We are a credit bureau reporting realty company, tenants who pay rents on time LOVE to receive credit for on time payments on their credit report and our property owner clients love having on time rent paying tenants. We call our offering the “Credit Builder” program, and tenant prospects love it.

 

Also, we contract with an Urgent Maintenance Call Center that is available 24/7/365 to dispatch plumbers on broken, flowing plumbing or to dispatch heating and air conditioning companies. Tenants love a fast response, and they rent from Independence Realty because of these unique benefits.

 

Our 27 Days on Market average is by far better than the 60 days on market average that is the typical result in our local area. Our higher caliber service and unique benefits makes qualified tenants want to rent from us first. Let the OTHER owners with other realty companies have the vacancy, we want the quality tenants first.

For the Agent Showing Plan, we charge a 10% management commission (fee) on rents received with a one time 40% leasing fee for properties that are vacant (fee is charged only after the new tenant moves in). Also, all the members of our local board of Realtors are offered the leasing fee as an incentive to assist in renting the property and in getting the best results fast. A Realtor electronic lockbox will be placed on the door. We do showings by appointment in the evenings and on weekends during daylight hours.

This plan saves the property owner 40% in total agency fees the first year! The intelligent lockbox service plan has no leasing fee and a monthly 8% property management fee of rents collected. There are no other fees with this plan. This plan is only for single family residential properties.

We can help you select a property, negotiate purchase, advise on cost effective work to be done to prepare the property for market, create effective ads with tremendous photos to showcase the property, attract tenant prospects to see the property, screen those tenants, handle all requests for maintenance, and especially be there for you when something goes wrong. We are experienced on our legal obligations under state and federal law, we go to continuing education sessions multiple times a year to stay current on all phases of fair housing and other regulatory requirements, tenant rent collection issues and when needed, eviction issues and customer service issues. Every owner receives a full monthly set of financial reports plus all receipts for any work that was done via posting to the owners portal and full summary of income and expenses at the end of the year.

Our Days on Market (DOM) for agent showings runs approximately 27 DOM. We have maintained this average for several years. The discounted rate Intelligent Lockbox Service Plan runs about 45 DOM. The local board of Realtors average for a rental listing is 60 DOM.

Our screening process begins with running the applicant’s criminal history, credit report, national eviction search, checking rental references and doing income verification. A detailed description of tenant qualifying criteria is found on the tenant FAQ page.

We disburse net rents at the end of the month, by direct deposit, into the bank account of your choice. We do this at month end because, according to Alabama state law, the money must be held in an Escrow account for the month rent is paid so that it may be immediately refunded, along with deposits made, in the event the property becomes uninhabitable. Therefore, we only earn the money after the final day of the rent month has passed.

The typical causes of making a property uninhabitable are fire, tornado, flooding, and the property being condemned by government action.

The owner keeps all late fees. When a realty company keeps all the late fees, it is an incentive to get tenants who do not pay rent on time. We have had a number of managed properties assigned to us by owners who found that the tenants they had were not paying rent at all on time, and the local realty companies were making more money off tenant late fees than the management commission. Tenants were paying so late that rents for a month would only be disbursed to owner two months after rent was due.

 

A situation where the service provider is rewarded more money by doing a worse job is called a “perverse incentive,” we believe it is our job as a realty company to find qualified tenants that pay on time, take care of the property and report damaging maintenance needs promptly.

No we do not, since we pay out the net rents at the end of the month after the rent has been earned, we deduct any vendor expenses and deposit the net. Should the property need approved repairs more than the amount we have, the owner can do immediate funding for repairs though the owners portal with a check, credit or debit card.

The Alabama Landlord Tenant Act requires that property owners maintain the plumbing, electrical, heating and air conditioning, appliances in normal operating condition and that the property be in operational condition. The tenant in a single family residential home can be required to take care of such things as landscaping, mowing, routine pest service, however the owner is always responsible for maintenance of all core systems with trade licensed professionals.

The software we use, charges the tenants application fees when they make application on line through our rental website. The application fee income is then sent on to the agency because Independence Realty is paying for the costs of processing and screening fees.

Immediately, because you as owner are emailed the work order as soon as it is created to let you know maintenance is scheduled or requested for the property, and this also is done by the urgent maintenance call center that we contract with.