Changed how I find tenants

[Michael Hayworth]

I've recently changed how I find tenants, and it's reduced the amount of time required and I'm getting better tenants than ever.

I used to lease through an agent - they'd do one showing at a time, send me an app when it came in, and I'd evaluate it. I got some good tenants that way, but also some crappy ones.

I've started doing it myself, as follows:

• Schedule an open house about a week out.
• Neighborhood signs, obviously.
• Advertise the property on Zillow, Trulia, etc. 
• Advertise the property on Facebook homes for sale/rent groups, which are big in our area. I get LOTS of applicants off these groups.
• I get flooded with inquiries, many of which will be crap. I keep sending my cut & paste reply, "The first opportunity to see the house will be at the open house Saturday from 1-3, and we'll be accepting applications at that time." Decline all begging and pleading for a special earlier showing.
• Have the open house and take applications.

I've done this four times in six months. It takes relatively little time. More importantly, I get to meet all the applicants. I've never failed to come away with at least three applicants, often six or seven. (This is a hot rental market - this method may not work in markets where rental supply exceeds demand.)

Application fee is $45/person on the lease (so $90 if both incomes must be considered.) I tell people if I have multiple applications, I'll run the ones who seemed to have the strongest credit first, and I return application fees for those folks I don't run a background check on. I just tell them, "Yeah, we had several applications, and I ran the folks who seemed like they'd have the strongest credit first. They checked out, so I didn't run your application because I didn't want to waste your money."That seems to defuse the "professional complainers" - it's not that I'm rejecting them, I'm just taking the stronger applicants. And it gives me a chance to actually talk to all the applicants before I run anyone's credit. I accepted a guy with a felony on his background who I probably would've screened out just based on paper. He's been a fantastic tenant. And I can avoid the whiners and complainers who are going to make a landlord's life miserable.

So far, this method has gotten my houses turned super fast - one of them was 8 days from closing the sale to signing a lease. And it has given me four really solid tenants who I enjoy renting to. I feel much better about the quality of tenants than I did with just taking apps one at a time.

Hope this helps somebody.