The End Of Our First Tenant

We got the news the other day that our tenant at our first US property has left. They had signed a 12 month lease, and yet they have vacated the property after little over 3 months.

According to our property manager, the husband's grandmother had fallen sick, and the family moved to a different state to be by her side and help her out. It is unfortunate for us because not only have we lost our tenant that had so far been quite good to us, they also left in such a hurry, that the property was left with a lot of rubbish and a lot of cleaning required. I was hoping to be able to get some photos of the state the property was left in, because one person's definition of trashed could be another person's definition of perfectly acceptable.

Regardless of the condition of the property, we have had cleaners go in and fix up the property, and it is back on the market and hopefully we will be able to find a new tenant in the coming weeks. The tenant did pay a bond of one month's rent, so this should more than cover the cleaning bill required, but there are still other costs that leave us out of pocket.

Firstly, the tenant had not paid rent for the month of September, and they had left halfway through, so we are out of pocket a couple weeks' rent there. Also, the property management we have, charge a fee of one month's rent for finding a new tenant.

Sometimes there is a benefit of a tenant leaving in that you can justify in raising the rent for the next tenant, which can sometimes be a little difficult with an existing tenant. But unfortunately, in this situation, the market has not really moved significantly enough and it looks like we will have to stick with aiming to get a tenant in there paying $700 per month.

So at the end of the day, this is the the end of our first tenant, I am sure it could have gone a lot worse but also it could have gone a lot better. Hopefully our next one will be able to stay on to at least fulfil the end of the lease they sign on for.