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Posted over 4 years ago

Tenant Screening Tips

Most of us that own rentals are familiar with the typical tenant screening process-

  • Tenant fills out application
  • Landlord reviews application and does an initial qualification check- do they have enough rental experience, do they have enough income, have they been at their job long enough, do they have any pets, how many people would be living at the unit, etc?
  • Then the work starts- check references (current landlord, job, etc), maybe pull credit, do a criminal and civil court background check, etc.
  • There is one thing that I may do a little differently. I screen the landlord as well! I make sure that the name on the tax record matches that of the "landlord" It isn't uncommon for a bad tenant to give a false landlord's info. So, when I call the "landlord" I'll ask they expected questions- would you rent to them again? why are they moving? How often were they late paying? How many times did you have to take them to court? (I don't ask them "if") Then it gets interesting. I'll ask the landlord questions like- who is your real estate attorney or who is your plumber? I'll ask in a way that sounds like I am looking for one myself. If they aren't a real landlord you will hear them stumble over the answers! 
  • When I, or one of my workers, goes to meet the tenant at the unit to see it I tell them to call me 30 minutes ahead of time to confirm. From my experience more that half of them won't show up if you don't have them call you when they are on their way. If they do call and say they are on their way- Great! The next hurdle is this- they need to show up on time. If they are more than 5 minutes late I leave. If they can't show up to see the unit on time they won't pay their rent on time. Same with a job interview. If a worker shows up for that late then they will show up for work late and none of us need that headache!

Those are some of the things that I do that have saved me a lot of time and potential aggravation over the years. Hopefully you can use my experience to save you the same!

Happy Investing.

Mark


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