Tenant screening

[Matt Harris]

hey BP 

What's your best way or program to screen and evaluate appilcants? That's most effective and not too costly. Or any recommendations on the process collecting application fees which would prove whos truly interested but also everyone cant afford to do this for numerous applicants. And provide the applicstion fee as discount from security deposit only if accepted? Thanks

[Kelly N.]

Hello Matt,

It depends somewhat upon your market.  We charge a $30 application fee for every occupant over 18.  I use rentecdirect.com, which charges me $29.45 to run a criminal/credit/evictions search and I check references (employment and landlords) myself IF the reports come back looking good.  I collect the fees in person when they give me their app, or online via Intuit's Payment Network.

I get many people who whine about the $30 application fee, but my feeling is that if they probably aren't ideal tenants for me anyways.  If $30 is hard to come up with then they either don't make 3x the rent in income, or they don't manage their money well which will lead to problems down the road for me.  

Other landlords typically charge $25-$50 per applicant in my area, though there are a few that don't charge anything.  I suspect they don't run checks at all.  I don't offer to credit the security deposit or move in costs, around here the application fee is just another cost in getting a new apartment.  I will pay the fee for tenants we have inherited (that were in place when we bought the rental) if they are renewing their lease- it is not their fault that the property sold or that the previous landlord didn't do a background check (or did and  didn't supply us with the reports).

Kelly