First vacancy of my landlord career

[Tarcizio Goncalves]

Hi BP community, 

I have my first vacancy of my landlord career. My tenants moved out 2 weeks ago and I am currently giving the place a facelift. I want to start to market the apartment for April 1st. I am really at a standstill on how to proceed. I am very interested on how landlords fill a vacancy. 

How does one advertise their apartment? 

How does one screen tenants?

How does one find the market rent to their area without calling a property manager? 

How do you do a credit check?

I listened to podcast #265 and now I am thinking that I need to have a rental policy in place so that if someone accuses me of discrimination or unfair treatment, I can say that I have strict guidelines of who can rent. 

If you have  rental policy in place, how did you build it? Did you work with a lawyer? 

Any help would be extremely helpful

Thank you