Tenant Screening Guidelines

[Jason Runkel]

Hey Everyone,

My partner and I are working on our tenant screening guidelines for the property management portion of our business, renting properties in generally C+ and above neighborhoods. Some things we have included that we have seen common include:

• Makes 3 times the amount of monthly rent payment
• Has 3 or more good years of rental references
• Has no prior evictions
• Has not made excessive late payments
• Have not filed bankruptcy or been foreclosed on in the last 5 years
• Has a good credit score (any one have any specific number they don't typically go below)
• Does not have any drug, violence, theft, fraud, capital or sex offender convections
• Has no breeches of leases
• Has no history of damage to property
• Must be neat, clean, prompt and courteous 

Any one have any others they would add to the list? If so which and why?

Thanks in advance!

[Jonathan Taylor Smith]

@Jason Runkel - I have essentially those same criteria for tenant screening; however, you can get someone who meets all of those requirements and more, is a great person and will make a perfect tenant - but who has a < 600 credit score due to medical bills or student loans. So instead of setting some arbitrary minimum credit score, I instead look for and deny based upon non-medical / non-student loan related collections, liens or judgement. I also charge 1.5x rent for the security deposit, and decrease it to 1x rent for better qualified, or increase it to 2x rent for those with certain credit or qualification challenges.

Then upon 2nd year renewal, I MAY (at my sole discretion) refund the additional 0.5 security deposit if there have been no late payments or other issues and all inspections have been passed during the prior year. But if I had set a credit score limit, then I would have missed out on some of my best tenants who have been with me for years and never caused a single issue or had a late payment. How long they've been on their job or lived in their prior home + rental and personal references tell me FAR MORE than a credit score.