Why I Allow Pets in my Rentals

My current “child” is an adorable 8 pound kitty cat. She is a total princes and spoiled beyond means. She has been my right arm, side kick, and TV watcher since the early beginnings of my marriage. I would NEVER have made it through our first deployment, the TDY’s or other experiences that I have survived without her by my side. There is a reason her name is “Missy” short for Mistress; i.e. the hubs has the Navy and I have the cat.

While I am one of the biggest advocates for treating rentals like a business, I am also an advocate for treating others as I wish to be treated. There are always stories about the worst that can happen.

Yes, animals could destroy your house, but so can two year olds.Your husband could divorce you, you could die in a car accident on your way to work, etc. My point is we live the rest of our lives not worrying about the worst case situations therefore we cannot allow the worst case scenario to drive our rental.

If we let the worst case scenario drive us we would miss out on some rather AMAZING business benefits to allowing pets in rentals. Here are just a few…

4 Benefits to Allowing Pets in Rentals

• Larger Market: A large portion of the market allows pets. By eliminating pets you greatly reduce those who can rent the house.

• Higher Rents: We can charge top of the market because we have less competition in the neighborhoods that allow pets.

• Less Upgrade Cost: Our carpet has lasted much longer since our families with animals would rather have older carpet than the liability of new carpet.

• Less Competition: There are lot of cheaper, nicer homes than ours on the market. On the other hand NONE of them will allow pets. I have seen houses as low as $200 less a month which is only $2,400 a year. Our tenants with pets have not done any of that kind of damage. Actually over the years our tenants without animals have been just as much a problem as those with.

I will be honest and say this adorable little child was the first reason I began allowing pets in rentals. I remembered how much “fun” I had finding accommodation for her before we started buying. Good thing I am an empire builder and like owning houses, because it was not easy finding rentals that allowed pets. She is not the only reason why I do it, but the benefits have greatly outweighed the issues over the years.

That being said I think it is very important to protect yourself and property. The way you you can do this is by having a great lease AND by having a pet clause whether or not you believe in having pets. As stated in the above link to the pet clause, I require one month’s security deposit or pet rent. In the states I operate in, if you don’t have a non-allowed pet fee in the lease you are out of luck minus actual destruction expenses.

Do you allow pets? Why or why not?