill your cruise, we had kids disappointed they couldn’t do some things based on height (water slides) or age (rock climbing).
  • Drink the happy hour or daily special beverages if you don’t have the drink package

THE CRUISE

We took a 5-night cruise. It was more time than I had planned for originally. I didn’t want to be stuck on a boat in case the kids didn’t take to sailing well, but the price was $1000 less than the 3-4 night offerings, so we went for it. It worked out well. Everyone’s first question seems to be, “were you afraid of them going overboard?” Turns out, there are very limited options for that to even occur. We were in an ocean view balcony, but the glass goes higher than the littlest ones, so that wasn’t an issue. Most decks have the staterooms on the outside, so the only real place they could attempt to get overboard is on decks 15 and 16, and a little spot by rock climbing on deck 7. It was barely a thought of mine the whole week.

The biggest hurdle of the week was getting the kids through crowds. There’s a lot of people on the boat, and people tend to congregate in certain areas. Keeping 3 little ducklings together in a crowd could have been worse, but it wasn’t the easiest either. The cruise ship gives you bracelets for your kid to wear with their muster station on it. I wish there was more information on it, so I put their names and room number on the back. The youngest didn’t have a yellow bracelet, and I wasn’t happy about that. Luckily, I had packed a bracelet that I could put his information on. I used a regular sharpie and the lettering was legible until about the last day. I could have rewrote the information, but by then I was feeling more comfortable.

We did not push too hard to get to all the activities. We made a concerted effort for a few activities, but I didn’t want to be tied to an agenda all week. We generally started the day with breakfast. We ate in the main dining room twice, which was quieter and calmer, but also slower. One morning, I ordered a small breakfast, and the waiter pushed me to get the “express” breakfast. It came with 2 things I didn’t want, and I was frustrated that he pushed me to waste food. We usually then went to the pool or splash area (the splash pad is pretty cool with slides and activities within it for the kids). Ice cream opened at 11:30, so that worked well as a way to get out of the pool and start drying off for lunch. We ate lunch in the buffet (Windjammer). I personally liked the variety of options with the kids, but it wasn’t the easiest process. Apparently kids really struggle holding plates flat. We only lost one apple once, but it was stressful every time trying to make sure they kept the food on the plate while walking. Our afternoon was spent either with the kids in the kids club area (Adventure Ocean) while we did trivia, or they came to trivia with us. We rode the carousel, the big slide (Abyss), and participated in some random activities (family festival, scavenger hunt). We would get back to the room at about 4:55, rush to change, and then run to the main dining room for our 5:00 dinner. On my last cruise, there were only 2 dinner times, so being on time seemed less of a priority. This sailing had a 5:00, 6:45, and 8:00, so I felt the push to be as close to 5:00 as possible so we didn’t delay a 6:45 sitting. We ate all our dinners in the main dining room. I truly appreciated the themes, but perhaps only 50-60% actually participated.

At Cozumel, we got off the boat, had a beer at a tourist trap, and got back on the boat. I don’t think we were off the boat a full hour. There was swimming available in some pretty water just next to the cruise ships. There are shops for trinkets and a few places to eat or drink. It was an area that clearly catered to cruise ships and I felt perfectly safe.

Our second stop was Royal Caribbean’s island, CocoCay. I can’t sing enough praises about this concept. All your food is available. There are servers just like on the boat if you want a drink. It’s clean. There were some concerns about jellyfish while we were there, but we didn’t have any problems. My youngest was struggling with the sand concept (and not touching the sand and then rubbing his eyes or sucking his thumb), so we eventually moved over to the pool. The pool was packed, and I almost said lets just go, but we got in. Once you were in, it wasn’t uncomfortable at all, and there was plenty of room. There’s a 0 entry area with water fountains, which kept the kids entertained well. There are life vests on the island for your little swimmers. I did hear that snorkeling was sold out when we arrived around 10, so you could keep that timing in mind. The ship staff give you towels as you get off the boat (you sign them out with your seapass card), and there are towel stands on the island if you want to swap out your wet, sandy towel for a new one.

I will note that we had a medical emergency just hours into the cruise. It didn’t affect us at all. We heard the “alpha alpha alpha” call while we were at dinner, and about an hour later, the captain came on the loud speakers and announced the plan. We departed Ft. Lauderdale, but we were going to return to Miami to get this patient off the ship. They were making a plan on whether we’d have to fully dock or if the coast guard could come out to us. They announced a bit of time later that they decided the coast guard could come out. Then about a half hour after that, they said that the swells from the tropical storm we were near were too rough and the coast guard couldn’t get close to our ship to safely transport the patient between the two boats. So then they decided to send out a helicopter, and that happened just as the sky opened up on us at the aqua theater and we gave up and went to bed. So even though the course changed, it really didn’t affect anything we were doing on the ship. The patient actually got off and received emergency coronary bypass surgery that night and was recovering, so that was a blessing. There was also supposedly a death in another cabin, which I knew nothing about until after I got back home. I share this just to say – things happen, and there’s so many people, so it’s not surprising, and it didn’t affect the rest of the trip.

Getting on the ship and off the ship on the bookends of our cruise was extremely easy. I had a similarly easy experience at Cape Canaveral (actually probably easier). On the way there, we went through the security check points. I was flagged for my magnets, and in the process, they found my extension cord. Honestly, it wasn’t clear what the rules were about the extension cords. I wasn’t worried about the number of plugs as much as I was the extension to an outlet. They’re quick to say “there are plenty of outlets,” but they don’t address the fact that 3 outlets are on one end of the room and there’s only 1 at the bed. It didn’t matter though. We plugged in a phone overnight by the bed, and the sound machine was over by the kids with that 3 outlet option on the desk. They confiscated my extension cord, but they tagged it, and I got it back at the end of the cruise. After that, we went upstairs to a huge waiting room. We were told to sit in order as we entered. The place was packed; I expected this to take a while. It was less than 2 minutes. We scanned our boarding passes and walked right on. On the way off, everyone just left when they were ready. We walked right into the main dining room, scanned our seapass cards, and left the ship. There was luggage areas to pick up any luggage you had carried off the ship overnight, but we hadn’t done that. Then you go through the immigration check where they take your picture and approve you to continue. And that’s it. There was no queuing through either process except for the 2 minutes we sat in the waiting area at the port on the way on the ship. It’s incredible to me.

SUMMARY

I was a reasonable level of nervous taking 3 young kids on a cruise for 5 nights, but it went significantly better than I expected. Our next cruise isn’t until this time next year, but I wish it were sooner! I highly recommend cruising, especially with Royal Caribbean.

House 9 Turnover

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I recently posted “Lease Break Agreement,” where I went into the concepts we used to determine a lease break clause in our renewal with a tenant. The purpose of our fee structure was directly correlated to the time of year and probability of turning over the unit quickly. As I suspected, it took us an entire month to find a tenant. The lease break fee was one month’s rent, so we didn’t go without income during that time, but we also didn’t net a positive.

The tenant gave us notice on November 24th. Our property manager listed the property on November 26th at $1700. The higher price points are worrying me. While the market may claim that this is a fair rate, it doesn’t mean that we have a large pool of qualified candidates for this amount per month.

TURNOVER WORK

The house was painted before the current tenant moved in a few years prior. Unfortunately, some of the rooms were addressed, but not all of them. And the ware of time hit the walls all differently, so it looked like different colors of paint. I asked our property manager to get her painter over there and give all the walls a fresh coat. It looks great. That was $2,000.

I had a carpet cleaner come out and a cleaning company come out. The cleaners forgot about the refrigerator and had to come back. But otherwise everything looked great for less than $500 together.

The front porch was starting to sink. So while this wasn’t an activity done before someone moved in, we do have our handyman working on replacing the back deck, the trim around the back door, and the front porch (he jacked up the supports and is replacing the railing and stairs). I don’t even know what this final cost is yet, but it’s a lot.

APPLICANT #1

We had a lot of interest; hardly anyone qualified. After getting through some of the weeds, we did have a couple interested that appeared to be a good fit. They viewed the property twice over a week to be sure it was a good fit. The application was received on December 13, but it only listed one of the two adults who would be living there. We require all residents 18 years and older to complete a background check. We didn’t expect an issue with that since she works at a school, but it didn’t go well. Due to the holidays, their applications weren’t received until December 26th. She had several collections on her history. However, since he qualified on his own without her income, we agreed to overlook her lower credit score and collections history. I set up the lease with their names and sent them over.

We were excited because they wanted a January 1st rental, which meant we wouldn’t have any loss of income and would be able to put the lease break fee back into the house easily. They asked us if we would clean the carpets and clean the outside of the house. We agreed to the carpets and said that they outside of the house (mildew) would have to wait until warmer weather, but that we would address it.

Technically, all my tenants are supposed to clean the carpets and provide a receipt upon departure. However, I don’t hold this to anyone unless they were a real pain. A couple of hundred dollars out of my pocket and a happy ex-tenant is how I’d prefer to keep it (you’d be surprised at how many ex-tenant referrals we’ve had).

Suspiciously, they then withdrew their interest. I wish I knew why. I don’t know if their circumstances changed, if they were hiding information we hadn’t found on our own that caught up to them, or if something in the lease spooked them. If it was the lease, I wish they would have asked questions because we’re so easy going. I could have either explained why it’s there to protect them/us, or changed it.

So while we were a month ahead of schedule with being able to list the house, we now have a vacant house with no prospects. The goal is always to have the house ready to re-rent with little down time.

LISTING CHANGE

The market for the area called for $1600-1800 in rent. We originally listed it at $1700. It made me nervous. When the initial applicant backed out, I immediately adjusted the rent to $1650. We had plenty of interest at the $1700 amount, but it wasn’t worth weeding a few people out because they didn’t want to go that high. I decided to risk it with only a $50 decrease, since people would be able to see the decrease (and I try really hard to list it at the right price so I don’t have to do a price adjustment, but a December listing is hard to nail on the head). Again, we had a lot of interest, but few qualified.

APPLICANT #2

Two twenty-something men saw the property and asked to apply on January 11th. Neither of them had a job. Seriously. Neither had a single dime of true income, but wanted to commit to $1650/month in rent. Noteworthy was that they wanted us to consider that he had the potential to make $40k per year day trading stocks. We asked a few questions. They said they thought it better to find housing and then find a job. We suggested they try to find work and then live where they find a job (they had just moved ‘home’ from about an hour away).

APPLICANT #3

A woman showed interest who appeared to qualify on the surface. My broken record is to tell me things up front and be open with communication. I can’t help you if you don’t help me. Her information on paper looked fine. I’ve learned over the years to check the local jurisdiction court records myself, instead of relying on the background check. I’ve also tried to look things up before they submit their application; this way if there’s anything out there, they haven’t given us money for the application to not be used. During my search, I found several garnishment cases. Like a lot. An unreasonable amount of court records for a single person. We denied her interest form and did not pursue an application.

But on January 16, she asked for us to reconsider and explained the garnishment. There was one point deducted because the woman’s email asked if “he” as the landlord would reconsider her application (why can’t a friendly, reasonable woman be the landlord? 🙂 ). I didn’t appreciate that the garnishment wasn’t disclosed up front. However, she did explain what happened. It sounded like she was told that there was nothing due, made no payments, and then this debt showed up that she didn’t know she owed, but she’s been working a second job to pay it off. Honestly, the documentation didn’t clearly support the story, but my gut reaction was to believe her.

She also had three evictions recorded on top of this garnishment. The evictions appeared to be filed immediately upon unpaid rent by an apartment complex management company, and then the rent paid before the court date, thereby clearing the debt. I expect to have future issues with rent payments, but I suspect it won’t be anything more than I’m used to handling (e.g., where a tenant needs an extra week or so to make rent).

Our property manager appreciated the in-person interaction with this person, she was well written and well spoken when making her case to be accepted to apply, and overall it seemed worth giving her a chance. I’m also a sucker for giving borderline qualified individuals a chance. I think I’m 50/50 on it working out for me.

The lease was signed on January 18th. We agreed that she would pay the security deposit, first month’s rent, and last month’s rent. The last month’s rent was an additional way for us to hedge our bets with her unqualified application background. This is a “compensating factor.” Since she did not qualify according to our list of requirements, we’re taking an extra fee as insurance to our business interests in this property. We typically will work with someone on compensating factors so that they get a place to rent and we don’t lose out on too much in case our olive branch doesn’t work out.

She paid the security deposit with the lease agreement signature and paid first month’s rent on February 1st. We agreed to give her until February 17th for the last month’s rent. She was asking for a later move in date because she didn’t have all the money up front, but I didn’t want to cause extra stress on her moving plan/date over that.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I don’t even know how many people actually saw the property, since my property manager handled that. However, I know it was a good amount. I typically handle it where I set up an “open house” style visit window for people to come through (so many people claim they’ll show up to a scheduled appointment, and they don’t). I believe she tried to do this at the beginning, but it was taking so long to find a qualified applicant, that she ended up having to do one-on-one meetings.

She has them fill out an “initial interest” form after the showing. For the most part, I do that after the showings as well. However, it does help if you’re scheduling individual appointments to have people fill this out before hand. You want to know ahead of time if there’s even a chance of them qualifying. You don’t want to take time driving to/from an appointment and letting them looking around the house, only to find out they have a criminal background and/or less than favorable credit history.

THERE IS NO CHARGE FOR AN INTEREST FORM. If you are a tenant looking for a place to live, do not pay anyone anything until you’ve seen the property. There are a lot of scams out there where “landlords” are claiming they need an application before allowing you to see the property. They’re listing places “for rent,” that they have no vested interest in. People who recently sold their house, so pictures are available to use, are the ones finding out that people are driving by and looking around their house because someone claiming to be a landlord collected an “application fee,” with no intention of showing you the house or renting it to you.

So while this person didn’t expressly qualify based on our list of requirements to rent one of our properties, I felt like she deserved the chance. I feel bad when someone’s previous life choices immediately disqualify them, and I enjoy giving people a moment to voice their side of the story. Sometimes, their story is enough to solidify a denial from us. But sometimes, it appears worth giving them this opportunity to right their wrongs. I also feel good that I didn’t feel pressured into making a decision just to recoup vacant days on market, but that I made a logical decision. Now let’s see where we end up with this property in 18 months, and whether I still think it was a good decision!

Tenant Evaluations

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When looking to rent your house, you should do your due diligence. Our concerns are whether a person has a history of late payments, collections accounts, and if they have a criminal history.

We do two steps of initial screenings before asking a tenant to pay an application fee. The first two steps given them the opportunity to disclose anything that may be seen as unfavorable or not meet our rental criteria. This way, once they pay the application fee, it’s a verification step, and they’re not wasting any money for me to find out that I’m going to decline them.

Here are the details of how I go through the evaluation process, and specifically how I just did it for our new rental.

RENTING CRITERIA

First, I send everyone interested an “Interest Form.” We ask for their legal name, contact information, credit score, employment data, number of occupants, whether they smoke, if they have pets, if they’ve been evicted, and if they’ve been convicted of a felony. I also ask them to provide any other information they think I should know that may affect their ability to rent the house. I send this form to everyone who expresses interest, and it’s the first step before scheduling a showing. I request the data before scheduling a showing because I don’t want to waste my time or theirs showing the house, when they had adverse responses to our criteria. This was more important when I was scheduling individual showings, but I now conduct an “open house.” I set aside two hours to be at the house and ask they come during that time. If that doesn’t yield a tenant, then I’ll evaluate who couldn’t make it and field new requests to see it to determine if I’ll show it individually or host another open house.

We have this at the top of our Interest Form.

Properties are offered without regard to race, religion, national origin, sex, disability or familial status.

Required standards for qualifying to rent a home are:
• Each prospective applicant aged 18 or older must submit a separate application.
• We limit the number of occupants to 2 per bedroom.
• Your combined gross monthly income must be at least $4,000.
• You must be employed and/or be able to furnish acceptable proof of the required income.
• You must have a favorable credit history.
• You must have good housekeeping, payment, and maintenance references from previous Landlords.

Compensating factors can include additional requirements such as double deposit and/or a cosigner.

Our typical rental actually requires 3x the rent as the monthly income, but since our last house was more expensive, we put the requirement as a dollar amount threshold instead.

Then I would historically review those who say they’re interested and pick the one that appears to be most qualified. I’d send them a “pre-application” form to fill out. However, for our last tenant search, I asked everyone interested to fill out the “pre-application.” The tenant screening system doesn’t tell me their last landlord information or their employer, which are both necessary for making phone calls and checking their information given. The “pre-application” repeats some of the questions on the Interest Form, but the pre-application requires them to sign the form as an “affidavit” that the information is accurate.

If they tell me that they’re going to have a low credit score, it helps me to know the reasons for it up front. Additionally, by letting me know any issues up front, it saves them money. If they self-report that they have several collections accounts, then it could be cause for me to move on to a different person interested. If they don’t tell me that they have some issues in their history that may be unfavorable, and I send them the application, then they’re spending $40 per person only to potentially not get the house. I prefer to use the online tenant screening as a final verification step than an initial screening and potentially waste someone’s money.

One time I got through all these steps, had 3 different people submit an application for a house, and the report came back with an eviction. We asked why they didn’t disclose that to us originally. They told us a story about how they were asked to leave somewhere, but they didn’t know that it was reported as an eviction. We told them that they were disqualified. We went with our “runner up,” and they’ve been in the house almost 3 years without any issue or late payment.

We also had two people submit an application and then a bankruptcy was reported on the credit report (it was before the pre-application step I implemented). She said she didn’t see a place to explain a bankruptcy, so she didn’t think to mention it. For future reference, if I ask for your credit score and you have anything concerning in that credit report, it’s helpful to be upfront about it. In that case, everything else was fine and her explanation for the bankruptcy was clear and thorough. We gave them a chance, and they were amazing. She was rebuilding her life after taking on a lot of new bills after a divorce, juggling single-income life, and it was a way to consolidate the debt.

DECIDING BETWEEN TENANTS

In this last situation, I had several people express interest in the property.

I held the open house, and I asked everyone to let me know by noon the following day if they were interested in pursing an application after seeing the property. I received 6 or 7 people who were interested in the house.

I don’t look at one factor. I weigh all the information given to me in my head. In a perfect system, I may assign a weight to each data point, but that’s more effort. I’m reviewing the data and trying to see who has the best, well-rounded criteria.

The house is big (2100 sf with 4 bedrooms), and rent is higher than anything we’ve ever managed. I looked at what they are currently paying in rent. If they’re currently paying $1500 per month, then that made me more confident that they’d cover the $1750; if they are currently paying $400 per month, then I was concerned that they weren’t prepared to cover such a large expense difference. Along those lines, I also gave more credit to someone who has a stable job that they’ve been at for more than a year, versus a few people who said “I’m starting a new job at the end of April.” We have a tenant that goes through jobs every 1-3 months and is always a pain with rent, so I’m probably more scarred by job history now.

I gave more credence to those who had at least a 600 credit score, but I didn’t rule out anyone with a credit score less than that. One woman did have a lower credit score, but she had other good information, so I didn’t rule her out.

Finally, the determining factor came down to availability. My top two contenders had different desired move dates. One said early April, and another said June 1st, but May 1st may be ok. When I asked her to explain about her move date, I received a detailed story that didn’t have any conclusion on when she was available. Since this is a business, and I had a qualified group interested in the house sooner than others, they were the ones selected. If I didn’t have someone qualified for an April move in, then I would have waited for a May 1st rental instead of lowering my standards.

Luckily, I had enough interest in the property that I could select someone who was well qualified and get it rented sooner than later.

APPLICANT SCREENING

Once I’ve given someone these two opportunities to disclose unfavorable information in their credit or criminal history, and they’ve provided favorable responses that meet our criteria, I send the link for the application. The potential renter enters their data into the system, which helps keep their information secure (e.g., I don’t have their social security number) and helps eliminate any typographical errors that I may make transferring the information into the website instead of them entering the data they already know. Additionally, the tenant pays the fee (currently $40) directly to the website, which helps them understand that once the report is run and the fee is paid, it was for a service so it’s not refundable. I heard multiple stories this past week where people paid “application fees,” but were later told that they weren’t the first to respond. That’s not fair. I don’t need to know everyone’s detailed reports and cost people money if they aren’t going to get the property. So here’s how I handle the tenant screening process.

The system generates a report for me to see that includes their credit history, criminal history, eviction history, and income verification.
– The credit history shows any missed or late payments; collections accounts; bankruptcies filed with the chapter, date filed, and amount settled; and their score. I’m more concerned about late or missing payments than anything else there. The collections accounts are typically related to medical bills, but if they’re for general credit cards or an enormous car loan, I’d find it more concerning. I’ve also not ruled someone out simply because they’ve filed bankruptcy; two of our tenants actually have a bankruptcy in their report.
– The criminal history tells me if they’ve had any judgements against them. I’ve seen traffic violations, misdemeanors, and felonies. The report also tells me if they’ve been listed on any sex offender registry. If they have felonies, multiple misdemeanors, or are on a sex offender registry, it’s automatic disqualification. I’ve gone down the road of giving people chances, and it hasn’t gone well. This report isn’t fool-proof either. I know how to use the court record system where we have most of our houses, and I now look them up in all the nearby jurisdictions to be sure there’s nothing reported.
– The eviction report will tell me if they’ve been formally evicted. This doesn’t capture any times where a tenant and landlord agreed on the tenant’s departure outside of the court system. This also may miss some jurisdiction evictions. We had someone show up in a separate jurisdiction when I went looking for their information in the surrounding areas, but it didn’t show up on the report. Don’t think that this report is fool-proof.
– The income verification comes with a built-in caveat. I don’t know the details on how the report is run, but the result is something along the lines of “we believe that the self-reported income is near accurate.”

The report suggests whether to accept or decline the applicants. I suggest reviewing the data and making a decision for yourself. Some reasons why the recommendation will be to decline include: criminal history, bankruptcy, and low credit score.

We have given several people “chances” that don’t perfectly meet our criteria. Below is a screenshot where the recommendation was to decline. However, we ended up asking for more information and giving them a chance. They ended up spending a year in a rental of ours, moving out of the area, and then asking for our rental availability when they came back to town. They always paid on time, hardly asked for anything, and took great care of the house.

We have also accepted tenants that had some concerns in their report, but the system recommended we accept them. We tried to overlook the issues, but we’ve ended up regretting it. We have one tenant who has a criminal history (forgery) and we ended up having to release her roommate from the lease because of a domestic violence and restraining order issue. She’s also consistently late on making rent payments and doesn’t keep communication lines open. We plan to ask her to leave at the end of this lease term. We also had a tenant with a 480 credit score who wrote us a letter about her low credit and asked for a chance. She ended up consistently paying late (she always paid, but it was always a fight); we threatened eviction when it got to a breaking point where she was combative, but she left on her own terms. That’s a good example where she was a terrible tenant, who we gave multiple opportunities and even restructured her rent, but her eviction report won’t say anything to that effect.

DEPOSIT

Once I have an approved application, I request a deposit to hold the property and remove the listing. Typically, the lease signing doesn’t occur immediately. In those cases, I want protection of my cash flow that I’m holding the property for someone specifically. I’ve had a couple of houses that have signed a lease immediately, but typically there’s a lag between “acceptance” and the lease being signed (forming a contract).

In this last instance, the tenant was accepted on Friday, but the lease wasn’t going to be signed until the following Thursday. I requested a $400 deposit, which will be applied to their balance owed to get the keys transferred to them. I originally was going to request $500, but I realized that the week’s worth of time at the rent per diem rate came to $408. If they back out between now and Thursday, then I haven’t lost income if I had chosen someone else and not held the property until the date they wanted a lease. Ironically, they ended up paying a deposit of $500. For them to obtain the keys, they owe a security deposit ($1750), the first month’s pro rated rent (about $1300), and a pet fee of $500. Their total is $3,550, but the $500 I’ve already collected is applied to that balance. Therefore, on Thursday, they’ll owe me $3,050 for me to hand them the keys.

Usually, I require the first month of rent to be the full amount, and then the proration is applied to month 2. Since for this tenant, they already paid rent at their current address for the month of April, and the rent here is higher than our average, I went ahead and prorated the first month so they didn’t have to put so much cash out of pocket in a short period of time.

SUMMARY

You can see how I am not making black-and-white decisions. I’m not hanging my hat on one or two factors. I’m being reasonable in my decisions and understanding that there’s a person, and maybe a family, on the other end of this transaction.

Be fair. Utilize a variety of factors in making your eligibility determination. Keep your communication lines open with potential renters until you have a deposit and/or lease signed on the property.

Treat this as a business and make informed, logical decisions instead of emotional ones, but be reasonable.

House 9: Hoarding leads to mice and eviction

mrsonedollarallowance1 Comment

This is a good one. This is the one we use when people say “how can you handle all those properties,” and I respond, “if we survived this one tenant, we know we can handle whatever gets thrown at us.” Hoarding, mice, court dates, eviction. But its not always like that. The sun shone down on us for the current tenant though, who signed a two year lease and take care of the house (like, even power washed it on their own accord). The stories below show that you need a thick skin and a smooth temperament to be a landlord. Treat this as a business.

LOAN

This house was purchased ‘as-is,’ but we still had a home inspection contingency in the contract. It was listed at $139,500; we purchased for $137,500 with $2,500 in seller subsidy. We went under contract on 8/14/2017 and closed on 9/22/2017. The appraisal came in at $141,000, so we were content with our decision.

We refinanced the loan in May 2020. Our original loan had a balance of $105,800 at the time of the refinance. We rolled closing costs into the new loan and cashed out $2,000, making our new loan amount be $111,000. The refinance reduced our interest rate from 4..875% to 3.625%, shaving $104.25 off our monthly payment. I went into detail about the refinance in my Refinancing Investment Properties post.

Following the 1% Rule, we would be looking for $1,340 in rent (net of seller subsidy), but we haven’t received that yet. The first tenant’s rent was $1,150 and the second at $1,250. For the third potential tenants, we listed at $1,300, but the new tenants negotiated to $1,280 for a 2-year lease.

TENANT #1: OUR WORST

The application. It’s hard to not give someone a chance when their application is borderline, but I suggest letting the information on the screen speak to their character. Before the official application was run (which includes a background check), she admitted to a felony that she served 2.5 years for, and she filed bankruptcy due to a stolen identity while she was incarcerated. It seemed like she paid her dues and was building a new life. We got her application about two weeks after closing, so it wasn’t like we were desperate to rent it at that point. But she was quick to fill out an application and provide necessary documentation, so we decided to give her a chance. She moved in on 10/1/2017 with her 3 children, one of which was born days after she moved in. Her rent was $1,150.

We didn’t have any unreasonable situations with her in the first year. We did have a maintenance call for a leak under the kitchen sink, and we noted that the house wasn’t tidy. It seemed like she was a coupon-er, where she stocked up on a few items and probably resold them, which supported how she kept wanting to pay us in cash. The house wasn’t to my standard, but I didn’t look close enough to notice that it was dirty in addition to cluttered. I wanted to say something, but didn’t know my place at that point. Hindsight: I should have told my property manager and had her issue a written notice. This won’t matter down the road for legal proceedings, but perhaps we could have saved ourselves some headaches if she took the notice to heart; I was just afraid of offending her. But, other than that small concern at the time, we had no issue renewing her lease for another year.

The tenant complained about seeing a mouse around February 2018. We informed her at that time that pest control was up to her because of her living style that was attracting the pests. She claimed to have a quarterly treatment through Terminex. She complained further of mice in November 2018, but I wasn’t part of that conversation. It appeared to be that she was upset that there were still pest issues while she was paying Terminex. Well, that’s an issue to take up with the pest control company, not us. Our property manager gave her the information to our pest control company and shared that it would be a bit cheaper for the quarterly plan too. We heard nothing more until all hell broke loose in April 2019.

She sent pictures of mice poop all over the house on April 9, claiming that she had been out of the house from March 31 through April 8 and came back to this sudden mouse infestation and would be leaving the house. Well, that’s not how it works. She claims that was her ‘prompt’ notification, as if mice set up camp in a lived-in house that’s well maintained out of nowhere (news flash: it wasn’t well maintained and clean). She claimed that because of the living conditions (that she perpetuated), this would be her last month in the house. We knew we had the lease to fall back on, so we continued to remind her that this wasn’t on us and she couldn’t leave us with the financial burden and walk away. We had our pest control company go to the house as soon as possible, and we received their report on April 12.

But wait! While complaining about the condition of the house (that she caused), she wanted to know if she could buy the house!!!! Logic always seems to abound in these situations; it’s hysterical. We offered her to purchase the house from us at $148,000. She ignored it after that offer.

Both the pest company and our HVAC person noted a dog on the premises, which was in violation of the lease. HVAC was called out to fix a wire on the outdoor HVAC unit that the dog had chewed through. She also wasn’t taking care of the yard, and the City of Richmond was fining houses that violated their weed and grass clauses, which we notified her of on May 9.

She didn’t pay April or May rent, so we had a court date set for May 10. We had told her that she had to pay all overdue rent and late fees for us to cancel the May 10 court date. She didn’t pay, so our property manager went to court. The judge awarded us possession of the property, but since there was such outstanding rent and damages, another court date was set for July 1 to award us the money owed. In front of the judge, the tenant handed the keys over to our property manager, saying she was moved out. Immediately after leaving the court house, the property manager arrived at the house to do a walk through, only to find several people inside. She called the police.

The officer assessed the situation. He said that since they’re still moving things out (and there was a lot to move out), that it was a benefit to us that they were still working on it. He suggested asking their input on when they thought they would be done. One guy said at 3 pm. We agreed to let them stay, and I would go by after work to change the locks.

I showed up at 4 pm to change the locks, only to find people still coming in and out of the house. I called the non-emergency police line and waited for the cops to show up. It’s officially trespassing, and we were prepared to press charges. The officers knocked on the door and asked the people inside (none of whom were the tenant on the lease) to leave. One woman started a whole spiel about how she’s on probation and everything that she’s been arrested for, so she didn’t want to be arrested. The officer was funny to watch, and he just kept saying, “I’m not arresting you. I just want you to leave.”

After they drove away, the officers let me walk the property to ensure everyone was out. The place was destroyed!

By Virginia law, we are required as landlords to make every attempt possible to get the unit re-rented and let the old tenant “off the hook” for unpaid rent. Meaning, we can’t hold them to the entire term of the lease and have a vacant house. Regardless of this, we wanted to get everything fixed and replaced in the house so that we had an exact amount to claim during the July 1 court date.

The linoleum replacement was the critical path. She had destroyed it (looked like some chemical ate through it) beyond repair and it had to be replaced before we could re-rent the house. Home Depot’s timeline was really behind, and they weren’t able to get us scheduled for installation until June 20th (after she had “vacated” May 10th).

I compiled a list of lease violations with my documentation to support the claims in which she violated the lease on top of the obvious (e.g., dog on premises, smoking in the house). We had invoices from the pest company, the HVAC company, the trash removal company (over 40 cubic yards of garbage was left in the house when they finally vacated), and the “hazmat” cleaning company, all corroborating an unclean and unkempt living condition.

We went into court with a claim of $9,250. This was unpaid rent for 3 months, late fees, junk removal, pest control, HVAC fixes, professional cleaning that included a ‘hazmat’ charge, and all our paint and flooring charges.

We won the first judgement in court, simply because the defendant didn’t show up. We were awarded $9,250 plus the court fee and 6% interest. Well, somehow the court accepted her plea of needing another court date after not showing up to this one, and that was on July 10th. The judge that day reduced our rent and late payment owed by one month, and reduced our reimbursement total by a bit more than the security deposit we had already kept, bringing the judgement to about $6,600 plus the court fee and 6% interest.

Per the court process, we were required to work with the ex-tenant to develop a payment plan. We offered her a payment plan via email that was never responded to. From there, the next step is to retain an attorney for wage garnishment.

I contacted the attorney we use to help with wage garnishment, but he wasn’t experienced. He referred me to someone, who let me know that he’s already representing someone who has a claim against her. He said that he could still represent me, but I’d be second in line to any money they get from her. He offered me another attorney’s name to see if that one could help me instead, but that attorney said he couldn’t represent me because he already has another client looking for money from this woman. Interesting that two attorneys had different answers, but we went with that first. We haven’t seen a dime. Once the money was spent and we paid off the credit cards, it wasn’t on our radar anymore. Anything we get from this woman will be a bonus at this point.

TENANT #2: BLISSFULLY UNAWARE OF HOW LIFE WORKS

Two kids just out of college were our tenants that came in after that mess. They were great tenants, but a bit unaware of how the world works. They didn’t get the utilities into their name timely, so we charged them for the bills that came to us. After that, they paid their rent on time, and even when their restaurant jobs shut down at the beginning of the pandemic, they prioritized paying rent over other things they could have spent their limited income on; I was impressed. At the end of their lease, they were a bit lost too. Our lease requires 60 days notice of your intentions – either leave, or renew. Our property manager reached out to them at the 60 day mark, and they said they weren’t sure what they wanted to do, but were looking for other places. Since, realistically, we weren’t going to list the house for rent at 45 or 60 days, we told them that was fine. They came back after a week and said they were going to move out.

We moved forward with listing the house for rent and vetting new tenants. We had our property manager show the house on June 10 for what would be a July 1 lease. About a week later, the current tenants asked if they could stay longer because they didn’t get the place they were looking for. Sorry, but that’s not how it works and it’s already rented. The new tenants were OK with moving in July 15, so we allowed the college guys to stay until July 10. Then we hustled to get the house put back together before the new tenants. Specifically, one of the tenants was an artist, and he hung a huge canvas on one of the bedroom walls to paint on. Well, the paint bled through.

They also didn’t tell us that the range wasn’t working. When we asked about it, they said something to the effect of, “oh yea, we smelled gas, so we just cut it off. That was back in March.” Goodness!! So we quickly ordered a new range. We also had to have the carpets professionally cleaned, which was especially frustrating since they were only a year old. Luckily, the ladies who came to clean the carpets worked their magic, and they came out looking good as new. The microwave handle was broken off, and when we looked to buy a replacement, it was essentially the same cost as a new microwave, so we installed a new one.

While we were working in the house, we noticed that the air conditioner wasn’t keeping the house cool. We had an HVAC tech come out to the house, and it was either $1,400 to repair (after we had already previously put money into the HVAC unit), or $5,000 to replace it. We decided to replace it after it died shortly after the third tenants moved in.

TENANT #3: SOME OF THE BEST

These tenants have been wonderful. They’re both pharmacists at the local college and have been very self-sufficient. They’re great about alerting us of issues, but not in a way that it seems like they’re nitpicking. For instance, they wanted to store their lawn mower and other things in the shed out back, but the handle was broken off it. We told them that if they wanted to purchase a replacement, we would reimburse for the cost. Then they noted that the closet dowel was broken and they replaced it. I told them I would pay for that, so just take it off the next month’s rent. When they sent me the receipt, they had only taken the rod itself off the rent, but not the brackets to hang the rod. I immediately sent them the rest of the cost!

They’re one year into a two-year lease, and we’re very happy with them. They always pay their rent on time, they communicate regularly, and they’re taking care of the house.

MAINTENANCE AND REPAIRS

Since I’ve covered a great deal of the repairs we’ve managed in this house through each of the tenant stories, here’s a quick summary of other items.

Shortly after the third tenants moved in, they politely let us know that their dishwasher wasn’t cleaning the dishes. They very clearly identified the problem and the steps they had already taken to attempt to fix it, but it wasn’t working. We purchased a new dishwasher the day after they let us know. So in the matter of a month, we replaced the built in microwave, range, dishwasher, and HVAC. The only appliance we haven’t replaced in this house now is the refrigerator.

There was an electrical issue that we had sort of noticed before, but hadn’t pinpointed it without having things to plug into all the outlets. We had an electrician go out and fix the switches and outlets that weren’t working in master bedroom.

AN OVERALL LOOK AT THIS HOUSE AS AN INVESTMENT

Remember how real estate investing provides multiple avenues for wealth building? Here’s how they’re looking for this property.

Cash Flow – As we have had to replace nearly all appliances, including HVAC, and all the flooring among several other smaller issues, our total cash flow on this property is nearly nothing. But, like mentioned before, we shouldn’t have any big purchases coming and will start to be able to pocket the profits on this house once again.

Mortgage pay-down – The tenants have paid our mortgage for us, but due to closing costs of refinancing and choosing to take $2,000 cash back from that refi, our principal is actually higher than when we bought it.

Tax Advantages – We always depreciate the cost of the structure for paper losses that help offset profit on properties for tax purposes. All those repairs and appliance replacement expenses that eat into the profit margins are written off. So come April 15, the silver linings of those expenses are realized.

Appreciation – This one is good for us. This house is in a developing neighborhood and the area around it is being revitalized. Coupled with standard appreciation and the *hot* real estate market we’re in now, the value of the house is 150% of what it was when we bought, in less than 4 years.

SUMMARY

We’ve put about $10,000 into this house at this point. But that means we have a lot of brand new things in it. Now isn’t the time to give up on the house, since we should be in a position to not deal with many maintenance requests. Rent continues to climb, increasing our cash flow, while we just brought our mortgage payment quite low with the refi, and the property will continue to appreciate in value.

We learned a lot about the eviction process, even dealing with local police officers in the process. The court system and law enforcement are fairly simple to work with, as long as you are a fair and respectful landlord, keep documentation, and follow landlord-tenant laws. When the tenant doesn’t live up to their end of the bargain, justice will be served.