Now that you have decided to rent out your home, there are many decisions that need to be made. One decision that always results in divided opinions is whether you should allow pets into your home. As an owner of a rental home, this choice is entirely up to you. Let’s look at the pros and cons.
PROS
Demand
Allowing pets in your rental immediately opens the home to almost twice as many prospective tenants. In our experience about half of today’s renters own pets. Excluding them from applying could result in your best applicants not even getting a chance to apply.
Length of Tenancy
In our experience, pet owners tend to stay at properties longer. This is due to many owners not allowing pets, so the number of available properties for them to move into is limited.
Responsible
To be clear, not all pet owners are responsible. However, you can usually predict which people will be responsible pet owners. How people live their life, directly correlates to how people take care of their pets. If you are considering a potential applicant and they have a good job, good credit, and a good rental history then chances are they are also good at taking care of their pets.
CONS
Damage
The number one reason why people do not want pets in their home is because they are afraid the animal will cause damage to the property. Pets are more likely to damage items such as baseboards, flooring, cabinets and landscaping.
Allergies
Some potential tenants have allergies to certain animals such as cats and dogs. These allergies can be so bad that they won’t move into a property if the previous tenants had animals.
Odor
Sometimes pets leave behind odors that are hard to remove and in very rare instances will linger for a long time after move out.
Bothersome
In some cases, a home may simply not be set up for properly to house animals. If you own an apartment style multi-unit home where your neighbors are just steps from your front door, it’s likely that your pet will be a bother to other neighbors who are entitled to their own peace and quiet.
Summary
While it seems like everyone has heard of horror stories involving pets and rental homes, the truth is that those stories are very rare when considering well qualified applicants. We find that people renting with pets will treat your home just as good as those that don’t have pets. If you are worried about renting your home to someone with pets but will still consider the option, there are steps you can take to protect your home. You can request a higher security deposit, charge extra pet rent or install pet friendly landscaping and flooring. If you would like to find out if we think you should accept pets into your home, we would love to help you out.