Good morning all,

I believe I’m finally ready to list my first property today which is a townhouse located in Hoffman Estates, IL (Cook County). I’ll be using Cozy to help me out. I’ve been doing some research using these forums about the proper steps to take and was hoping to have a second pair of eyes on it. I have a lease that is extensive and I’m comfortable with that a kind BP member passed along, I have the accompanying documents such as lead and radon disclosures, I have great photos I took with good lighting, etc. Below are the next steps I believe I have to take, but please feel free to pick it apart or throw in advice. 

1) List the property using Cozy. In the description I’ll be sure to mention my qualification criteria in order to protect myself (650 credit score or higher, no prior evictions, 3x rent income, clean criminal background, good landlord reviews)

2) I’ll pre-screen any interested parties to make sure they qualify as I’ll just assume they did not read the full property description. Why are you moving? When’s your ideal move in date? What’s your credit score? What’s your income? How long have you been at that job? How many people will be living here? How many cars do you own? Any criminal background? How’d you find the property? Etc.

3) If the pre-screening goes well, I’ll invite all interested parties to an open house to come tour the property and ask questions.

4) Have all remaining interested and qualified parties fill out the rental application on Cozy.

5) Review applications in the order they were received and do my due diligence as in calling and verifying employment, calling previous landlords, seeing if I can find them on social media, etc.

6) If application and due diligence checks out, I’ll send over the invitation via Cozy for the tenant to pay for their own credit and background check and send that over to me. I’ll only do this one application at a time in order to save people money.

7) I’ll review the credit and background reports carefully and make sure I understand the full picture. I’m still looking for a tenant scoring system to use, if anyone has one they use that they’d be willing to pass along I’d be very grateful.

8) if the tenant does not pass the credit/background check, I’ll be sure to mail them a letter saying why they did not qualify pointing back to my initial qualification criteria.

9) If the tenant does pass the credit/background check, I’ll inform them they’ve been approved and begin the process of getting the lease signed, documenting the condition of the property,  collecting the security deposit.

10) Tenant will need to have paid the security deposit and 1st months rent and also show proof that utilities are in their name prior to handing over the keys.

I fully intend to not bend on my qualification criteria at all. I’ve read a lot of forum posts about sob stories given about why they have a lower credit score or asking if they can be flexible. These usually are red flags.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I look forward to hearing your advice!

-Chris