Pets in Your Rental: The Pros and Cons for Landlords & Tenants!
Allowing pets in a rental property can be a game-changer—but is it the right choice for you? In this video, we break down the pros and cons of renting with pets, from attracting more tenants to potential property damage. Whether you're a landlord deciding on a pet policy or a tenant looking for a pet-friendly home, this guide will help you navigate the benefits and challenges.
Watch now to make the best decision for your rental!
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Transcript
Hi and welcome Inside Uplift Property Management today we are going to be talking about pets-Everyone has them. Should you allow them into your rental? We're going to weigh some of the pros and cons.
The case for allowing pets 70% of Americans own pets whether that's a cat, a dog, a lizard, a bird so we have a huge tenant pool that we can reach when we are allowing pets into our unit and for some of those pet lovers out there they will pay a higher premium for an apartment that's that's pet friendly or a house that's pet friendly and then also with you know the changing laws you'll see more and more units not allowing pets so longer tenency and that's always important we want to keep tenant as long as we can.
Now there are obviously risks when allowing pets into your units, pets they use the bathroom sometimes inside the house they can scratch things tear things up damage baseboard so there's always that that property damage that can happen we have noise complaints if your dogs in the backyard barking and neighbors are going to be angry that can cause some issues and lastly we have you know allergies and liabilities future tenants might be really sensitive to certain animal hair things like that so that might require duct cleaning or you know, make the unit harder to to rent in the future and then we just have the liability of of pets right we don't want dogs biting neighbors or or anything like that.
So understanding the ever changing laws in California a convention has it where we used to be able to charge a pet deposit on top of a security deposit for allowing pets which was a huge motivation for owners to allow pets into their unit with some of the the laws that have changed unless you're an exempt unit you cannot charge more than one month's rent as a security deposit so for a lot of those multi-family units and apartments we're no longer able to charge More Than A month's rent which you know deincentivizes owners to allow pets into their unit you still can though pet do a pet rent here at Uplift we do $75 per pet but that's that's a pretty good you know way to make a little bit of extra income for allowing pets into the unit if you say no pets and the owner of the pet goes and decides to get a ESA for that animal you have to allow them into the unit and if they are an ESA you cannot charge a security deposit you cannot charge uh additional rent for that animal so just all things to to keep in mind.
Best practices if we're going to allow pets is you want to set clear policies you know and you can get granular with the amount the amount of animals the type of animals you want if you have restricted breeds cats only dogs only what whatever those things may be just make sure to set clear policies charge pet rent you know it's it's a little bit of extra income um but that can really go a long way especially in this declining rental market include a pet agreement or an addendum in your lease really important, you need to be able to outline all of those clear policies in the lease agreement so people understand what you know what they're signing up for and what the expectations are for having a pet and then lastly conduct regular inspections you know annual inspections are really important getting inside the unit making sure that pet isn't damaging you know any of the house or or anything like that is going to help you to side if if these tenants are good fit for your unit but also just staying on top of any maintenance or things that might need to be done it's really important so those things don't build up.
So making the decision if you want to allow pets it's really opening up your potential Market, the amount of tenants that will apply for your unit it's very pet friendly here in Southern California but if you don't, you know everybody's risk tolerance is different, so if you don't want to allow pets that's totally fine too. If you have any questions regarding pets addendums in your lease or if you should allow pets or not feel free to give Uplift to call we'd love to talk over the the pros and cons with you.
