Flexible Tenant Selection Criteria?
I've got two vacancies coming up in the next two months and as of right now I don't have any formal written tenant screening criteria. My price range tends to attract a decent number of tenants with bad histories (crime, eviction, credit). However, I'm an optimist and I have found that some people may have made mistakes at some point (even in the recent past for some), but that doesn't meant they're bad people or can't pay their rent. For example, in one of my units I have two tenants with criminal records straight out of the halfway house who are without a doubt my best tenants.
I'd like to develop written criteria that allows me to both reject, at my discretion, tenants with red flags, and accept on a case-by-case basis others who might have similar red flags but after interviewing/checking with references might appear to be genuinely attempting to get their life back on track. What would be the best way to do this? Does anyone have any written selection criteria that allows this flexibility they'd be willing to share? Alternatively, has anyone gotten burned trying to do this kind of thing?