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How to Successfully Rent Your Home – a Step by Step Guide

Not ready to sell your home? Renting your home may be a great way to alleviate the financial burden that home ownership can cause while retaining ownership. In this post we will walk you through renting your home and provide some time proven techniques to get it rented quickly, at a great price and with exemplary tenants.

How much rent should you charge?

This one is easy – the market decides for you! Your job is to determine what will work in your market and what won’t. Comparing your home to similar homes for rent in the area in terms of bedroom and bathroom count, total square footage, condition and location will get you the best overall idea of how much you should charge for rent.

Zillow and Facebook Marketplace are the most common websites to find listings for homes and apartments for rent. Later in this article, we will also suggest using these platforms to list your home – keep reading!

How to list your home for the first time

You’ve only got one first impression, so use it wisely! High quality, professional grade photographs will help your property stand out to prospective tenants that are sifting through dozens of properties. When paired with a well written and accurate description of the home, beautiful photos will be sure to catch their attention! Do you need a recommendation for a professional photographer? Visit our contractor rolodex to view our recommended photographers in the Hartford County, CT and Western MA region.

We recommend the following websites for the largest exposure in listing your home or apartment for rent:

Want to Rent Your House Without Becoming a Landlord?

How to pre qualify tenants to rent your home

You’ve done great work thus far and now have prospective tenants emailing,
calling and texting you at seemingly all hours of the day! You may feel you don’t have the time to answer all of these calls, so how could you possibly show the property to all of these prospective tenants?

Pre-screening your tenants is a very powerful tool at your disposal. We’ve developed a hands off, automated screening system here at Connecticut Property Management. You can read more about it here. While this is likely more than the average landlord will need, each landlord should have some kind of pre-qualifying process in place where they learn more about the tenant’s income, credit score, employment and total number of occupants before unlocking any doors.

How to process applications, credit checks, and background checks

Once you’ve shown your property to pre qualified tenants, it’s time to begin the formal application process! We suggest using a Google form or a service like Cozy.co. Cozy offers a comprehensive credit report and background check service as well, and we can’t recommend it enough.

During the application process, it is your responsibility as the landlord to verify employment, income, rental history, and other key aspects of a candidate’s application. We follow a “trust but verify” process, and verify any and all information in a tenant application

How to sign a lease to rent your home

Congratulations! You’ve reached the final step. You’ve done all the leg work and now it’s time to sign a lease and collect the first month’s rent and security deposit. Woohoo! Connecticut and Massachusetts have very specific laws as to how much you can collect for a security deposit. Our minimum security deposit here at Connecticut Property Management is 1.5 month’s rent for a well – qualified tenant. The first month’s rent is always due at lease signing, which happens before any possession of the property is given to the tenant. If you are in need of a lease don’t hesitate to reach out, we’re happy to share ours!

Editor’s Note: As one of Connecticut’s premier property management companies, CTPM offers our vendor contact list completely free to the public. On that list you will find a handful of options for various vendors you may need while renting out your home. The list can be found here. Have a question? Contact us by using this link or feel free to email us!

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