This morning the Today Show had a segment on renting property. You can watch the segment at this link:
http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/46219482 . Barbara Corcoran has a lot of good advice, however, I question whether one should pay 6 months of rent in advance. In Massachusetts, it is not even clear to me that a tenant could do such a thing, even if it was completely voluntary. In any event, paying in advance poses risks for both the landlord and the tenant. When the tenant, pays in advance, he or she loses her leverage to withhold rent or to even threaten to withhold rent if something serious does go wrong. Second, a landlord is only entitled to collect rent on the due date for the month it is due. Even if a tenant voluntarily pays, the tenant could change his or her story and say that the 6 month payment was compulsory. For those reasons, I'd say its not worth it to consider advance payments.
Second, in Massachusetts, every landlord must provide a written statement of condition for the tenant to fill out. The tenant absolutely needs to point out what is wrong with the apartment when they move in so it can be fixed and so he or she is not charged for it on the way out. On the flip side, if the landlord does not obtain that signed, written statement of condition, they are going to have a very difficult time deducting the damage from any security deposit at the end of the tenancy.
