Cool tip for finding info on tenants before you talk to them.

[Tamara R.]

Like many of you, I post my rentals on Craigslist and Zillow and other sites. On both of these sites, prospective tenants can reply through Craigslist or Zillow without you knowing their e-mail address. I also try to prescreen people because my rentals are thirty minutes away and I only want to show to people who will meet my rental criteria, etc.

I had one person contact me who sounded promising, however in her initial contact she didn’t give me her full name or e-mail address, so I didn’t know if she was legitimate or not. I tried finding a website that does a reverse cell phone lookup to determine her name, but everything that popped up charged for the service. Then I tried “googling” her phone number and got a wealth of information. Based on her postings on social media and online advertisement sites, not only did I find out her full name and e-mail address, I found out where she currently lives, approximately how much she pays for rent, how many children she has and their ages, that she is a single mom, that she has a side business, that she is looking to “meet adventurous people” etc. I was also able to corroborate a lot of her story later for when we actually talked to her on the phone. I imagine you can also do this with e-mail addresses too. Does anyone do similar? Any other tricks for finding out info about people before you waste too much time on them?

[Jean Bolger]

I think it's prudent, not creepy. Many people misrepresent themselves when applying for a rental. This way you would at least know if they were doing that.