A major part of owning a rental property is screening your potential tenants. Screening tenants can be quite stressful because you want to make sure that the person renting your place is going to take care of it. Here are three tips for screening potential tenants.
How to best screen potential tenants
- Have minimum application requirements. First, a way to weed out undesirable tenants is to have minimum application requirements. It’s important to balance your application requirements with the community around you. For example, you do not want to ask for an unrealistic income. It may be reasonable to expect your potential tenant to make three times the rent, but expecting them to make four or five times it may be unnecessary.
- Run a background check. Next, you should run a background check. A background check can tell you the type of person the potential tenant is. Of course, background checks will not tell you everything. You may also want to run a credit check or a rental history check. A background check will ensure that you are not renting to someone with a criminal history. A credit check can tell you how likely they are to pay their bills on time. Lastly, checking the rental history will tell you what their previous landlords thought of them.
- Ask for non-familial references. Finally, you can ask for references from employers, old landlords, old roommates, or clients. References are great because they allow someone else to give you their impression of your potential tenant. This is especially important for finding out about a potential tenant’s rental history. Contacting previous landlords and previous roommates gives you an insight into how they act as tenants.
Perhaps the most important part about having a rental property is streamlining the application process. The most important part of the application process is screening the potential tenants. You want to make sure the person you rent to can afford the place. If you need assistance managing rental properties, Walters and Co can help you find the perfect tenant for your property.