Finding a place to rent with your furry companion can be a headache.
On top of finding somewhere that's actually in your budget, there's the matter of pet rents, pet deposits, pet policies. So I set out to catalog the all charges for Denver's biggest property management companies. (You can skip ahead to the bottom of this post for that.)
And for the six companies that I was able to get a hold of, pet charges vary quite a bit. Most did charge a pet rent, but not all of them:
"I don't have very many homes that offer pet rent because that is something that to me, is not a common thing to do," said Kim Helton, chief operating officer of Echo Summit Property Management. "I think those that offer it are just looking at extra income that they can, in their mind, use toward the wear and tear that a pet causes."
In fact, most other companies interviewed by Denverite for this piece had almost exactly that rationale.
Boutique Apartments Marketing and Design Director Jenny Thomas said via email that pet rents help cover extra management time needed to pick up pet waste or resolve any neighbor complaints about pet activity. Pinnacle Property Management noted that dogs can contribute to higher landscaping costs for grass maintenance. So that's why pet owners have to pay extra rents, for the most part.
In some ways though, the whole apartment search process actually favors pet owners. Property managers noted surveys that suggest as many as 75 percent of millennials own a pet. Given that millennials have been slow to purchase homes, that means they're renting.
Combine that with the Colorado tropes of going outside with your dog, and you've got a potent combination of people who want to rent with a pet.
Pinnacle Property Regional Asset Manager Dan Schlichte said roughly 70 percent of people looking to lease an apartment have a pet.
"When you've got 70 percent of prospects with pets, if you're an owner who wants your building to be pet free, you just reduced your chance of leasing your unit in an expedient time frame by 70 percent. That's going to hit your wallet right and you're not going to be getting rent in that unit."
Same for Echo Summit:
"When we have a home that sits for a period of time and is not renting, and if it's a no-pet, there's three things we're going to talk about," Helton said. "One is going to be lowering the rent. Two would be let's talk about the pet situation. Three, are you open to Section 8?"
In fact, Helton recommends that people with pets who find a no-pet building ask about whether the policy is absolute:
"We may say there's no pets allowed, but if they have a pet they should let us know and we'll always ask. But we won't ask the owner until we have an application, a serious commitment toward the home," she said.
So if you're looking to rent with a pet, here's the breakdown of the various fees.
Editor's note: We reached out to Real Property Management, Acute Property Management, Greystar, Fourstar Realty & Property Management of Denver, Lennar Multifamily Living, and Holland Residential for their pet policies, but did not hear from them prior to publication. This piece will be updated if any of those companies respond. If your property management company wasn't listed in this piece, feel free to email Megan and she'll reach out to them.
