“For Rent by Owner” (FRBO) is a rental arrangement in which you assume the role of the landlord as the property owner. That means you deal with tenants directly and manage every step of the rental process, rather than outsourcing the work to a third party.
As a private landlord, your duties include advertising your property, screening prospective tenants, and drawing up the lease agreement. You’re also responsible for resolving disputes with tenants and handling routine tasks, such as making repairs and keeping the property in good condition.
Renting out your property without any middlemen offers several benefits: cost savings, independence, control, and the chance to build personal connections with tenants. However, it’s also time-consuming, demanding, and stressful, especially if you lack the knowledge to find, vet, and retain quality tenants.
Knowing if your potential tenant has been evicted before is valulable information to consider during the rental application process.
SingleKey’s Tenant Report includes an expanded public record search that provides a summary of eviction data that potentially matches a prospective tenant’s name.
This data is collected from eviction court records available through Openroom, CanLII, and SOQUIJ, including TAL for Québec.
Our landlord and employment reference checks are valuable add-on services to our Tenant Screening Report that remove the manual burden of contacting a potential tenant’s employer and landlord yourself.
SingleKey’s reference checks are completed by our experienced team, who will deliver a detailed report of the reference’s responses to a tailored set of questions, as well as an audio recording of the conversation.
By letting SingleKey handle your landlord and employment reference checks, you’ll save time and gain essential details about the tenant to make more informed decisions.
The mortgage renewal period typically begins a few months before the mortgage term ends, so take that time to review new terms with your current lender or explore other options.
Factor in the interest rate, how long you’ll have the mortgage, and what your financial goals are.
Always get advice from a mortgage professional who can support you throughout the mortgage renewal process.
Pre-screening tenants helps landlords collect insights into who a rental applicant is, if they meet their basic criteria, and if it’s worth it to move them forward in the tenant screening process.
A crucial step that’s often overlooked, pre-screening tenants can be made more efficient with SingleKey, which offers a free pre-screening form with customizable fields to get additional details about an applicant, such as their source of income and the number of people in their household.
The pre-screening form can be sent to multiple applicants. Responses are managed through SingleKey’s dashboard, which has useful filters to help organize top candidates quickly.
SOC 2 stands for System and Organization Controls Type 2 and is a set of requirements designed to help companies protect their customers’ data.
SingleKey recently completed a SOC 2 audit and is recognized as a SOC 2 Type 2 compliant company.
Earning our SOC 2 Type 2 certification means that our data infrastructure has been validated by a third party and meets one of the highest standards of data security compliance in the world.
Each credit bureau collects data from different lenders, so it’s common for one lender to appear in one credit bureau’s report but not the other. That’s why getting both credit reports allows you to uncover important credit information, like loans that are past due or have gone to collections.
The risk of missing crucial details on your potential tenant’s credit profile is high, given that more than 40% of the time, there is a 40-point or greater difference in the credit scores between the two bureaus.
Pay attention to key items in a credit report, like the credit score, total debt, and collections. Having data from both credit bureaus gives you a more complete picture of these important indicators of financial stability.
The leasing process is now more efficient than ever with the new SingleKey app, which brings a more intuitive experience to all users and is supported by a suite of upgraded tenant screening features.
New services and expanded tools include SingleKey’s Dual Credit Report, International Credit Check, and an interactive, HTML version of our Tenant Screening Report.
SingleKey’s new app is now mobile-optimized for an even better user experience.
When you own a rental property with a pool, you understand the regular maintenance needed, from checking the chlorine levels, removing debris, backwashing the filters, and wiping the walls. If pool duties are abandoned, an unkempt pool can pose pricier repairs and health hazards to tenants.
If a pool is neglected, it can develop algae growth and other harmful bacteria. When long-term tenants fail to clean the pool, the landlord will often need to do more labor-intensive repairs, like draining the pool, scrubbing algae and debris, and replacing filters and pumps.
Hiring a pool person will guarantee your swimming pool is in immaculate condition. At the same time, your tenant will enjoy the rental property, boosting their satisfaction with the amenities and services provided.
Have you noticed large cracks on the exterior wall of your rental home? Hiring a foundation repair professional will help identify the problem’s source and provide a plan of action to solidify your foundation. Shopping around for quotes and learning about preventative maintenance can ultimately save you money.
A good concrete specialist can identify and prioritize critical foundation issues. They can also propose the best and most economical project to improve your property.
Homeowners can significantly reduce water damage to their foundation by adding outdoor water drainage fixtures that redirect water from the home, like gutters and downspouts.
When you need to remove debris from your gutter, hire an insured gutter contractor for your rental. This minimizes liability and helps you identify any snags in your gutters or downspouts. Cleaning your gutters during spring and fall will prevent standing water from damaging your roof or foundation.
The cost of gutter maintenance will depend on varying factors, primarily the size of the gutter, the height of the gutters from the ground, and the accessibility at which the contractor can easily get to the gutter.
Because gutter cleaners are more experienced in evaluating problem areas and efficiently cleaning and installing gutters, you should hire a professional rather than assigning this task to a tenant.
