Some Questions About Getting My Lease Ready

[Thomas O'Donnell]

I am beginning to set up/edit a lease to list one side of my duplex for rent. Should I require renter's insurance or would that give me less applicants? I am also planning on requiring a credit score at or above 625, no pets, no smoking, no evictions and 3x the rent for income. I have also thought about creating a Google Docs form with pre-screening questions and putting the link on the listing so that applicants can kind of disqualify themselves and I will not have to waste time screening so many unqualified people. Does anyone have any thoughts or tips about this? Or maybe some things I should make sure are also in my lease? I'd love to try and add in quarterly maintenance walkthroughs if possible so that nothing goes ignored until they move out. Would love to get some input from my fellow investors on how to best set up my lease and begin screening tenants (I'm currently using Avail to start managing my property).