Rental leases

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muzie_IHB

muzie_IHB

New member
<p>First of all, thanks to Zovall for this great blog, and thanks for the community for providing so much useful information on the Irvine housing market. There's some real gems here. Im amazed that it's quite obvious that the average renter on these forums knows WAY more about real estate than just anout any homeowner I know :-).</p>

<p>So these forums tipped me to look at MLS listings for rentals and I immediately spotted what looked like some pretty good deals for rentals. Lots more space than my current apartment (Quail Meadow, managed by TIC) for the same price, and about 3 blocks from where I live to boot. I could really use some extra space.</p>

<p>Problem is I just renewed my lease yesterday. Oops.</p>

<p>I'll ask the lease office if I could negotiate the lease-breaking penalty fee if I break the lease just a few days after it's signed, but I don't expect any luck there.</p>

<p>One thing though is that I asked if I could avoid the penalty fee if I found somebody to take over the lease and they said that would still be breaking the lease and would still be applied the penalty. Hm. Is that true? I'm guessing whatever's in the contract goes, but does anybody have any experience with breaking leases with the Irvine company?</p>

<p>-Muzie</p>
 
I have heard horror stories about trying to break Irvine Company leases. They have staff attorneys, and they will go after you. Even if you are successful, you will have a bad reference from a previous landlord (them), and it will be difficult to find another rental because of it. I am afraid you are stuck.
 
<p>Muzie, what is your lease break charge?</p>

<p>TIC definitely won't waive any charges in the contract, even if you find a new tenant. They go after everything they are legally entitled to, whether it makes sense or not.</p>

<p>I'm not sure I 100% agree with Irvine Renter that you'll get a bad reference from them. My TIC community said all they want is their $$ and it's not a big deal. But admittedly, I haven't been through it yet.</p>

<p>SCHB</p>
 
<p>The lease break charge was 1500$ and was just increased to 1800$ a few weeks ago. This is on a 1840$/mo apartment on a 9 month lease.</p>

<p>I heard back from their lease office and, basically the gist of it is, they can let me go off the lease as long as they make some nice cash in the process :P. The options are:</p>

<p>- Break the lease and pay the penalty fee. Nobody mentioned any "bad reference" but for such a hefty fee I would expect that would cover their risk.</p>

<p>- Take the "rent-responsible option", which is advertise the apartment for the market rate (not my preferred rate, so about 100$ more). Find a tenant for them and get the new tenant to take a new lease. Must also pay 5-7 days out of my pocket to cover the time it takes for them to "prepare the apartment", so about 300-400$ out of my pocket. So they get 400$ or so from me and 1000$ or so extra rent from the new tenant.</p>

<p>- You can also upgrade to any TIC-owned apartment that's 1$ more or better with no penalty fee. Possibly a loophole here, I could see people moving to a bigger apartment with a different shorter or month-to-month lease (the lease terms vary from one community to the next) to avoid a penalty fee, but I'm sure TIC thought of that too :-).</p>

<p>Hopefully this info is helpful for any other renters out there. In fluctuating markets, it's always nice to have flexible options!</p>

<p>-Muzie</p>
 
<p>I'll probably wait this one out. 9 months isn't too bad.</p>

<p>It's good to know if I find some deal I ABSOLUTELY can't resist, I have some options. Looks like the least expensive option is to screw someone else over by getting them to pay more rent than I do. </p>

<p>"Screwing someone else over" seems to be the basic principle behind real estate affairs, whether it's flipping, borrowing or renting.... Which is why I don't like real estate so much. With stocks there's at least some pretense that the company is providing added value to its customers.</p>

<p>-Muzie</p>
 
<p>Muzie mentioned finding MLS listing of rentals here somewhere... Could you give the reference? Also, is there a free MLS listing site for rentals? Reference/link would be appreciated...</p>
 
<p>Oh I just went to the <a href="http://firstteam.com/">http://firstteam.com/</a> website which was given by someone else on this very forum. This forum doesn't seem to support searching, so unfortunately I can't find the original post to give credit where it is due.</p>

<p>The prices there are much more sensible than when I was looking at on Craig's list, presumably because these sellers are more serious about renting their place.</p>

<p>Looks like 3000$/mo is the sweet spot where you can get a nice, 2000-ft+ home almost anywhere in Irvine. Not that cheap, but better than 6000$/mo for a mortage on a depreciating asset. More than 3000$ doesn't seem to give any more reliable value for the money - you just get back into the "wishful seller" category. Like this:</p>

<p><a href="http://firstteam.com/homes/propertydetails.asp?id=64748639&db=1&MLS=L16745">http://firstteam.com/homes/propertydetails.asp?id=64748639&db=1&MLS=L16745</a></p>

<p>50,000$/mo rental on Laguna Beach. Yes, that is per month, not a typo. 600k$/yr for a nice pile of bricks. I guess it's meant for tourists.</p>

<p>-Muzie</p>
 
muzie: Thanks for the links. Searching is available here- just so you know. Scroll up to the top of the page, click on the 'search ' tab and away you go...
 
<p>I found another one, this is attached to the NAR-mothership:</p>

<p><a href="http://rentals.realtor.com/FindHome/RentalsSearch.asp?poe=realtor">http://rentals.realtor.com/FindHome/RentalsSearch.asp?poe=realtor</a></p>
 
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