# Housed in 9 Days: How We Placed a Houston Renter With a 2-Year Eviction and an Unpaid Balance | Texas Eviction Friendly Apartments > A real Houston placement: a renter with a two-year-old eviction and an open balance approved and moved in within nine days. Here URL: https://evictionfriendlyapartments.com/blog/housed-in-9-days-houston-eviction-unpaid-balance-placement/ Last-Modified: 2026-06-18 Author: Eviction Advocate _This case study is anonymized but based on a real July 2025 placement. Client details have been changed to protect privacy._ ## The situation Marcus contacted us on a Monday morning. He’d been searching for a Houston apartment for six weeks, been denied at nine properties, and burned about $650 in application fees. His situation: - **Eviction**: filed August 2023 in Harris County JP court (about 2 years old) - **Balance**: $2,400 still owed to the former landlord (not in collections yet) - **Current income**: $4,200/month gross as a distribution warehouse manager - **Family**: two kids under 10 - **Target**: two-bedroom in the Katy or Cypress area, budget $1,500 to $1,700 - **Timeline**: needed to move within 3 weeks — extension on his current sublet was expiring His most recent denial had been at a Class-A Greystar property in West Houston, and the adverse action notice named SafeRent as the screening company. He’d previously been denied at MAA and Cortland properties too. ## Why he was getting denied Three problems stacked on top of each other: 1. **Portfolio-wide screening had spread across DFW-adjacent PMCs.** After the first denial at MAA, subsequent applications at Cortland and Greystar were pulling the same profile and getting the same auto-decline. 2. **Open balance was the key trigger.** Even though the eviction itself was 2 years old (which normally opens more doors), the unpaid $2,400 was flagging as active property debt. 3. **He was applying at Class-A luxury properties** where SafeRent’s automated rules don’t leave room for property-level manual review. None of the nine properties he’d applied to would have approved him regardless of documentation. He was in the wrong tier and the wrong PMC portfolio. ![Renter on call with licensed Texas apartment locator](/images/misc/renter-with-two-kids-on-phone-call-with-licensed-t.webp) ## What we did **Day 1 (Monday).** Two-minute intake, then a longer follow-up call. Verified the exact eviction details, pulled the JP court disposition (“judgment for plaintiff”), and confirmed the balance status. His current income was strong at 2.5x on a $1,700 rent — not the full 3x, but close. We routed him to two specific corridors: **Katy** (where independent operators still work case-by-case cases with strong income) and the **Grand Parkway garden-style properties in Cypress**. Neither corridor uses SafeRent heavily, so his prior denials wouldn’t follow him. We also pre-qualified him for **Liberty Rent**. Liberty Rent underwrites open-balance eviction cases when income supports the rent, which Marcus’s did. **Day 2 (Tuesday).** We called eight target properties across Katy and Cypress to confirm current eviction policy. Five of the eight were willing to review case-by-case with the Liberty Rent guarantor package. Two required a double deposit ($3,000). One required first month’s rent plus deposit up front. We built his target list of five properties, with expected deposit for each and the specific documentation each needed. **Day 4 (Thursday).** Marcus toured three properties in one afternoon. The second one — a garden-style community in Katy with in-house screening and a Liberty Rent partnership — offered him a conditional approval on the spot subject to income verification. **Day 5 (Friday).** Marcus submitted the application with: - Two most recent paystubs plus employer verification letter - Bank statements showing 12 months of consistent deposits - The Liberty Rent pre-qualification letter - A one-page letter of explanation about the 2023 eviction (medical emergency causing missed rent, no dispute about the balance owed) The property’s underwriter reviewed and issued full approval on Saturday. **Day 9 (Tuesday of the following week).** Marcus and his kids moved in. ## The financial breakdown - Monthly rent: $1,650 - Security deposit: 1.5x rent = $2,475 - Risk fee: $300 (Liberty Rent covered this partially) - First month + admin: $1,650 + $150 - Liberty Rent one-time fee: $475 - **Total move-in cost: $5,050** He had been quoted a $3,500 double deposit plus $500 risk fee at a Cypress property that also would have approved — so the Liberty Rent route actually saved him about $475 in upfront cash. ![Katy Houston leasing office](/images/misc/katy-houston-apartment-leasing-office-interior-wit.webp) ## What made this placement work **1\. Correct property targeting.** Nine failed applications at Class-A Greystar / MAA / Cortland properties — versus five right-target properties in Katy independent operator inventory. Same renter, different result. **2\. Guarantor as the unlock.** Liberty Rent’s willingness to underwrite the open balance was the specific mechanism that converted “case-by-case review” to “yes.” Without it, the property would have required the balance paid first. **3\. Full documentation package.** The letter of explanation + employer verification + 12 months of bank statements made underwriting a straightforward decision. **4\. Speed.** Katy inventory moves fast. Marcus toured on Thursday and applied on Friday. If he’d waited a week, the unit would have been gone. ## Where most renters go wrong The classic mistake is what Marcus did before he called us: apply at Class-A properties across the same major PMC portfolios. Each application is $50 to $100, and each denial reinforces the portfolio-wide screening data against him. If you’re in a similar situation — recent eviction with open balance, in Houston or elsewhere in Texas — the placement is doable. But you need to be in the right corridor with the right guarantor and the right documentation from application one. See our unpaid balance service [/apartments-that-accept-evictions-unpaid-balance/ →](/apartments-that-accept-evictions-unpaid-balance/) for how we approach these cases, and reach out if you want a similar placement in your target city. ## Don't Get Denied Again. Talk to a Texas Expert Today. Get your verified list of eviction-friendly Texas apartments within hours, not days. Free to you, always. Get My Free List [/contact/ →](/contact/) Call 808-213-6770 [tel:808-213-6770 →](tel:808-213-6770)