Renters-cory

We are now in negotiation phase with potential renters. They want us to repaint the interior of the whole house and replace the carpets. They have a lab and a boxer and five kids. Tom and I are thinking they should be happy anyone will rent to them with that many in the family. I am to tell them that they are more than welcome to change out the carpet and change paint colors after they move in, having signed a year lease, but we are not doing it for them. The price is right as the house stands.

I have to admit the lime green bedroom is a bit bright, but they have children that could pick their own colors, change it to a color they like. My hope is that they become long term renters and we don't have to deal with this house again for several years. I even have flooring for either Trevor's room or our room if they want to rip out carpet and install it themselves. It matches the rest of the upstairs which we already installed. I just never finished installing. But we aren't going to do it for them. We'll clean the house, then they can take over and decorate to their tastes.

We will be checking past rental histories and doing the due diligence. Well, the property manager we hired will be doing the work. There are things in the contract such as inspections of the interior of the house periodically, to prevent drug dealers from renting. There are also limits to the number of people that can reside in the house so they can't have more than one family sharing the house. They don't even want possession until end of July which suites us just fine. The lease they are in now doesn't expire until the end of July.

I will be talking with them this weekend to work out the details and of course finding out their story to make sure everything will work out to our satisfaction. The other showing, the woman didn't like the house. Tom said he had the impression she was a neat nick. She would not have approved or tolerated the imperfections. Our agent had the impression they had found something else and were just looking to confirm their other choice as best.

I am excited. Hopefully, everything goes as planned. Tom was right though, the house wasn't selling because of my bad paint job and the stained carpets. But I don't see the point of making it all new and special for five kids and two big dogs. They will be as hard on the house as we were, if not more so. But that is all right as it buys us time and as the saying goes"Be careful what you wish for", I now have the rental I always wanted. And our credit rating is still good and will survive. Yeah!!!

Since we don't have to short sale we don't have to force the mortgage company to deal with us by being delinquent. Thank goodness we came to this direction quickly before real damage was done to our credit. One month is not even going to make a ding. Love that. The twists and turns of life have definitely been interesting recently.

Now all we have to do is close on a house and move before the tenants need this place.