Employment verification seems fishy, thoughts?

Question

I have a prospective tenant that has provided me a paystub along with her application. Everything seems good on the paystub and when I call the number she provided the person I spoke to verified everything to be correct. Here is where it gets fishy and my gut is telling me it is B. S., the number provided is a cell phone number, the address in google maps shows to be a boarded up house and the address for the main office appears to be a personal residence in a neighborhood. Also, when I google the company name only one comes up, I called and they never heard of her or the person whose number she gave me. On the one hand it could be a small company without a website and google maps can have old photos on it, but it all seems off to me. On the other hand it seems a little "made up".

What are you all's thoughts on the matter? Is there a better way to go about this?

What are you all's thoughts on the matter?  Is there a better way to go about this?

Brian L. · Answer

No, I'm not kidding. If you have a bad feeling about the tenant why would you rent to them? Well, I guess if YOU have a bad feeling and want to ignore it then that's your bad tenant. If I have a bad feeling about someone I'll pass, no kidding.

Brian L. · Answer

Yea I think a better way to go about it would be to find another tenant. The important thing is that you said "my gut is telling me it is B.S."; when is the last time that your gut was wrong?

RANJAY SINGH · Answer

Anyone has a VOE verification of employment template or link that I can use? to verify one of tenants.

Steve Babiak · Answer

Bill Gulley - the paystub usually does not have bank info omit; it may have something on it to identify a payroll processing company.

Jon Klaus · Answer

Ask for her W-2.  She should have received it recently, or by next week at the latest.

George Paiva · Answer

Yep you been in this business long enough you kind of develop a 6th sense. I actually hold my gut to higher standards. In fact I think after some of my recent experiences gut will over rule now how to make that quantifiable would be a whole other issue in case I get audited by housing or something.

I can't count how many times I had tenants 3x income, good credit >550, no convictions, no evictions but one life event it all goes to the crapper.  The psychology of it all really needs to be studied.  Question, "How stable mentally is this tenant, do I have to baby sit this one"

I stopped listening or already turned off the moment they start with the "stories".

James Wise · Answer

Also just wanted to add

"no tenant is better than a bad tenant"

James Wise · Answer

@Brian L. is correct. If your gut tells you something is wrong with a tenant you follow it. If you were wrong and she really is a good tenant, who cares? You already found another good one. If you let her be your tenant and it turns out your gut was right now you got a big and potentially costly problem. This isn't the stock market. Go with the gut.

Jason Eyerly · Answer

I usually prefer to go with common sense, or what I know and can analyze logically, not with what my "gut" says. That would imply an uneducated decision based off no supporting evidence other than what I can randomly hypothesize. Ridiculous. If you ever invest in the financial markets, please... For your sake, do not go with your gut.

Employment verification seems fishy, thoughts?

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