Multiple Tenants In Single Unit


Tony H. | email Aug 9 2017, 07:38 PM
I've got several units where the tenants have roommates and noticed the software doesn't allow you to have multiple tenants listed in 1 unit. Each tenant pays their own rent to me so I need to keep track of all tenants and who pays what.

I've read that it's best to create 'sub-units' in the software. For example with Unit #1, one tenant would be Unit #1A, next tenant Unit #1B, etc.

If I set things up this way and want to run reports on Unit #1, I imagine I would have to select all (#1A, #1B, etc).

However, what if 3 years from now I want to run a report for Unit #1? Will I have to basically select all units having to do with Unit #1 from over the years? Keep in mind my next tenant in Unit #1 might just be 1 person so I guess I'd label them as Unit #1. . . or should it be Unit #1A? Or something else?

I just want to make sure I set everything up correctly so it doesn't bite me down the road.

Thnx!
Stephane Grenier | email Aug 10 2017, 03:58 PM
Hi Tony,

You've just described exactly why the software does it this way. Basically what happens if you go back and forth between renting it by the room and then by the full unit? One month it could be fully occupied with one tenant and then the next month it could have 2 vacancies with 3 tenant's living in it. To manage that kind of back and forth requires a lot more complexity, not just in the software but also for you in terms of managing the data. There are some solutions that do this but it gets very complex, and in many cases you'll run into data errors where the software won't correctly identify an upcoming vacancy. Not only that but the cost for these solutions, mainly due to the complexity, is usually many times our price. And even then they generally only work with sub-units forcing you to keep the properties as sub-units.

The most basic way to look at it is if each tenant is renting it individually, has their own lease agreement, rental payments, can move in and out independently, then really those are separate units (a bedroom can be considered a separate unit). Basically unit 1 is really multiple sub-units so instead of having the structure of building/unit/sub-unit we only go only level deep. This allows us to keep the software a lot more affordable and is essentially the same in any case without all the added complexity. The only real disadvantage is that you you cannot subgroup by unit. That is you cannot run reports on just unit 1 directly. You can export the data to a CSV file which you can then separate out in Excel but this is not possible directly in the software. If you absolutely need that then the cost of a solution that will support that will be at least 5-10x the price of our Desktop Edition on a per year basis...

Regards,
Stephan Grenier
Founder
LandlordMax Software Inc.
http://www.LandlordMax.com
http://www.FollowSteph.com


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