Parkview High School: The Worst In Springfield-One Man's Opinion

Our daughter and her husband have been living in one of our houses while she finished up college. She graduated in May of this year and last month closed on a five acre farmette in Lawrence County. They moved out of our house the middle of the month and my wife and I have been cleaning it and painting getting ready for new renters.

So far we have painted the entire interior, put on a new roof, painted the exterior, installed tile backsplash in the kitchen, new countertops, sink and faucets, repaired all the storm windows and painted the back porch and installed a ceiling fan.

I put several "for rent" signs in the neighborhood and in front of the house. The rent is $700 a month with a $600.00 deposit. The house is a brick house, 1306 square feet, has three bedrooms, one bath, covered patio on a quiet street with lots of shade trees that made it through the ice storm. A refrigerator, gas cook stove and Maytag washer and dryer are included with the house.

Houses in this area rent from $500.00 a month to $850.00 a month. I know because I shopped the market and have rentals in this neighborhood. Duplexes rent for $550.00 to $650.00. I believe I am at the market value as far as the rent is concerned.

The schools are Parkview, Jarrett and Portland. Our children went to these schools. My wife and her family graduated from Parkview.

I believe that people drive around the neighborhoods they would like to live and look for houses for sale or for rent. Putting up signs gets the traffic past the house.

I know from experience that level pay utilities for this house is $250.00 a month, phone and Internet is $60.00 a month, trash is $20 a month, Cable tv is $50.00. If you hire the mowing, figure another $125.00 a month. All together it costs about $1,000.00 to $1,100.00 a month to live in this house, and that is just for the hard costs.

Most reasonable advisers recommend not spending more than 25 - 30% of your income for housing costs. My expectations are that the renters would have a combined income of more than $4,000.00 a month.

Searching Craig's list, I came across this ad:

Seeking Reasonable Rent on 3BR/2BA
Date: 2007-09-18, 12:05PM CDT
We are looking for a 3BR/2BA in Springfield for less than confiscatory rental rates: $750 or less. We are responsible tenants, both long-term BPS employees in technical fields. We have two children, 14, and 6, and two well mannered dogs, one walker mix and one beagle. We don't tear things up and we pay rent on time, every month.
If you have a decent property that sounds like something we'd be interested in, call me at 417-xxx-xxxx or 417-xxx-xxxx

This sounded like they might be pretty good tenants. I know our house was only one bath but it is a decent property in excellent, move in condition. I wasn't too thrilled about the two dogs, but I figured if they would be long term tenants and agreed to a non-refundable pet deposit, the dogs might be ok. I didn't quite understand the use of the word "confiscatory" in regards to rent, so I googled it:

confiscated, confiscating 1. To take away something from someone, usually as a penalty.
Thesaurus: seize, impound, appropriate, sequester, commandeer, expropriate; Antonym: restore.

But first, I had to see if my property interested them. So I emailed them this:

XXX Street Address, $700.00, 3 br 1 ba, washer dryer refrig stove, hardwood floors.

I came home to get a tool to put in the sink and checked my email. This was in my inbox:

That's in Parkview school district, the worst in Springfield. I've seen similar houses in that area for $50-$75 less. Sorry.

So, a person advertises for a home to rent, I reply to that ad, he tells me that I am over priced and the schools are horrible and he isn't going to rent from me. I sent him an email saying, "hope you find what you are looking for."

Upon further reflection, he must have had some horrible bad experience with landlords to even think of using the word confiscatory as it relates to home rental costs.

For the record, I think Parkview is an excellent school and my rent is appropriate for what I am offering.