This woman who has Social Security, brings in almost 3x with that what the rent would be monthly. I've seen the statements. And she also has been working at least a year at a part time job which she also holds, which was verified.

She has a to-be-roommate son with her who just got hired at a job (starts Monday), and seems pretty adamant about working it. The job checked out. They seem nice enough. He has at least one good work reference from a previous job.

They have deposit and first months rent in hand.

All well and good.

Except for that question, "Why are you moving?"

Well, she put the answer right there on the application. Foreclosure. She's been living at a condo for several years, which is being foreclosed on.

Of course, the bank will smugly tell you absolutely nothing at all regarding the circumstances. So you're left with nothing but their story.

And the story is basically this: the bad relative. And I'll give it to you, verbatim, from the other brother, who will be her roommate:

"Well, my mother was supporting my brother and his three boys every week really. Money for bills, food, gas, ECT. My brother now gets child support from his ex wife. That financial burden is now gone. She [my mother] was foreclosed bc at the time didn't have all the funds together bc she was always helping. So to reiterate my mom will no longer be supporting my brother and his three kids thus making funds available."

People have to start again somewhere. I don't know anything about how foreclosures work, and as I said the bank involved is deliberately of zero help.

But is a foreclosed applicant toxic?

As I said, they have the money in hand, and appear to have the income to make it work.

Just wanted to get people's thoughts/opinions on the subject.

Almost 3 million homeowners were foreclosed upon in 2009.

About 2.9 million were foreclosed upon in 2010.

2.7 million homes were foreclosed upon in 2011.

1.8 million foreclosures in 2012.

1.36 million foreclosures in 2013.

1.12 million foreclosures in 2014.

The numbers vary a bit, depending on who's reporting them, and the fact that the foreclosure process takes time, so maybe some houses were counted twice, and there's a difference between "lost to foreclosure" and "filed upon". But overall-- let's just call it somewhere between 7 million households and 13 million households, just for round numbers, over a six-year period.

Anyhow. There's about 127.6 million households in the US.

So it's somewhere between 1 in 20 and 1 in 10 households were foreclosed upon. And a lot of homeowners became renters while their credit repaired itself.

So-- is a foreclosure applicant toxic? Not necessarily. Otherwise, you'd have, say, 10 million people (plus assorted spouses and children) who were suddenly homeless for the next seven years.

But you know your applicant has a soft spot for helping her family members beyond what she can afford to spare.

Having the son's income present helps spread out some of the risk, if "length of time at current job" isn't one of your screening criteria.

So if you think the son and mom can be a good team, file that bit of information away in the back of your head, and give them a try. You might implement some sort of autodraft, where they don't get to choose paying you the rent--- it gets automatically deducted from their bank account. You might autodraft from the son, and allow his mom to reimburse him for her share, or something like that.

She's on SSI and you can't garnish that---- otherwise with modifications --- I'd do it. Big modifications to dep and terms.

Footnote: People who get behind a few months on Mort payments (say due to job loss) can't just come up with 4 months of payments to catch up. Once it's in arrears the lender can't take part payment and continue the foreclosure.

The banks in my area are useless on risk like this, they turn it over to the county court to serve and then auction the parcel, so you can prolly get the info looking on the county docket for the last name and also do some reverse engineering from the mortgage at the recorders office - very hard to foreclose without having a mortgage. This may not help this applicant much but will help you on future purchases, once you know the court process by observing the foreclosure you will know what agent has this d details on the property you seem and may intervene the common process with a cash offer.

" if "length of time at current job" isn't one of your screening criteria."

There may be those who also come to find that what one requires in a renter, and what is available to pick from rarely match up. You can easily (at least in my case) end up with a vacant unit for months on end while you pan through applications, most of them with glaring red flags--- apps which often for some reason tend to slack off if the place has been up for rent a long time.

As someone else pointed out: "For all the time the place sat empty while you looked for the perfect tenant, you could have signed someone no-so-great up, got rent and deposit and kicked them out by now."

Wash, rinse, repeat etc.

I suppose there is SOME wisdom to that, at least to an extent.

Well at any rate, I think they're a go. They're well above the litter of applicants so far, and pretty passionate about promising they've turned over a new leaf. You can all watch from a safe distance lol.

Triplexer, do I understand this correctly that you will be signing a lease with these people? Why? They have proven they do not pay as agreed. Not to mention a career deadbeat will be moving in. Aren't you concerned that all you get out of this transaction is lawyer bills and an expensive repair bill.

Triplexer, if you're going to go for it for lack of good prospects I would also want to get a higher deposit as well. Keep us posted as to how they work out over the next few months. Good luck.