Need Help - Tenant Screening Question

[Taylor Lacey]

When screening prospective tenants, specifically students in this case, what are your acceptance requirements for credit checks and 3x monthly income?  Acceptable criteria is fairly straightforward when it comes to past evictions and criminal history, but a large number of students don’t have jobs or credit.  When it comes to credit checks, would you check to make sure that they don’t have bad credit and that good or no credit is acceptable?  If the students don’t have a combined monthly income of 3x rent, do you require a cosigner?  I think this makes sense, but even if the student’s parents sign as a cosigner and meet the 3x income rule there is no guarantee they have sufficient net income left after all of their own bills/mortgages are paid to cover rent payments.

All advice is appreciated!

[Paul Ronto]

I live in a college town and rent almost exclusively to students, and have been for 10 years now. I require a co-signer for any of them that don't meet my income requirements. I agree with some of the comments above, that if they have good or no credit than I am willing to keep them as an option, but bad credit or evictions are a red flag for me obviously. 

This comes down to your judgment as well, does their job seem temporary like possibly a serving job, or are they getting a stipend from the university? I rent to a lot of grad students who get a stipend for teaching from the school which is pretty solid until they graduate. In theory, they could drop out and lose their income, but anyone can lose their income, student or not. 

Most students and parents are understanding of the need for a co-signer, so I typically get one co-signer for each tenant, and I make the tenant and their co-signer both submit applications which pull credit, background and eviction reports. 

It's always better to be safe than sorry. If you are getting desperate to rent a property, my solution is to lower the price a touch before I start dropping my screening processes. I'd rather have a good tenant paying less than a bad tenant paying more.