Good tenants are not going to pay an application fee before viewing a unit.

Quote from @James Runkle: does anybody have the latest information on this fiasco for appointing a local agent in charge for out of state investors?

Nationally I think there is a lot more fraud overall, not only rental applciations but loan applications, social engineering scam with emails etc.

As I mentioned above, if you're not registered as a HML or lender and you are charging fees as a lender, you're in violation.

How much do you charge for a security deposit?

We moved away from our units, so we use a property manager now, but we did it quasi in-house and never charged an application fee. 

We use services like Verifast and Plaid to verify directly with payroll or the applicant’s bank.

Absolutely have them complete a full application form. 

We embrace S8 applicants, but screen them just like any other applicant.Many have an entitlement mentality and try to leverage their S8 voucher by pretending to be helpless:1) A percentage won't apply because they expect a landlord to waive application fees for them.2) Many cry broke and expect a landlord NOT to charge them a security deposit.3) Many of those same S8 tenants trying to avoid paying a security deposit, won't make an effort to call the list of nonprofits we send them that will pay their security deposit if they apply.4) A lot of them try to avoid paying for utilities.

(We built the same plan within 2-3 blocks of each other so often we address similar issues that come up.)They now charge a $200 non-refundable application fee.