How to Screen a Tenant: Part One

One of the biggest problems you can run into as a landlord is renting to the wrong tenant.  Its seems like a no brainer, but you would ne surprised at how many properties I have ended up with managing, because the owner rented to wrong person and they either finally got them out, but they trashed their house, or they pay late all the time and/or are in non-compliance in other areas in the lease, and the owner finally determines that paying the ten percent management fee is cheap in exchange for having someone else deal with the tenants.

There are many, many ways to screen a tenant.  Today I am going to discuss one of those and will feature some of the others in future blogs.  If you noticed I said some of the others. I am not actually going to give away all of my secrets. 

 After many years of experience there are certain things I look for even and or take note of, even before any paperwork is even started, or in some cases before the property is even shown to the potential applicants.  Today’s blog is about one of the ways to screen prior to showing the property. 

So the property is listed in MLS, on my website and various other websites.  The phone starts to ring and I have someone who would like to see the property.  Here s the first thing I consider.

 Do they answer my preliminary screening questions clearly and precisely or are they vague or uncertain? 

 I always ask the person when they are looking to move, how many people and if they have any pets.  If they are hesitant on any of these answers, my proverbial antennae are up.  I may follow up with a couple of clarifying questions, and determine that they are just nervous for some reason or determine that they are not being totally honest.  If I feel they are not being totally honest, I will ask for their full name and tell them I will call them back to schedule an appointment. 

In the meantime, I will pull their name up in public records and unless they have a common name, I can usually get some information on them.  They may have said they weren’t exactly sure when they need to move, possibly the next week or so, and there they are in the public records, with an eviction filled and waiting for the final judgment. Maybe they stumbled with the answer on whether or not they had a pet or not, and there they are with animal control violations against them.  Both of those things have actually occurred. 

 If I find any information that would adversely affect their chances of being approved at that stage, I call them back and tell them what I found and sometimes they argue with me, and sometimes they don’t, either way I don’t schedule a showing with them.  If I can’t find anything, I call and schedule a showing and move on to the next round of screening.