Safeload Coverage
Sometimes life isn’t easy, and everyone goes through ups and downs in life. Maybe you’ve been through a rough patch where you got evicted while renting. If you worked through a difficult situation and you’re ready to put your best foot forward to find a new place to rent, you may wonder, “How to rent after an eviction” to yourself.
Well, the Moving Help® Marketplace is here to offer you some guidance with 11 steps you’ll want to take and consider to be more successful in renting an apartment.
What Is an Eviction?
An eviction is a legal process where a landlord removes a tenant from the landlord’s rental property. Typically, it’s because the tenant is in violation(s) of the lease agreement. Some of these violations includes: nonpayment of rent, paying rent late, property damage, illegal activities, or other lease violations.
What to Do Next for Your Apartment Search? Here Are 11 Steps.
The first step is to make sure you can get yourself onto some solid ground and to be properly prepared for your apartment hunt. This way, you can tackle any situations that may arise. Here are 11 steps to help guide you.
1. Be Upfront and Honest
Unless the landlord doesn’t perform background checks, your eviction will come up sooner than later. You might as well get in front of the situation by being upfront and honest about your previous rental history involving your eviction.
You don’t have to explain all the details, but you can explain what happened, what you learned from it, and how you plan to prevent it from happening in the future.
Be professional, calm, and never get angry in response to your potential future landlord when having this conversation.
Oh, yeah, and never lie — under any circumstances.
2. Have a Plan
If you’re going to rent again — especially on your own — you need to have a plan. What that plan entails will depend on each person, but your plan will need to convince your landlord that you’re a trustworthy tenant.
3. Show Reliable Proof of Income
One of the ways to help your plan is to show you have a reliable proof of income. If you earn 2.5 times to 3 times or even more than 3 times of the monthly rent, your chances will be much higher of being approved.
4. Pay More Upfront
You can offer to pay more upfront with your future landlord. Whether that’s paying the first three months of rent before signing the lease or paying a larger security deposit, this could help you with your chances of being approved. This will provide your landlord with some security.
5. Pay a Month-to-Month Lease
You also can offer to pay a month-to-month lease to build trust with your future landlord. While a short-term lease like a month-to-month lease will cost more than a long-term lease like a 12-month lease, it’ll help build trust between you and your landlord. If you show you’re reliable and consistent with payments, you might eventually score a long-term lease.
6. Get References
If you can get your boss, co-workers, friends, or a previous landlord that ended on good terms, to write you a reference letter, this will help make your case.
They can explain your character, your role at your work, or your role in the community. This will help show your character side to landlords.
Just keep in mind that family members aren’t always the best references since they’ll be considered too biased.
7. Get a Guarantor or Cosigner
A trustworthy person who has a good credit score could help you out and sign as a guarantor or cosigner. Of course, they’ll be on the hook for any late payments. This is a huge responsibility and a huge favor, so you need to make sure you do everything in your power to not have to rely on them to cover your rent payments.
You should only ask highly trusted individuals to sign as either a guarantor or cosigner.
8. Find a Roommate
Maybe you can’t rent an apartment on your own. That’s OK. You have other options. You can find someone who is looking for a roommate to rent one of their rooms, or a roommate who is willing to sign the lease and have the background check done on them instead of you.
If you do get a roommate, you should ask questions about them and their lifestyle to make sure everyone will mesh well together. You’ll need to discuss a chore schedule and how to decorate an apartment together.
9. Pay Past Balances
If you owe any previous landlords money for past/late payments, make sure you to take care of these as soon as possible. In fact, taking care of this step first can help make the process for the rest of these steps easier for you to rent an apartment.
10. Check and Correct Reports
If you get an eviction, especially for late/past rent, it can end up on your credit report too, which can hurt your credit score. If you have paid off that debt, make sure you check and correct any reports that are showing incorrect information.
11. Find Private Landlords or Second-Chance Apartments
Typically, private landlords will have more flexibility vs. a huge corporation. They might not even perform a housing background check on you. Major corporations have strict rules, and they won’t be as flexible for you.
You can search for “apartments that accept evictions” or “eviction friendly apartments” to help you further refine your apartment search.
How Long Do Evictions Last on Your Record?
An eviction can last up to seven years on your record. That’s why figuring out “how to rent after an eviction” isn’t a short-term process. This is why it’s important to try not to get an eviction on your record because it can take a while for an eviction to fall off your record.
How to Rent After an Eviction?
It’s not impossible to figure out how to rent after an eviction. It’ll just take plenty of time, preparation, and rejection. Not every landlord will see an eviction as a bad point, but it’s obviously not a great point.
With the 11 steps the Moving Help Marketplace provided, it’ll make it a little bit easier for you to find a new home instead of worrying “How to rent after an eviction?”
