Blog & Podcast

To narrow down the list of prospective tenants and focus on leads that are truly interested in occupying your rental, you should consider requiring an application fee as an indicator of serious intentions.

Having high standards is always important in business, especially as it relates to maintaining tenant-landlord relationships. From this perspective, establishing screening criteria allows you to set clear standards and prevent evictions in the long run.

Any landlord is aware that the success of your rental business depends partially on the residents you rent to. If you don’t pay enough attention to the candidates for your rental units, you’re probably missing out on the huge benefits of dealing with quality renters. After all, the more reliable and responsible a tenant is, the greater your chances of boosting your rental income and building a good business reputation.

When considering someone as a potential tenant, you probably have two main questions in mind:
Will this person pay the rent in full and on time?
Will this person take care of my property?
Of course, it's impossible to predict the future, but there are steps you can take to make an informed decision.

There are a lot of moving parts to the application process, but one you will not want to gloss over is rental history. It is an important predictor of how potential tenants will treat rental payments and care for your property. So, how do you prepare for this process? And what should you expect? Let’s dive in.

As we mentioned in part one of this series, categories like credit, rental, and employment history are important to think through when establishing your policies. We also offered an example list of criteria you could use, shown below. This list offers some guidelines that may seem inflexible, but your policy can be much more nuanced. Let’s consider some potential exceptions to this list as you start preparing your guidelines.

When filling a unit vacancy, it can be tempting to rent to people based solely on great first impressions. While your gauge of character may be spot on or your friends’ recommendations are always right, take the extra steps to protect yourself by conducting thorough background checks that follow screening guidelines you’ve previously established. By consistently using your policies to evaluate applicants equally and fairly, you can protect yourself from discrimination lawsuits.

Tenant screening is a process used mostly by landlords and property managers in order to make the right decision about their potential tenants. Tenant screening provides with all the information you need to know: the ability to pay, meet requirements of the lease, information about past actions and former leases. 

Finding a new tenant can often seem like finding a spouse. There is love at first sight, dating, marriage proposal followed by a lasting commitment. In the rental world love at first sight may not be as bona fide, but just as time consuming before you tie the knot. Before you end up with Mr. Right-now, you may want to think of some basic strategies on finding Mr. Right. This can come from smth as easy as requiring an application fee. 

Selecting a tenant can be like picking a suitor for one of your children or pets. We still find people amazingly wonderful, but interacting with them on a regular basis allows a strict line of judgement to enter the relationship.

Believe me, usually it’s not enough to have just an interview with a potential tenant and entrust them with your property, without guarantees. And the best decision you may come up with is  tenant screening!