Investor/Realtor · Hoover, AL · Member since 2010 · 1k+ posts · 459 votes
10y
3X rent is a good place to start. Otherwise it can be a struggle every month for tenant to stay current. However, if it's close and I can verify good rental history, I might take a risk. It's all subjective!!! You Decide case by case!!!
We now have roughly 200 people living under our roofs. What I have learned is do not let their financial decisions effect your stress levels. Pick your criteria, stick with it. In the long run its so worth the wait to find a qualified tenant. If I had to pick one factor that predicted the tenants quality it would be credit score. Not always but most of the time the better the credit score the easier on all aspects.
here are our minimums that we list in the ad.
Minimum Requirements:
•Monthly gross income at least 3 times the monthly rent (>$2,175 income per month).
•NO convicted felonies
•NO sex offenders
•Minimum credit score of 600 (check yours for free at creditkarma.com)
•NO previous evictions
•Sorry, we DO NOT accept SECTION 8.
Be careful about overtly denying a Section 8 applicant. Many States have laws prohibiting discriminating based on an applicant source of income. In most cases a section 8 tenant will not meet your 3x income requirement or credit score requirement anyway so you can deny these tenants without mentioning section 8.