As a landlord, it is important that your property is rented out to responsible tenants. This is to ensure that your house is in good hands in order to avoid severe damage of your property. You also need to screen tenants to avoid situations like high turnover rates, delayed payment of rent and eviction of tenants because it is bad for business.
How do you avoid all these? How do you get great tenants? You have to screen tenants properly to avoid these challenges. A prospective tenant may seem great at first, but you do not know them. They have to make a good impression because they are interested in renting your house. It is your duty to be a great landlord by making sure that they are the best fit for your property.
Here’s a guide on how to screen tenants properly;
Set your requirements – This is the first step to screen tenants and find the best match. Come up with a list of requirements that will qualify prospective tenants. Determine the type of questions to ask them. It should include;
Income – This is to verify their income and employment status to give you insight on whether a potential tenant can afford the rent or not.
Evictions – You can do a research on their background to confirm their eviction history.
Landlord and employment reference – This helps to verify that the information they have given is true and confirm their history with previous landlords.
It is crucial that you set your standards and stick to them. Looking into an applicant’s social media accounts can also help to give insights about their personality.
Tenant application – A tenant application helps you to gather information about applicants. The application form should contain information such as; name, birth date, income, employment history and status etc. Make sure that the application form covers everything that you want to know about the tenant. Ask them to fill the form and return it to you. It is important that you confirm the information written down. If an applicant excludes information, it could be that they are hiding something. This is a red flag that should not be ignored. The form should also contain information about their references.
Contact references – A follow up on the references provided would be great. References can be previous landlords and current employers. This will help to understand the applicant better and their relationship with their previous landlords and current employers. Be sure to ask questions about their record of rent payment, their social behaviors and the condition of the property they previously rented.
Conduct a physical interview – It is not enough for applicants to fill the tenant application form. Conduct an interview and ask them questions to give you a better understanding about who they are. It is also the perfect time for applicants to explain what they have written in the application form just in case any information given is not clear.
Make a decision – After conducting interviews, you can now select the prospective tenant that you think is the best match. You own your property and it is your duty to make sure that you select the potential tenant that you believe can take proper care of your property.
In your screening process, make sure that you do not make potential tenants uncomfortable by asking them personal questions relating to their religion, ethnicity, disabilities etc. Your selection process should not also be based on this. It is unprofessional and unethical to discriminate. Be careful not to overstep boundaries in your screening process.
If you follow these five steps to screen tenants, you will be able to figure out the best match for your property and reduce the risk of renting your property to a bad tenant.
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