Applications are important; they are what start up the business relationship. Everybody in a real estate deal has to fill out applications. Your housing application has things you have to ask like name, address, phone number and all of the other things they all have. You have things on real estate applications that you cannot ask such as age. With our office, it used to be when they signed up; they gave me a fee of $10 or $15.

Once they fill it out, you want to make sure you got that thing filed where it needs to be filed. You hang on to it because if they move and don’t buy the place that application is available. You then know the people to contact. They might have their driver license number on it. You know different ways that they can be tracked. It’s obviously got their social security number on it. So that application is critical to this collection process. This application needs to be filed and your applications need to be organized. You never know when you will need them again. Know where they are.

People give us applications and we have to figure where we’re going to place them or even if we’re going to place them. The application asks questions like how many dogs they have, how many adults they have, where they are coming from and what do they want to do. I also ask if they have any money down. If they do, how much is it?

Credit reports are pulled and my trusty staffer Kevin will bring in the information on each tenant. So somebody who’s on the fence might get a break with us depending on the market.

In Ohio, it’s tougher to have people in houses during the winter. It can be pretty cold in my neck of the woods. If I have vacant houses for sale and someone tries to buy one with bad credit, I can make something happen. This way I don’t have to pay the heating bill that winter.

Let’s say I got an empty house. Been empty for awhile; somebody gets excited and they put in an application in, but their credit is horrible maybe I’ll make a decision to stick them in the house so I don’t have to pay the heating bill through the rest of the winter. Paying utility bills on an empty house is one of the things that scare people away from flipping houses for profit.

It is important to keep a steady flow of applications coming in. The last thing you need is to have a surplus of empty units. Even if you don’t have vacancies, keep them on hand and just do a little follow up when something becomes available. Empty units are an expense while they’re sitting there. If you don’t clean them out right, they can turn into a mess.

If you leave the trash there for a week or two and it stinks and you get bugs and you get mice, and you get rats. Who has to get rid of the bugs, the rats, the mice? You do. It’s your unenviable task. You just create a problem for yourself. By the way, you aren’t going to rent any place that stinks. Suck it up, clean it up and go on with life. Somebody’s moved into your house. They left you a mess. You can run around, complain and leave it there let it stink. You can let it gather bugs, the roaches from the house next door are going to come over and visit, or you take action. Take pictures, and then fix it up the same day. Get the stink out, get the junk out and get on with the collection. You have the pictures as proof that they trashed the place. This makes collections a lot easier.