The Definitive Guide To Tenant Screening | Daily Podcast

Tenant screening is one of the most crucial aspects of being a profitable landlord. It is easy to let a renter live in your rental unit. However, if they stop paying rent, run up huge bills, or cause damage, you will have big bills to pay—either a costly eviction, property repair, or offering a cash for keys deal.

When you get a responsible tenant, you might still have the odd problem. However, you’ll probably never have issues with collecting rent on time or property damage.

How can you ensure you rent your properties to the right type of tenant? Tenant screening is an absolute must if you want to avoid a bad tenant.

Of course, you can pay companies to find the right tenants. But it’s not a difficult task to screen tenants yourself. This gives you a much better idea of who will be living in your rental units. There are also some top-class rent collection apps that incorporate tenant screening in their features.

The article aims to guide you through the process of tenant screening.

The Tenant Application
Before the screening begins, your first step is to collect the tenant’s application form. The application form should contain enough information to get a general idea of the prospective tenant. Make sure the application contains employment history and rental history. You also need to collect financial information, such as income and expenses, to ensure they have the resources to pay rent.

You should have contact information for previous landlords and employers so that you can confirm what the tenant has stated. Finally, with regard to the application, watch out for gaps in employment or accommodation history. These could be a red flag, as they may want to keep incriminating information from you.

Now that you have a complete application, you can begin the tenant screening process.

It’s usually best to get the tenant to pay for the screening process. This gives you permission to check their credit history, any previous evictions, and criminal background. However, it’s always best to check with your state’s law on what you can and can’t check.

Keep reading the article here:

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[James-esrc]

1. Credit check
2. Criminal background
3. Eviction history
4. References
5. Interview

[searchbug]

Wow, "The Definitive Guide To Tenant Screening" is a game-changer! It's like having a secret weapon for finding the best tenants! It's all about that peace of mind, folks – know who you're inviting into your home sweet home! Thank you for dropping this golden nugget of wisdom.

[na-cpkp]

So many people like to think they can feel a person's intent, and try and help out a good person with a bad history etc. It's great to give people a chance if you can afford to lose the income, but if you can, focus on the hard facts and less on the personality because that will let you down a lot less in the long run.

[johnmorrison]

pro tip: dont buy rentals in areas that won't let you use a potential tenants' criminal history as a reason for discrimination.

[miguelgarcia-xfsl]

You mentioned apps for collecting payment and screening but didn’t give any names 🙂

[serahloeffelroberts]

Years ago my husband bought an apartment building with existing tenants in a city which was heavily pro tenant rights. All the tenants were horrible with only one exception. "Rent strikes", delibetate vandalization of the apartment, major water damage incurred during wild party while on drugs and physical assault by tenant. Add to that problems with exterior vandalization of property while neighborhood going downhill. Meanwhile there was little he could do legally. The day he sold the building was the happiest day of his life.

[BlueSkies]

Does the law require telling the tenant the reason for rejection?

[cloudnine]

Not true regarding evictions. Rent and possession will also show as an unlawful detainers

[Lidu]

What about could be tenants screening a potential landlord. Would be good to know if the landlord is not a slum or scum landlord before making a commitment to rent from that person. It go both ways, if potential tenants need to provide 2-3 references and have good rental history and high credit scores then they should at least be able to also screen the potential landlord.