Best ways to check backgrounds of tenants?

[Brian Barfoot]

I'm relatively new to landlording and I don't know much about how to screen tenants the right way. I have two houses rented at the moment. One is a recent purchase and we inherited the tenants who are wonderful. The other is my first house that's been a rental for a couple of years. I picked the tenants because a) they asked me first and b) they seemed like nice people. In other words: the worst possible screening method ever. As it turned out, I was lucky again and they have been great about paying rent on time and taking care of the place but I know I'm asking for trouble if I don't do a better job. So my questions are:

What sources do you use for checking out a tenant? Is just pulling a credit history from Equifax and calling references enough? Where do you find criminal history records and how much do you have to pay for them (if at all?) Do you do social media checks?

I'm hoping to make deal #3 in the next week or two so I should get better at this soon.