Which is worse: having an eviction or a felony?

[Bao Nguyen]

Experienced landlords and property managers, I need your advice and opinions.  

If you had to prospect tenants to pick from, which would you pick?

Applicant 1: has an eviction from 2 years ago, with a writeoff of nearly $3k from the apartment he was evicted from.    Everyone evict has a sob story, and this one is no exception, but bottom line is there's still an eviction on his record.

Applicant 2: couple who's husband has 2 felonies from 2 and 4 years ago, both for cocaine possession.

Both are equal in other areas (income, rental histories, mediocre credit).

Would a vacant unit be better in this situation?

Look forward to your experiences with renting to felons and evicts.

[Marcia Maynard]

The one with the two recent felonies would not meet our minimum criteria to rent. No go. Besides, the chance of that tenant reoffending is high. Drug users also bring unnecessary drama to a property and usually have more undesirable behavior that goes along with their lifestyle.

The one with the eviction would meet our minimum criteria to rent if they had only one eviction and would make full restitution to the previous landlord prior to renting from us. We would also require an additional security deposit. But, prior to making our decision, we would also look at the circumstances that led to the eviction to determine if they were high risk or low risk at this point in time.