Can I ask potential tenant credit score and house income even before showing house?
Hey there,
Showing our house to potential tenants is turning out to be quite the task. We often end up finding out their credit score or income doesn't cut it only after we've shown them around, which honestly feels like a bit of a time sink.
So, I was thinking, whenever someone hits us up on Zillow wanting to check out the place, maybe I could just ask upfront if their credit score is over 600 and if they're pulling in more than $6,000 a month. Do you reckon that's cool to ask, or are there some legal hoops to jump through?
Thank you
You should always be confirming this before a walk through, unless you are doing a group walk through time over a couple hours where the investment is lower than an individual showing. My response to any inquiry is something like:
"Thanks XXX, can you confirm you meet the criteria in the listing? Gross income 2.5X rent ($X,XXX/mo), no evictions, no violent crimes in 5 years, no late payments in the last 12 months."
My criteria here in Socal are different than when I had rentals in FL, but the point is the same. You want them to confirm they meet those criteria or its a waste of your time, it also helps if you later deny for one of those items.
In FL I had a guy who confirmed my criteria and then was upset when I denied for a criminal issue in the background check...because he plead 'no contest'. If he had lead with that when I asked we could have discussed, instead he wanted to argue semantics with me. Guess who I would never want to rent to...the guy who wants to argue with his prospective LL. I simply pointed him back to his confirming the criteria and failing to bring it up then if he had any question on what I expected.
Quote from @Matt Devincenzo:
You should always be confirming this before a walk through, unless you are doing a group walk through time over a couple hours where the investment is lower than an individual showing. My response to any inquiry is something like:
"Thanks XXX, can you confirm you meet the criteria in the listing? Gross income 2.5X rent ($X,XXX/mo), no evictions, no violent crimes in 5 years, no late payments in the last 12 months."
My criteria here in Socal are different than when I had rentals in FL, but the point is the same. You want them to confirm they meet those criteria or its a waste of your time, it also helps if you later deny for one of those items.
In FL I had a guy who confirmed my criteria and then was upset when I denied for a criminal issue in the background check...because he plead 'no contest'. If he had lead with that when I asked we could have discussed, instead he wanted to argue semantics with me. Guess who I would never want to rent to...the guy who wants to argue with his prospective LL. I simply pointed him back to his confirming the criteria and failing to bring it up then if he had any question on what I expected.
Thank you!
Having an open house walk-through could save you a lot of time if you are getting a lot of demand.
@Kevin Kim I initially post the ad about the unit and get prospective tenants to fill out my application prior to setting up showings. This allows me to have some basic information ahead of time and if I want to be able to set up a phone call as well prior to showings. This helps to weed out those who are less likely to qualify.
I have found that this can bring it down from potentially 60 people to maybe 6-7 qualified applicants who are actually going to show up to a meeting to view the unit and then I go from there as to which 1-2 I am going to start with as far as running a background check on.
You can always run additional background checks if the first 1-2 don’t look good but I find there’s no reason to run one on everyone, just the most qualified candidate or two.
Kevin - I agree with Matt and have done something similar with asking basic questions to confirm that the inquired person meets the criteria. An important point is to use the same criteria for everyone and ask the same questions in the same manner. I typically weed out about 50-75% of the inquiries with just confirming the basic criteria. I then hold an open house/showing for those that qualify based on the criteria. Good Luck!