The Second Oldest Profession

$600 / 1br - Cozy Third Floor Apartment (Fells Point)

Reply to: hous-999999999@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-08-07, 8:06AM EDT

This apartment is located on one of the nicest blocks in Fells Point and features wood floors and exposed brick. It is a small apartment suitable for one person occupancy only. The bedroom's dimensions are 14x12 with a small closet. The kitchen and bath together are also 14x12.

There is a washer and dryer and storage space in the basement. Rent is $600/mo plus utilities. Cats are ok, but please no dogs. $600 security deposit.

Any St. at SomeOther St. google map yahoo map

* cats are OK - purrr
* Location: Fells Point
* it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

About once a year, I have to find new tenants for one of my apartments. I've perfected my apartment renting technique over the years. Craigslist and email make things a lot easier than when I first started.

Back then, I bought ads in newspapers and had to answer phone calls all day. As you can imagine, it can be hard to keep track of conversations and appointments with 20+ people over the span of a few days. No matter how organized I would start out, my notes inevitably turned into a mess and I would screw up something. With email, I have a written record of all my correspondence.

When I first started as a landlord, I tried a couple times to tell people that I was showing the apartment from say 10-2 on Saturday, and to just come on by. I learned quickly that this does not work. You have to treat each person as an individual, and "sell" the apartment to that person, as if no one else was interested in the apartment.

You also have to be ready to show the apartment when you place the ad. When someone responds to the ad, they are interested in, and thinking about renting the apartment. The next day, for whatever reason, they may not be so interested. I immediately start getting responses from the ad as soon as it is posted. I tell folks that I am at the apartment and they can come by now, or in the evening after work.

But I also like to schedule showings for Saturday morning. For this reason, I usually post the ad on a Thursday or Friday.

I schedule appointments a half hour apart. Typically, I'll have a half dozen people scheduled for Saturday morning. Inevitably someone will be late and I'll have to show the apartment to two people at the same time, violating my "sell to the individual" tenet. But what are you going to do?

About half the people who see the apartment will want to rent it. This time around, the first four people wanted to rent it. I asked them about the other apartments they were looking at. I got the sense that most of the apartments in the $600 price range are dumps. I take pretty good care of my apartments. The reason why I price this particular apartment so low, is that it is tiny. 350 square feet.

A lot of people who look at the apartment seem to think that if they fill out an application and everything checks out, I'm going to rent it to them. Not the case. If I have 18 people look at the apartment and nine want it, there are usually three people whom I would never rent the apartment to, three whom I'd be ok with as tenants, and three whom I really want to move in.

An example of someone whom I would never let move in, would be the guy who left four voice mails on my phone. One or two voice mails, ok. But after that, I've got the message that you are psycho, and you should have gotten the message that I'm not going to return your calls.

So anyway, I just signed a lease with the new tenant an hour ago. She's an elementary school teacher. I'm busy this week doing paint touch ups and minor repairs to the apartment before she moves in.

A friend once described landlording and prostitution as great gigs because "you sell it, but you still got it." The only problem is that in both professions, you really have to hustle. Or as Ross said, "You really do have to 'work' for those rental dollars."