Pet rent every month or one nonrefundable fee up front, after a $2,900 pet turn

Question

Turned a unit last month where the dog had worked on the base of every door frame in the place, plus the carpet, plus a section of the vinyl in the kitchen. Total scope came in around $2,900 and about $1,100 of it was stuff I'd have replaced anyway in a couple of years, so call the real pet damage $1,800.

The tenant had paid a $300 one-time pet fee at move-in, nonrefundable. Twenty-two months in the unit. So I collected $300 against $1,800.

If I'd been charging $35 a month in pet rent instead, that's $770 over the same tenancy. Still short, but a lot closer, and it collects from the tenants who stay longest, which is roughly the ones whose animals do the most cumulative wear.

The counterargument my manager gives: a monthly charge shows up in every rent comparison and can lose you the applicant at the search stage, while a one-time fee at move-in is easier to say yes to once someone already wants the unit. She also points out that in some states what you can charge and hold for pets is regulated and refundable deposits get treated differently from fees, so this varies by where you are and is worth confirming with someone licensed in your state.

What do you run?

megan_doyle15 · Answer

Genuinely didn't know pet rent was a thing you could just charge every month. Voted monthly on the logic that $770 beats $300 and I can't see how the applicant math is that different, but I've never leased anything so I'm guessing.

nicole_adeyemi · Answer

@rigging the applicant math is different because most people shop on the monthly number and nothing else. $1,500 plus $35 reads as $1,535 to a search filter and to a spouse doing a spreadsheet, and you're now competing against the identical unit down the street at $1,500 with a $300 fee.

I'd do both, small on each side. And @harrow, service animals and assistance animals are a separate category under federal fair housing rules where pet fees generally can't be charged at all, which is exactly the kind of thing to have your attorney and your manager both confirm in writing before you set a policy.

kevin_lombard · Answer

Went back over this. So the fee never actually covers the damage under either version, it just covers more or less of it? That reframes it for me, it's pricing the risk of renting to a pet owner rather than a repair budget. Which I suppose is also why some of you allow pets at all, the applicant pool is much bigger.

Pet rent every month or one nonrefundable fee up front, after a $2,900 pet turn

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