Acceptable Verbiage for Unit Listing

[Deisy P.]

Still no luck with finding a tenant with good credit for my unit. I require 600 credit score but am about to change it to 575. It's a good neighborhood. I just don't understand how 600 is high. I've looked online and that's the minimum in a lot of examples. Am I allowed to say the rent to income ratio must be three x the monthly rent?

[Nathan Gesner]

Originally posted by @Deisy P.:

Still no luck with finding a tenant with good credit for my unit. I require 600 credit score but am about to change it to 575. It's a good neighborhood. I just don't understand how 600 is high. I've looked online and that's the minimum in a lot of examples. Am I allowed to say the rent to income ratio must be three x the monthly rent?

Use the search function to look for "Tenant screening" and you find hundreds of blogs and forum discussions. You can also Google search property management companies and look on their website for screening criteria. It's pretty common to require the applicant makes 3x the rent, has a certain credit score, no felonies or evictions, no judgments or collections, etc.

You also need to understand there are different kinds/levels of risk. Just because someone has a 650 credit score doesn't mean they are a good renter and a 550 score doesn't mean they will be bad. You need to look at the "whole person" to make a decision.

Even then, your review is determining a level of risk. I rent to tenants that are considered high-risk but I mitigate that risk by charging a double deposit, higher rent, conducting inspections more often, etc.