All Forum Posts by: Sarnen Steinbarth

"A vacancy is better than a bad tenant." - Some Wise Landlord

@Mike R.

For SEO purposes there are a million other factors that are probably more important than your name for getting found.

BiggerPockets is an example of this (a name that does not have real estate related terms in it, yet ranks highly).

Search: real estate agent forum

Same with our company name.

Search:  free landlord software san diego

You'll notice in both examples that the search term does not include any words in the BP company name, or our company name, yet we rank very, very highly.

If you can get a good grasp on SEO, you could rank highly with almost any name.  So if you are only considering using the words Big Bear for SEO purposes, I wouldn't worry about it.

Pick a name you like, that is available and you can get a decent domain name for it.

I think some good initial questions to ask, would be:

• How many people
• When they are looking to move
• Pets
• Smoking
  
• Beds / Bath / Budget
• Basic screening criteria

Then have prospect review pictures / drive by.

Then showing the unit.

Then rental application and screening.

Some landlords for either safety reasons, or just to limited the number of unqualified showings will require the application prior to showing.

@Account Closed  I'd offer it to the first approved applicant that is willing to sign a lease and put down the deposit.

Rocky, 

When it comes to credit reports there are 2 main methods:

• Hard Pulls - You need to have an onsite inspection at your place of business and jump through a few security hoops.  There may be a fee for this, and you won't be able to start screening right away - you'll need to schedule the onsite inspection.  But the reports are typically a little cheaper and you can initiate the pull of the credit.  This option does affect the tenants credit.  This is common for 100+ unit landlords / property management companies.
• Soft Pulls / Consumer initiated - An onsite inspection is not required and you can begin screening right away.  The reports often cost a bit more, but often the costs are paid directly by the tenant.  The tenant essentially pulls their own report and shares it electronically  (I would not recommend allowing the tenant to bring their own report as it could have been easily altered).  This option does not affect the tenant's credit so may be preferred by the tenant.  Because it is easier to get going this is common for landlords with less than 100 units.

• Talk on the phone or in person
• Provide selection criteria
• Get an application
• Verify income / ability to pay
• Get a credit report
• Search criminal records
• Search eviction records
• Contact references, particularly landlords
• Be leery of someone who is in a rush to move or wants to pay you extra to move in immediately (in lieu of a more thorough background check)
• Make sure you are not discriminating based on a protected class in your selection

 Sure!  It wasn't that long ago (maybe 2 months?).

@Jennifer T.

Postlets no longer exists (at least not under that name) - but the same general idea is now Zillow Rental Manager.

Other sites I'd recommend are:

apartments.com

rent.com

realtor.com

apartmentlist.com

rentjungle.com

padmapper.com

@Account Closed

Well, I can't specifically talk to illegitimate services, but I can say that TransUnion is one of the major 3 credit bureaus in the US, they have a rental screening division in the Denver area, the've processed likely millions of tenant screening reports and is used by thousands of companies.

They are a reputable service that provides credit, criminal and eviction reports.

@Jessie Niu

There are a handful of ways to do this.  Are you wanting to build your own website, or use a service that automatically creates the property listing websites?

I could be wrong, but I don't think erentpayment does the website listing aspect.