All Forum Posts by: Lisa Wright

Welcome to the forum!

I am a little late to the party but I use MyRental.com when I am screening prospective tenants. I love their services and their results.

As for the whole process, I usually have them fill out an application form and charge them an application fee to cover the cost of the report. This also will help steer away potential "bad" tenants in my opinion because they know what is going to show up on that report. So if they have had any past issues like evictions, they most likely won't want to waste their money on the application fee since they know they are more then likely to be rejected.

Aside from just screening them I like to sit and meet with them so I can get my own personal feel. Adding my own read of them with the reports the screening service pulls, gives me a pretty good indication of if I will be renting to them or not.

I think it could possibly drive the homes value down if there are too many rentals near it. This is also very dependent on whether the tenants of that rental are respectable and keep it clean, as well as, the landlord making sure he is staying up on this property and keeping it clean. There are a lot of factors that could go into this, so saying for sure that it will or won't hurt the value is difficult but those are some things that might effect it.

I agree with Joe and most of the others. Credit score isn't, and shouldn't, be the end all be all in assessing a tenants eligibility to rent. While you should still know it and use it, I think eviction reports and current income are a lot more important. Searching criminal records is something you should do too.

If you use a tenant screening agency, most of them will give you their "Tenant Score" or "Renter Score". They will compile all the data and results from all the reports ran, credit score included, and give you an overall suggestion based on their qualifications on whether or not you should rent to them or not.

Some landlords or first time users like these features, some don't. My personal opinion, the more information you have the better. However, basing your decision to rent to someone on credit score alone is not something I would suggest, get all the info together and then make your decision.

I allow large breed dogs which is something I notice most landlords don't do. I charge a $500 deposit beforehand, but as long as the beasty doesn't wreck the place the tenant gets their deposit back.

I use a background check service called http://www.myrental.com. I charge an application fee to cover the costs and then it's as simple as running their information through the site.

We give them 50% of one month of rent.

Hey Matt! Welcome to BP. I'm sure you'll find everything you need.

I allow up to 2 cats and one dog of any size/breed but I require a hefty pet deposit so I'm covered if the animal(s) do any damage and the tenants get their deposit back if they have a well behaved pet.

That's really a sticky situation. Can you try to get in touch with the other landlord personally? It's a shame the police can't be more help.