How to find good tenets

Question

Account Closed · Answer

I've had good luck with SmartMove. Each adult potential renter pays a $35 nonrefundable application fee. There's many web sites to advertise your property, be sure to put in the body that a background and credit check are required. Heads off many problems early on.

Mags S. · Answer

It's free to post your ad on Zillow.  Zillow then feeds to several other sites like trulia and hotpads.  From Zillow you can also get the info to Craig's list.  Nearly all my leads/responses came from Zillow, trulia, and hot pads. Very few from Craig's list but I did not add followup ads there.w

Good screening is the key to getting a quality tenant.

John Humphries · Answer

Hi Adam, I'm a bit new to the landlord game myself, but I have managed a duplex in Toronto years ago and am 3 months into my first rental property in Courtenay, BC now.  For the property here in BC that I just bought, I posted on Craigslist as that is where most renters in this community turn for properties.  We have a tight rental market here so I had around 20 responses within the first 2 days of posting. Next step was to email each response with a copy of my tenancy application (pulled directly from the BC Tenancy Act website).  This weeded out many of the potential problem candidates as some did not bother to fill out the paperwork to move forward.  The application asked for basic info such as references, reason for moving, current employment with salary, etc... For applicants who returned applications, first I looked at salary and was able to weed out several more as they did not have enough monthly income to be able to pay rent over the long term.  There is a good % of income rule of thumb that perhaps someone can comment on here.  It is currently escaping me. Next, I pulled up Facebook and looked up everyone who was still standing.  Most had Facebook pages and I was able to weed out a few more based on what I saw there.  Amazing what people will put on the internet voluntarily these days!  All of this led us to a small handful of potential candidates, before even checking reference or credit.  I spoke to each personally at this point, inviting our best candidates for coffee one morning.  Upon meeting them, it was obvious that they were going to be our new tenants.  Retired couple wanting to move to a single story home, closer to their church (which was in the neighborhood), and closer to their grandkids who live just down the street.  They plan to live there for the rest of their lives and we are stoked to have them as tenants.  Hope that helps!