Subleasing: Pros And Cons For Landlords
Not All Subleasing Arrangements Are Negative
In some states and municipalities, laws exist which restrict subletting arrangements. However, this isn’t the case everywhere, and there are situations where, as a landlord, a sublet arrangement can be worthwhile.
Pros and cons exist for subletting, and in order to determine if you should allow this on your property, you want to weigh them. As a means of helping you establish the best practices for your particular situation, in the following text we’ll briefly explore some of the pros and cons associated with subletting.
Positive Aspects Of Subletting
If you’ve got a tenant who is always struggling to pay the rent, allowing them to sublet can assure you always get paid when rent is due. Though America’s economy is doing well, many factors are pushing even the most honest citizens into pursuing less-than-recommendable courses of action. Consider student loans, as an example.
Getting a four-year education is going to cost something like $50k, up to $100k or more. Some post-grad in their early twenties who have never held down a job may enter the workforce tens of thousands of dollars in debt. How will they handle it? Well, they might take out loans, buy things on credit, and make a number of poor choices.
In all likelihood, such an individual will be stuck at a conventional nine-to-five occupation for decades. What this means is, though they may have relatively constant income, they still struggle to make ends meet at the end of every month. If you let them sublet, you can reduce some of the burdens they experience, and so avoid being impacted by their financial losses.
Subletting arrangements can lead to cleaner, better-managed premises. Sometimes someone your tenant is renting to has construction or cleaning skills. Sometimes someone subletting may run an additional business through an apartment. Some of these Texas apartments for rent allow subletting for these and similar reasons, given prior landlord consent.
Negative Aspects Of Subletting
It can be illegal in your municipality to sublet even given landlord consent. This is the case in certain collegiate communities. Sometimes several subletting arrangements are possible given written consent, but contrarily, there are instances where only a single instance of subletting is allowed.
So if you were a landlord with a property that had four bedrooms, you might only be able to rent to one or two people legally. If you’re found out of compliance, you could be subject to local legal consequences.
Subletting can additionally open you up to compounded late payments. If someone is willing to pay for a sublet room, that usually means they aren’t too financially endowed, to begin with. Certainly, this isn’t always the case, but it’s a factor that deserves careful consideration.
Something else worth thinking about is this: those under a sublet arrangement aren’t as responsible for associated damage to your property as the primary tenant. While you can demand such legal language in a subletting agreement, this is a detail many landlords miss. If you don’t cover your bases here, it could prove damaging to your property.
Making The Best Choice For Your Property
Subletting can maximize profitability potential for a piece of real estate. If you’ve got a home that has several bathrooms and five bedrooms, all in decent shape, you could potentially recoup $5,000 a month from that premises through $1k per tenant. You could have a primary tenant collect the other $4k, and cut that individual a discount.
If you were pulling in $4,500 for a single unit over a year’s time, that’s $54k a year. For that kind of money, you can keep the property in excellent condition, manage taxation, and expand your largesse as a landlord. However, if you’re not careful, there’s a high potential for seeing negative consequences like lack of payment, property damage, or legal ramifications.
If you’ve gotten yourself in a situation where someone renting under a sublet agreement needs to be evicted, there are apartment location options that can allow for free moves if necessary. It’s possible for tenants to move free with UmoveFree. There are options if you’re in a difficult situation.
The Condensed Takeaway
The bottom line is this: it’s impossible to determine the totality of consequences from a subletting scenario. These represent a future outcome. There are pros to the process, there are cons for the process, and whether allowing tenants to sublet is right for you as a landlord will depend on your own unique circumstances.
