Marketing and tenant selection
There will need to be established tenant-selection and eligibility policies and procedures in place. Based on your mission and funding sources, you will set priorities or preferences on applicants that will be eligible or rank higher in preference for your development. Similarly, you will establish ongoing occupancy requirements that follow any local, state, or federal funding regulations.
Fair Housing
It is important that your tenant selection processes are in compliance with the Fair Housing Act. Housing Providers who refuse to rent or sell homes to people based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status or disability are violating the Federal Fair Housing laws and HUD can pursue enforcement actions against them.
HUD has a resource to help you understand the Fair Housing Rights and Obligations.
Since you are developing in the state of Nevada, you must also be sure that you are in compliance with the Nevada State Landlord/Tenant Law. You can also check out local resources such as Homepage | Silver State Fair Housing Council (ssfhc.org)
Resident services
A property can provide resident services to enhance a resident’s quality of life. When engaging future residents and local housing stakeholders there is an opportunity to identify services needed for future residents. Services might include:
Childcare
Financial services and education
Health and wellness
Community empowerment and space
Access to transportation
Access to internet
For these services to become a reality, they need to be appropriately planned and budgeted. Selecting a service provider already established within the community offers an advantageous position as they are already established with the community and provide a level of expertise to the service being provided. Once the type of resident service is selected, there needs to be consideration of staffing capacity, space and a general operating costs factor within the operating budget.
Wait list
Maintaining an active waiting list helps to shorten turnover times and can provide valuable data related to future housing needs. You may want to consider collecting information like veteran status, elderly status, federal definitions of disabled, number of families, income levels, and interest or likelihood of homeownership as part of your waitlist data collection.