Screening Good Tenants

Screening Good Tenants

The continuous trend in the economy paved the way for the increase of the number of individuals who prefer to rent out a home or unit for their housing needs. Due to the massive financial crisis, home purchase is becoming a less popular option and rental alternatives more widely preferred. Hence, for home owners who are planning to turn themselves as landlords, there are basic things to know and understand including the proper way of screening good tenants. After all, your rental business will never be possible without eligible renters to sustain your investment.

There are several ways and steps of screening a qualified and good tenant according to your own standard and requirements. However, most landlords follow the common screening methods such as the provision of a rental application form. This is quite important in the initial stage of getting prospective tenants. This will give you the reference reliable and comprehensive enough to support you resolve that you are indeed dealing with someone highly qualified to occupy your rental property.

Make sure that you included questions to be filled out by your aspiring renter such as basic information and contact details. These are definitely relevant when you are going to make a background check of how credible they are. Make yourself clear in informing your tenant of the profile check you wish to conduct. Hence, you ought to request for their full name, current address, social security number, state ID and driver’s license among others.

You may refer to some agencies to help you with your assessment process such as the credit bureau where you can request for the credit report of your future tenant. This is a vital requirement you must carefully look into because it shows and certifies that the renter is indeed capable of paying his monthly rent. You definitely never want to encounter certain problems with your tenants particularly issues on rent payments. It is certainly stressful to deal with eviction problems and you can initially do something to avoid this incidence to happen by making sure the renter is financially eligible for the lease.

Another thing to carefully check is the employment history of the renter particular the stability of his job and the steady flow of income. Rental business will never suffice unless you make sure that your renters can afford the rent not only for you to collect but also to use in terms of home maintenance to continue giving them the service and dwelling place they deserve.

To properly screen good tenants, you must also know why your prospective tenant is planning to transfer to your property and leave his previous home or unit. You may therefore request for the contact details of his recent landlord to know his rental history, behavior and even payment capacity.

Looking for a viable renter with whom you may entrust your property is such a challenging and tedious responsibility as a landlord. However you will discover that there are so many rewarding consequences in dealing with the right tenant for your rental business to succeed.

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Screening for Good Tenants

Hi Craig,

Thank you for the invaluable information. From past experiences with tenants we ask for an application fee that covers the background and credit check.

We have been using NTN (National Tenants Network)(can be reached via NTNonline.com) Even though we have been reasonably succesful with our tenants, it is when we go against the advice of the screener that we invariably end up having to evict somebody. (Happened once and cost a lot of money to get the unit straightended out.)

Best regards,

Fanbot

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The greatest force on Earth, compounding interest. - Albert Einstein


Previous landlord

It may be beneficial to get the not just the current landlords name and number but the one before that. The current one may just pay you lip service to get rid of their "bad" tenant but the landlord before that has nothing to lose by telling you the truth about the tenant.

Cathy

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Cathy B

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Previous landlord

Hi Cathy,

You are absolutely correct. Did not think of it in that perspective although we do ask for last 3 addresses in the past 5 years. Requirement of NTN. I suppose that is for the background and credit check.

Thanks again.

Fanbot

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The greatest force on Earth, compounding interest. - Albert Einstein