About Our Process

Front Porch Properties is something of an anomaly in the rental house market.  Nearly 20% of our business comes from referrals from current clients – industry-wide that figure is closer to 0.  Most people don’t like their landlord, and wouldn’t dream of recommending family and friends to them.

Our average guest (we don’t like the word tenant and we try not to use it) stays with us four years.  Our longest guest stayed with us for 18 years, and we have several that have been with us for more than a decade.

Also, more than 90% of our guests receive their entire damage deposit back when they finally move out of their home.  Our guests take exceptional care of their homes and their damage deposit reflects that.

All of those aspects begin to paint the picture of who we are as a company.  We price our rental homes fairly so our guests don’t feel the need to comparison shop – only to find a better deal and move out when their lease is up after the first year.  We treat our guests with respect – and we treat them like they are the home owner.  Feel like adding some color to the interior of the home?  Fantastic!  You are more than welcome to – it’s your home.

In the last few years we’ve seen some radical changes occur in the real estate market.  Many people have lost their homes to foreclosure and have had their credit scores damaged in the process.  We’ve heard horror stories about potential guests spending hundreds of dollars on application fees for rental homes – only to be turned down because of their recent credit flaws.  That’s one of many reasons why we don’t run credit reports and we don’t charge application fees.  Application fees aren’t in anyone’s best interests besides the management company charging them – they hurt the potential tenant and they hurt the property owner but they are fantastic for the management company.

Rather than charge our potential clients money only to refuse to work with them we go a different route.  We sit down with an applicant at their home; we feel there is no better measure of how a person treats their home than to actually see how they treat their home.