Someone Please Tell Me What A Good Pet Deposit Would Be

I personally love dogs I have 4 American Pit Bull Terriers and a German Shepard Dingo but if I was renting I would expect to pay a hefty Deposit on them (THANKFULLY WE OWN) Yes you should charge more for larger pets. normal deposit runs any where between 200.00 to 500.00 per pet (in CA) Hope this helps!
MJ

That's how it was when I lived there, but I wasn't sure if that was across the board. Most lanlords here say no pets.

When I first moved to Nashville I called around to check pet deposits. They were usually around $100 to $250 for small dogs and cats. Larger dogs were $400 to $500...strange thing is some wouldn't let me have my little 3 ounce bird but a 70 pound dog was fine. They said birds are noisy. LOL! I guess they didn't love little birds like I do.

Birds make the least amount of mess too! I had two big dogs in California, but we owned our own home, and several cats. We had a bird once but he was old. He was so mellow, the dog would carry him around in her mouth and my son that was three at the time actually pulled the birds tail out. It grew back eventually. The place we lived before her we didn't have a pat, but one day last year at the daycare I worked at a parent from my youngest son's preschool class came in and asked would he like a toy poodle. Me, I said yes thinking she was talking was talking about a stuffed animal so imagine my suprise when she brought me a real dog. I almost died, we weren't suposed to have pets. Wouldn't you know it the landlord came bynot two days later and we were still trying to figure out what to do with the dog! My husband went out and talked to him and he came in and looked at the dog and said oh yeah you can have a little dog like that. We didn't have to put any pet deposit or anything. Now this house we live in now we got on lease option no money down, and since we are going to buy we get to paint or decorate or build however we want. Also we get 50 off every month, and each payment we make counts as credit towards purchase. We even got almost a full month free to move in because the people that moved out didn't clean. I jumped on that offer. The owner even bought us a fridge. He was just happy to get someone in who knew how to fix things and take care of the place. Now this is the reason for this post! The girl that lived here before we moved in had a very large dog. Apparently the dog had full run of the house. The carpet in every room was completely covered with dogmess that was burried deep into the carpet. They tried cleaning the carpet, we tried cleaning the carpet, nothing helped. In the dead of winter we had to sleep with the windows open and my sinuses were so clogged. It was so awful one day I just started pulling the carpets out. Wow you should have seen the wood subfloor the only clean spots were where the furniture had been. Whole living room and hallway, as well as areas in the bedroom. Now each bedroom had hardwood floors under the carpet, so now all three need to be redone, but since I have young kids and nieces and nephews I will wait. I did end up putting in laminate flooring, my first solo job. We actually had to get primer with oder and stain shields to cover the subfloor before we could install the laminate. What a nightmare, so I don't want that problem with any rentals.

that's funny. I am willing to allow though because it is lonly without your pets. So I finally see the guy in the picture. It took a while after I read that post to see it. Who took it?

DON'T FORGET, you should charge more per month for rent/lease fees!
Oh yea, for a BAD Pet get even more

SirJohn

When we had our rental we allowed pets and took a $200 non-refundable pet deposit. We had tenants that had cats and tenants that had dogs and there was never any damage from the pets. We also asked the tenant when they were filling out the initial paperwork to give us a copy of their most recent yearly exam records for their pet. If everything was up-to-date This showed responsibility to the pet. Not guaranteeing a well trained, house broken pet but I figured they were more likely to have taken the time to do that too if the health records were up to date.

Lea

If you really don't mind tenants with pets you could trying letting vets know you allow pets. When we were renting and couldn't find a landlord that allowed pets I contacted veteranarians in the area near the property to find out if they knew of any landlords who allowed pets. They did and gave me the name of the landlord we ended up renting from.

Lea

It could range from $75 to $250 just depends on you.

Look at your local news paper for ideas and compare prices.

don't forget to check into insurance. many companies will not insure a home rented with certain pets. i am all for the pet deposit being a considerable amount and then an increased monthly fee for pets. that helps to cover any damages, etc. that you have to take care of when they move out.

company we had on our rental had a list of dogs that were not allowed (i.e., rotweillers, shephards, etc.) When we ran our ad we didn't mention if pets were allowed or not. When people asked if pets were allowed I said yes. Later in the conversation I'd ask them what kind of dog they had. If the answer was one of the breeds not allowed by our insurance company then I would tell them that we couldn't allow that breed per our insurance company. Nobody ever had one of the breeds that the insurance company didn't allow.

Lea

this info helps me alot. I hadn't thought of it until I placed an ad and someone asked about it.

This is always a tricky call. I t depends a lot ont eh property you are renting out. I have some properties that i allow pets and pthers that i dont. I charge $100.00 deposit for a cat. More for dogs and considerably more for large dogs. I agree with the person that stated you should meet the pet and get the vet records. vet records show responsibility. Meeting the pet is cruciazl because an out of control puppy can ruin anything. Try to notice if the pet is lethargic. I had a tenant give their cat a tranquilizer before i met it because they didnt want me to see the true behavior. If you got hardwood floors then any dog is pretty much out of the question in my book. Have tried making them an "outside only" pet. this doesnt work because your not there to enforce it. Also you can choose to have the tenant pay an extra $25.00 - $50.00 / month instead of the extra deposit. over the course of a 1 year lease the $50. equals $600 and there is no question about deposit refunding. Iowa(where i live) can get sticky with the "non-refundable deposit". Is bette to call it a "pet allowance fee".

GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR DECISION

LeRoy

pet allowance fee. I will say though, we are very responsible with our pets wether renting or in our own home, but we only go to a vet for rabies vaccine and spay or neuturing, we give the vaccines to our pets ourselves because it's much cheaper. We have had wood floors both here and in California, and they have cleaned up much easier than carpet as far as accidents go. I also think the extra rent is good too, because that can be put aside to fix any problems that arise from pets. I have seen cats tear up blinds and lots of other things. We personally haven't had any like that but we have been to people's houses that have. I think outside only here would also be hard because of the weather. There are many times it's below zero and pets can be harmed just as well as humans in those elements. Thanks for the advice LeRoy, it will come in handy.