Owning and renting out your property to tenants is a good moneymaker. It can come with plenty of perks; however, it can also cause you some big problems especially if you don’t have the right tenants.
If you want to rent out your property, it’s important that you screen your tenants so you can make sure that they won’t give you problems and headaches once they occupy your property. Screening and finding the right tenants for your property will make your experience as a landlord a pleasant one.
Tenant Screening Essentials
Be sure to learn how to screen tenants properly by following the basics below.
1. Do A Background Check
Tenant background checks are a common procedure used by many landlords and real estate managers to screen potential tenants. The goal is to test the potential tenant’s willingness to follow the terms of the contract or lease and to take care of the property in question. Also, tenant background checks don’t take that long, as mentioned in this link https://www.microbilt.com/news/article/how-long-does-a-background-check-take-. It usually takes a couple of minutes, especially if it’s done online.
This type of pre-screening is often used when a person is applying for an apartment or house to rent. Many landlords don’t want to put someone that’s likely to break the terms of their contract in an apartment, and a tenant background check can help them weed out potentially bad tenants.
2. Check The Tenant’s Credit History
By checking the credit history of your prospective tenants, it’ll give you a clear picture of their current financial situation. It’s important to have this information because a bankruptcy or judgment can put a negative impact on your finances for a long time to come. Even if you find a non-compliant tenant, you still will end up paying more because of their poor credit history.
It’s best to get a tenant that has a very good credit score. A good credit score is often one of the best indicators of a good tenant. Those tenants with high credit scores are usually interested in protecting their credit scores, which means they’re willing to pay you on time and avoid creating any problems for their landlord to deal with.
3. Check The Tenant’s Employment History
The next thing you need to do is to check their employment history. This can give you a good idea about whether they have been fired before and if they’re currently employed. You want to check their employment history because it will give you an indication of whether they have the ability to pay for their rent on time.
Checking for the tenant’s employment history is also very ideal, especially if they don’t have a credit history to show. You should also ask them questions such as what they do for a living and their job duties. Find out what they do and how long they worked there. This is very important because you need to be able to trust their word when you rent out your property to them.
Why Tenant Screening Is Important?
When you make the decision to rent your home or property, you want to know exactly who is going in and who is going out of it. If you don’t, you could end up with some undesirable people, such as renters who don’t pay their rent on time. Tenant screening can help avoid this problem and can save you from many unwanted situations.
Tenant screening provides an excellent way to prevent problems from occurring and provide you with peace of mind as a landlord. It will also help you find a tenant that you can trust to rent out your home or property knowing that it’s in good hands. There are many times that a landlord failed to do tenant screening beforehand and, as a result, they end up spending thousands of dollars because of the tenant’s neglect and irresponsibility.
Final Thoughts
Finding the right tenant for your property is hard. Most landlords prefer to find a tenant that they can trust and build a rapport with. However, you’ll never know exactly what kind of person your tenant is.
There are tenants that pass the screening with high marks but then a couple of months later, they’re no longer capable of paying you on time and are very irresponsible in taking care of the property. Sometimes, tenant screening also requires you to trust your instincts. If you feel that there’s something off about the prospective tenant even though he looks good on paper, it’s probably best to find another one.
