Most of us who have had pets or had rental units where we have allowed petsare familiar with scratched hardwood floors, chewed carpets, miscellaneous stains of unknown origin, and those strange odors that are impossible to get rid of. These are the potential side effects of allowing your tenants to have pets. But, before you add that clause to your lease banning pets from your rental units, you need to look at the other side of the coin.
Now that we have taken a good look at the potential problems of allowing your tenants to have pets, let’s take a look at the potential benefits of letting pets into your rental units.
According to a study published in the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, landlords who place no restrictions on pets in their rental units tend to enjoy a rental premium of almost 12 percent in comparison to those who do not allow pets.
Research also shows that tenants who are allowed to have pets tend to stay longer than those who do not have pets. By numbers, studies show pet owners tend to stay from 23 to 46 months more than those who do not have pets.
Because rental units that allow pets are likely to receive as twice as many applications for empty units as those who refused to allow them in. This gives you the opportunity to be far more selective when it comes to finding the right tenant for each of your properties.
It is also a proven fact that landlords who allow pets tend to spend less than half the average in marketing time and money than those who are pet free.
However, if you do choose to allow pets, you do have to put some limits in place. This might include not allowing certain breeds that are known to be aggressive or highly destructive. You should also think about including a separate pet deposit. This may help offset the cost of repairing any damage the pet does to your home.
According to the laws of the state of California, a tenant has the legal right to bring their emotional support animals to live with them in a number of instances. As a landlord, you have a responsibility to “provide reasonable accommodations to afford a person with a disability to equally use and enjoy” either a rental apartment or home. This means that as a landlord, even if you don’t normally allow pets, you may have no choice but to allow a tenant with an emotional support animal to rent from you. The only time you can refuse to allow a support animal in your rental unitis if that individual animal poses any type of physical threat to the health and safety of other people or of causing your property significant damage.
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