FAQ

Questions? We've got answers

General

Yes, we have valid broker's license in California, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and Washington.

AZ #LC705421000 | CA #02095462 | NV #168178 | OR #201246358 | TX #9012018 | WA #22006203 CalBRE: #02095462

We carry both Errors and Omissions and General Liability for $2M

At the time of writing we currently manage 2600+ units, with a combination of multi-family and single family homes.

You can see our fee structure here → Ziprent Pricing

                               
                                       
  • Tenant Placement: $1250
  •                                    
  • Property Management: $125
  •                                

If you have 10+ units we do offer a discount on both our tenant placement and property management. Please reach out to [email protected] for further information.

Currently we have 60+ employees

Our property management agreement can be used for both tenant placement and property management.

We have a no commitment contract, you can cancel at any time.

At any point in time, you have full access to the lease and tenant contact information so you can simply communicate with them to assign a new property manager or take over the rent collection/management.

Our property management contract can be used for both tenant placement and property management. Our property management fee is tied together with rent collection, so if we aren’t collecting rent through our platform then we aren’t charging our property management fee.

Once we have a signed lease agreement and the security deposit initiated to your account, we hand off the lease agreement and tenant contact information to you.

Absolutely, our portfolio includes properties which participate in Section 8. We are familiar with the in and outs of the various housing authorities. If you do not currently have a voucher please contact 211 to connect you to your local social services for assistance.

Tenant Placement

When your property is move-in / photo ready, we will schedule a member of our staff to come by the property to take photos, perform a walkthrough, and install our smart lockbox.

We will syndicate your posting within 24-48 hours of receiving the photos to all of the major listing sites. Interested parties will be able to select a 2 hour showing window to view the property.

We collect their name, phone number, email address, and IP address. We then send a verification code to their phone number. Once verified, we send them a unique lockbox code that is valid for the 2 hour showing window they signed up for.

We then follow up and provide an application link and ask for feedback regarding the property.

To date we have done 102,990+ on-demand without any major issues. We carry an additional $50k in liability insurance to cover any damages, beyond your coverage, that may occur. Should a key go missing, we will have the locks rekeyed at our cost.

We can usually schedule to come out to take photos, do a walk-through and take keys within 24-48 hours. We prefer to take photos when the property is completely empty and move-in ready and can generally get a listing online within 24-48 hours of taking photos. So, in general, we can have your listing up within 2-4 days of you inquiring about our services!

We charge our tenant placement fee of $1250 when we have a signed lease agreement and the security deposit initiated to your account.

For us to do applicant vetting and lease generation, we charge $750.

We will generate a lease or renewal for $250*.

*This option is only offered with full property management services.

Below is our general qualification for applicants:

  • 3x income to rent ratio (industry standard)
  • Qualifying credit score of 650+ (we can use 700 if that is your preference)
  • Clean rental history and background check (no evictions recorded)
  • 2 months worth of paystubs or offer letter

All we would need is a copy of the lease agreement and the tenants contact information. We would then take care of on-boarding them into our platform.

For every property that needs tenant placement, we provide a rental analysis shortly after signing up for an account. After gathering the necessary information about your property, we look for comparable properties and provide an analysis based on a myriad of factors.

Depends on the location of the property. But at the very least, it needs to be free of clutter and trash, it needs to have been professionally cleaned or cleaned to that quality. Here are further items we outline to be cognizant about:

Flooring
If the property has carpets, we recommend they either be replaced with new carpet or laminate wood flooring. Can also be steam cleaned if they are in decent condition

Painting
A fresh coat of paint goes a long way in making a unit feel refreshed

General Maintenance
It is all about viewing the condition from the eyes of the tenant. If there are any idiosyncrasies with the property that you have put up with because you've lived there, you'll most likely want to get them addressed.

Due to our on-demand showing method, we can’t fully handle showings of a property that’s occupied without assistance from the occupant. However, we can certainly work with the circumstances to reduce vacancy and find a tenant shortly after we move-in. We ask that the property to be as clutter free as possible for photos. Once we have taken photos, we’ll need a few 1 hour windows per week (generally 2-4) where the occupant/owner will be present to show the unit (we won’t be physically present). Subsequently we’ll go ahead and schedule prospective tenants to come by and see the unit during the pre-arranged windows. We’ll handle all coordination and communication and provide the occupant/owner with a full list of prospective tenants who will be coming by.

While we can work with any availability time frame, for open house showings of occupied properties, we recommend Tues/Thurs 6-7 PM and Sat/Sun 12-1 PM.

Our current average time is 14-21 days but depending on price and location it can be anywhere between 3-20 days in general.

We recommend 1 year as part of our tenant placement guarantee.

The security deposit is sent directly to your bank account. We do not hold the security deposit.

We understand that the most effective way to advertise a rental is to list in as many places as possible to ensure we receive the largest number of leads. As such, we have more direct partnerships with listing websites than any one else in the markets we operate in. Our direct syndications are as follows -

  • Zillow Network (Zillow, Trulia, Hotpads, etc.)
  • Zumper (Zumper, PadMapper, etc.)
  • RentPatch (Rent.com, Rentals.com, etc.)
  • Rentlinx (Rentlinx, etc.)

There was a time where Craigslist was relevant. Unfortunately, that time has passed. Craigslist's lack of recognition of the changes needed in the residential rental space has created a void which has increased fraudulent listings on their platform. Given that Craigslist does not directly cooperate with property management companies to ensure data integrity, we do not list on Craigslist to ensure that we are not associated with the lack of data integrity Craigslist has become known for.

We've also found that listings on Craigslist rarely perform and it is best to concentrate on other venues that send quality leads that turn into quality tenants later on.

Property Management

Tenants are responsible for paying rent on the 1st of each month. As soon as the tenant initiates the deposit electronically via ACH, it will take up to 1-3 business days for the rent to be deposited into your account.

No, we send you 100% of the rent to you. We then initiated a separate transaction for the management fee.

When a tenant submits a maintenance request, our Repairs department will do their due diligence to identify the issue and make sure it warrants a visit from the appropriate vendor.

We will surface the bid to you for your approval and then coordinate with the vendor and tenant to get the issue resolved.

We do not charge a maintenance fee so we are cognizant of finding vendors who provide the right balance of quality vs price.

No, we recommend owners pay for any landscaping services. We’ve found that placing the responsibility of landscaping on the tenants will not meet the expectations you may have.

We have structured our operations so that all of property managers have visibility into all properties. Should you or the tenant reach out to us any of our property managers can answer any question you or the tenant may have. We found this allows us to provide the highest level of customer service.

We handle all of the noticing (3-day, 30/60 day, etc.) however will refer you out to a lawyer we recommend should the case end up needing a complaint filed at the courts. We can also work with any lawyer that you'd like to work with as well. We've never had a tenant we've placed in a property end up in an eviction but have had to help landlords navigate the process after bringing us on board with a bad tenant.

Our tenant placement process is 100% guaranteed. Should a tenant we place end up in an eviction case we will refund our fee to help with the associated legal costs.

All we need is the following information:

  • Copy of the existing lease agreement
  • The full name, phone number, and email address of all the current tenants
  • Any additional notices and/or documentation pertaining the current tenants.

Unfortunately, we do not take on single room placements. Given our current model it requires too much time and resources for us to coordinate.

If our smart lockbox showing method cannot be utilized, we can only offer in-person showings in San Francisco currently, for $2500. We would perform 2-3 1 hour showings per week. Additionally, proof that our smart lockboxes are not permitted per HOA regulations will be required.

Generally speaking, the majority of tenants prefer the property/unit to be completely unfurnished. Should you wish to show the property furnished, we do require you be willing to remove the furniture if the future tenant wish to rent it unfurnished.

While we could use your lease, you would need to draft it and counter-sign which takes away a lot of the efficiency gains and benefits our leasing process provides. We can add any clauses you want specific to your property under the Ziprent Addendum.

We can / do work with home warranty companies, however, there are certain aspects which we cannot assist with:
What we can do:

  • Help schedule once a vendor is chosen and forwarded to us
  • Follow up with the vendor and tenant to ensure issues were resolved
What we cannot do:
  • Initiate requests
  • Pay premiums of fees
  • Negotiate with your policy

We utilize a standard CA lease and have the ability to add custom property specific addendums.

We primarily focus on long term rentals. We do however have a Vacation Home Rental department and selectively can offer this service depending on the location of your rental. As of now we service Sonoma County, South Lake Tahoe, and Santa Barbara.

For general turnover items such as cleaning, painting, and minor handyman fixes, we can typically handle and coordinate with our network of vendors. If there are larger items that need to be addressed such as flooring replacement or any other larger rehabs we require the owner to take care of those projects. We are more than happy to provide our list of vendors who we work with on a regular basis.

For Tenants

No, payments must be made in full through one account. Whomever you designate to pay the rent can link their bank account through Ziprent account.

Please send an email to [email protected] outlining who will be leaving. We will need all parties on the lease to acknowledge the removal of one roommate and the subsequent replacement.

The replacement roommate will need to completely fill out our application and be approved by the owner.

You are responsible for the entire duration of your lease. Should you need to break the lease, you will be charged our tenant placement fee of $1250 and will have to cooperate with hosting showings while we find a replacement. This usually entails a few 1 hour showings windows throughout the week and weekend where interested parties can come view the property.

Ziprent does not own any of the properties it manages. As such, all repair requests must be approved by owners and owners pay for the repairs directly.The step by step process for any repair is as follows -

  1. Identification of Problem: Tenant reports the problem to our staff and may need to provide photos, videos, serial numbers, and dimensions (in case of appliances), we document and send it out to both tenant and owner.
  2. Source Bids: Ziprent sources bids from partners in the region
  3. Owner Approval: Owner must approve the bid before Ziprent can move forward with coordinating the work. Without an owner's approval, Ziprent can not move forward.
  4. Scheduling: Ziprent often puts tenant and vendor in touch to coordinate a time. If needed Ziprent gets involved to help out.
  5. Repair Verification: Ziprent reaches out to tenants to confirm the issue has been resolved before closing the repair and coordinating billing between vendor and tenant.

Given the above, depending on the work, the repair may take as little as the same day or several weeks to complete. Some quick examples below -

Appliance replacement: Oftentimes appliance replacement requires two repair inquiries as an appliance repair company will need to go out and assess the appliance and then an appliance needs to be ordered. Given that both work orders require owner approval, Often times, it may take a week or longer to initiate a new appliance order and given the availability of the specific size, model, etc. of the appliance at major retailers, delivery may be weeks out.

Pest Control: As pest control is a multi step process, we want to make sure tenants are aware of the steps involved in eradicating pests from the premises. In conformance with the above procedure, owners must approve a pest company bid which will include:

  1. Exclusion: Blocking off of all entrances and exits into the building.
  2. Eradication/Removal: Biweekly or Monthly visits to catch and release and set new traps

While the initial approval may be quick pending Owner response times, the entire process may take months and is dependent on the number of pests, the location of pests, building setup, etc.

Home Warranty: Some Ziprent owners have home warranty policies which means that all requests must go through home warranty. Home warranty companies often assign a vendor to repair the issue after it’s been identified. Depending on the size of repair and the vendor assigned, there may be further delays in the repair being completed as larger repairs will need home warranty approval and vendors assigned by home warranty often bookout weeks in advance.

Upon request, Ziprent will work with the homeowner and tenant to come up with mutually acceptable reimbursement. Owners have final say on all reimbursement approvals. The reimbursement must be approved by the owner. As Ziprent does not hold owner funds, Ziprent does not have the authority to approve reimbursements or dispense funds on behalf of the owner.

For new properties being taken on, Ziprent’s agreement with owners requires the property to be handed to Ziprent in a move-in ready condition. Furthermore, on the first visit, Ziprent performs a 30 minute routine inspection of the premises for habitability concerns and failures that are occurring at that time and are readily noticeable. Throughout the tenant placement process, prospective tenants (or those who have signed a lease) may notify Ziprent of other pending issues. In those cases, Ziprent will work with the owner to resolve the issues prior to tenants taking possession of the unit. Ziprent can not initiate any repair coordination without the express consent of the owner.

For Applicants

Below is our general qualification for applicants:

  • 3x income to rent ratio
  • Qualifying credit score of 650+
  • Clean rental history and background check

Yes we accept section 8. We would still need you to meet our general credit qualifications. Please attach your voucher to your application under the income section. If you do not currently have a voucher please contact 211 to connect you to your local social services for assistance.

No, all adult applicants must submit a completed application and pay the application fee. This allows us to run a background check. Please be sure to have at least a photo ID attached to each application.

Our general criteria for applicants is 3x the rent in combined income across all applicants and 650+ credit score for all adult occupants. For foreign applicants with no established credit score, we will need a cosigner on file. If only one applicant does have credit and meets our minimum credit score, we may ask for a concession, such as a higher deposit.

We do not allow corporate leasing

Please try to sign up for your tour when you are closer to the property or sign onto WiFi for us to read your IP address
You would need to be in the area of the property in order to request a showing. Or, if you've recently traveled out of the area, you'll need to restart your phone. Another option is making sure to connect to wifi so our system can properly detect your location.

To access the application, you should be able to log in to our site by making a ziprent.com account.
  • 1.) Go to ziprent.com/auth/login
  • 2) Enter your email address in the appropriate field
  • 3) Select "reset password"
  • 4) Follow the prompts in your email to access your account
  • 5) Complete your application under the "applications'' tab, and have the app fee paid. Let us know if you have any additional questions.
Please make sure to fill out all of the *asterick boxes to complete your application. Your application may be complete because we are still waiting on applications from other adult members of your group. Likely we are missing an ID or form of income from an applicant. Your application is incomplete until all parties have fully filled out their application.
If your employer uses Truework, you can use Truework to verify your employment and income information when applying to rent through Ziprent.
If you do not have the ability to use Truework for verification, or a recent pay stub. Also if you have a job that is a little harder to verify, Payscore verify's the your net income. Payscore analyzes the transaction data from your bank account, providing up-to-the-minute income data. The greatest value in relying on net income data is it reflects your probable cash on hand in any given month, the funds from which you can meet potential future financial obligations.

Repairs for Owners

In order for us to work with a vendor outside of our vendor network, we will need their full contact information (Name, Email (required), Phone #, website/review site link) and confirmation that they can perform work in the following manner:

Vendor Requirements

- Must speak English

- Must be responsive

- Must be able to schedule directly with the tenants using the contact information provided in the emailed work order

- Must accept payment via ACH or Credit Card or will be paid directly by property owner

Additionally, we will require your assistance in the event the vendor is or becomes unresponsive.

Owner Responsibility

- Assist with vendor communication in the event the vendor fails to communicate via email and/or fails to schedule directly with the tenants within 24 hours of being assigned the work order.

Home Warranty Vendors

Should the external vendor be obtained through a Home Warranty policy, Owners have the responsibility of initiating the home warranty claim and providing the claim or work order # needed for the tenants to schedule in addition to the vendors contact information as Ziprent does not hold the policy.

From our experience, owner's vendors or home warranty vendors tend to cause delays to the repair as they are not familiar with our system. If this repair is time sensitive, we would ask that you strongly consider using one of the vendors from our network as they will likely be able to get the job done quicker than another vendor.

As outlined within our Property Management Agreement, our involvement for rehabilitation, restoration, or renovation work is as follows. When there is any restoration, rehabilitation, or renovation work that requires several parties to be involved, owners need to be intimately involved. We limit our scope to simple communication as we are not a licensed general contractor.

We can send out a vendor to inspect and diagnose the issue. If the diagnosis is rehabilitation, restoration, or renovation work, this work will ultimately have to be handed directly by the homeowner directly. If the diagnostic turns out to be a regular repair that we can assist with, we will move repairs forward to get them completed.

Anything that is a habitability concern such as no heat, no hot water, plumbing issues, etc. are required to be fixed. We strongly encourage all owners to proceed with minor repair requests as we've seen that these minor repair requests keep tenants happier. Happy tenants are more likely to stay longer, pay their rent on time, and keep the property in the condition it was left in.
When an invoice is received, we review the invoice to ensure it matches the bid notes and scope of work that was agreed upon. We then file the invoice with your property and your associated account will be debited and a receipt emailed.
The purchase and installation of lightbulbs, batteries and filters (fridge, water, stove, not HVAC) are the owner's responsibility at the start of the lease, and the tenant's responsibility to maintain during. Detectors are the responsibility of the owner for the duration of the lease, and the tenants responsibility to notify management immediately if inoperable.
All maintenance requests must be submitted online through Ziprent.com. Please login to your Ziprent account at www.ziprent.com/auth/login and navigate to the Repairs tab in the left side panel to add a maintenance request. Once you've filled out the required sections, our Repairs team will review and reach out to you for updates. If the maintenance request is an emergency, please call our Repairs team at 415-843-5964.
As noted in the lease, repairs that are found to be caused by tenant's misuse will be the tenant's responsibility to pay the cost of the repair. Owner are held responsible to pay for repairs that are only caused by normal use.
We can help with replacing appliances. At this time, we only use Best Buy for appliance replacements.

The reason we only recommend and use Best Buy is because they are the only reliable appliance company that we've worked with in terms of delivery/installation. We've worked with other companies such as Home Depot, Sears, Lowes, etc. but they have all been extremely unreliable with getting to the home on time and then delivering and installing the appliance successfully.

Due to the lack on reliability using other companies, we do not use them as we do not want to take responsibility or be liable for their mishaps. However, if an owner would like to purchase an appliance from a different company, that is welcomed and we will help with scheduling. Please note that Ziprent will not be purchasing appliances directly from other appliance stores outside of Best Buy due however if you decide to purchase one yourself, we will coordinate between the tenants to assist in getting the delivery/installation done as smoothly as possible.

Based on previous experience, price and reviews, our recommendation is listed first. Under each vendor you will find the amount of jobs they've completed with Ziprent and any website/review links they may have.

Repairs for Tenants

All maintenance requests must be submitted online through Ziprent.com. Please login to your Ziprent account at www.ziprent.com/auth/login and navigate to the Repairs tab in the left side panel to add a maintenance request. Once you've filled out the required sections, our Repairs team will review and reach out to you for updates. If the maintenance request is an emergency, please call our Repairs team at 415-843-5964.
You may call our dedicated Repairs team at 415-843-5964 for emergency repair issues.
Anything that is a habitability concern such as no heat, no hot water, plumbing issues, etc. are required by the owner to be fixed.
The purchase and installation of lightbulbs, batteries and filters (fridge, water, stove, not HVAC) are the owner's responsibility at the start of the lease, and the tenant's responsibility to maintain during. Detectors are the responsibility of the owner for the duration of the lease, and the tenants responsibility to notify management immediately if inoperable.
Ziprent will automatically cancel a maintenance request if tenants are unresponsive to emails, texts, and phone calls for more than one week.
Please try the reset button on the disposal. This solves the issue in most cases. Please also ensure there is power to the outlet the disposal is plugged into. If the garbage disposal still does not work please login to your Ziprent account and navigate to the Repairs tab in the left side panel to add a maintenance request.
As noted in the lease, repairs that are found to be caused by tenant's misuse will be the tenant's responsibility to pay the cost of the repair. Owner are held responsible to pay for repairs that are only caused by normal use.

Repairs for Vendors

To set up your profile, we ask that you fill out the below questionnaire to ensure we have accurate information about the type of work you do, the areas you service, and your contact information.

Once you've filled out the form, our vendor relations team will set up your profile and reach out to you.

Questionnaire: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ELGKQf4L-xLkzP4n99tCl_BNMVEW1N9-8Ha7dlznQmU/edit

Listings

All of our Showings are booked online through our website. Here is the link to view our available properties: https://www.ziprent.com/available-listings.
This is a no-call number, as it is set up to text you the showing link to book your viewing. You can text this number back for a representative to help you.
Our system may have flagged your showing as high-risk. Please click the green "Verify my identity" button and follow the prompts to complete scheduling your showing.
If the lockbox turns red and you hear an alarm, it is locked for 5 minutes. Please do not touch any buttons and wait 5 minutes before trying your code again. If the lockbox still does not work, please don't hesitate to call our Showings department (the number found in your booking email), and we would be happy to help with further troubleshooting.
Images & a description of the lockbox location were emailed to the email address used to schedule the showing. If you are still looking for the lockbox after reviewing this information, please email us at [email protected] for assistance.
Ziprent has been employed as the Property Management. Our staff would be happy to help you with any questions about the property.
An Application link will be texted after your showing. If you do not receive this text, please email us at [email protected].
Please email our Showings department at [email protected], and our team would be happy to help you with any questions or concerns you may have.
While we advertise on Zillow, all showings and applications must be submitted through the Ziprent website.