Basically let’s say a prospective tenant wants to rent an apartment/house and is willing to pay years worth a rent up front. Their background is clean and references check out, the only thing is they are on disability. Would you rent to them or tell them take a hike because they don't have an "income".

I would rent to them in a heartbeat.  That's some nice extra interest income.  If they don't pay when the ride is over give them the boot and keep the deposit.

Quoted: I would rent to them in a heartbeat.  That's some nice extra interest income.  If they don't pay when the ride is over give them the boot and keep the deposit.

See that's my thoughts exactly. The landlord never has to worry about not getting paid while the lease is active. However most of these so called real estate agent here in SouthEastern, VA have the mentality "if you don't make 3 times the rent, we're not renting to you" regardless of the fact the lease is paid in full up front.


Too bad that BS doesn't violate any law. I could end up owning a lot of land.

IANAL, but be careful about accepting a full year's worth of rent. If you accept rent for a year in advance you may accidentally create a year-to-year rental term instead of month-to-month. If some problem comes up, it will be much harder to get rid of them instead of just giving them 30 days notice or whatever.

Quoted: IANAL, but be careful about accepting a full year's worth of rent. If you accept rent for a year in advance you may accidentally create a year-to-year rental term instead of month-to-month. If some problem comes up, it will be much harder to get rid of them instead of just giving them 30 days notice or whatever.

+1.  Have a good contract in hand for them.  Make sure that it spells out what happens to the deposit if they move out, the rental term, what happens at the end of the year, etc.  If you are careful and have everything in writing there is no major down side I can see if you are going to be renting the property anyway.

There is a building in Queens that I used to live in that did that.  In fact, they had it down to a science.  If you had no credit history or references, you would pay 1 years rent plus 10% security, in cash, up front, and they would give you a 9 month lease, and they would start legal proceedings at 9 months so at the 1 year mark they could have you evicted without further delay, just in case you didn't move out or tried to screw them.  If you wanted to stay, you paid another year at the 9 month mark, and the cycle started all over.

How could a landlord be screwed by someone who prepays any more than someone who is paying month to month on a 1 year lease? You should be worry free for the term of the lease, no?

I'm just trying to figure out what these real estate people are thinking, besides trying to screw everyone including the Navy.