Tenant Screening Fees- is $40 per person too much?
Hi BP community I'm looking for your opinions on tenant screening fees for credit and background checks.
We have a SFH for rent and were going to do the screening process through Cozy.co since it seems really easy for both parties--but they charge the prospective tenants $40 per person. So for a couple it would be $80. That seems like a lot of money to me-- the community our rentals are in is a small working class community where people don't have a lot of disposable income (Adrian MI).
So I am wondering for those in similar communities, what does your screening process look like? Do you use a website? In your opinion is $80 a lot of money for a couple of background checks & credit reports?
I don't want to scare away a potential great renter just because of the application process-- but don't want to get a terrible renter because I skimped on the process either.
Thanks so much!
Most Popular Reply
@Tiffany Roberts I use cozy for screening and rent payments. if you ask every applicant to pay this then you will probably piss off a lot of people. i pre screen and state my qualifications in writing. and verbally before requesting the screening. this scares off the deadbeats. i actually like the high price as i feel it scares potential bad tenants away. I have had to denile a few people that went through tge process because thay had things like evictions and assault charges. i also has some with a 750 credit score pay for themselves and spouse only to turn down my acceptance because they wanted to buy instead. i receive 8 - 12 applications but only cozy screen 2-3 of them based on the prescreen.