Tenant Screening Form/Scoring System

[Terri Pour-Rastegar]

Hi there.  Does anyone already have a good tenant screening form/checklist they use while processing applications?  I'd especially like to see some good examples of scoring systems if anyone has them.

Usually, it's pretty easy for me to select which tenant I think is the best.  However, I often have multiple viable applications in front of me, and it's not easy to decide.  I'm not complaining, mind you--it's a great problem to have!  But, in those situations, I wish I could apply a scoring system to help make my decision easier.

Yes, I've been through the BP Ultimate Tenant Screening Guide thing and poured through all of the documents in the File Place here on BP.  Not finding quite what I need. 

Thanks.  :)

[Sarnen Steinbarth]

Some screening services will give you automatic screening recommendations.  Have you considered using a service that applies a screening recommendation automatically?

[David M.]

Originally posted by @Sarnen Steinbarth:

Some screening services will give you automatic screening recommendations.  Have you considered using a service that applies a screening recommendation automatically?

 I'm interested in this thread as well. My issue with automatic screening services is that most of our properties are in lower-income areas where standard criteria would struggle to get us qualified applicants. We need to be able to tailor the weight of different arrives for this particular situation.

[Michele Fischer]

I have a scoring system.  It is tailored to low income, but can be modified for higher end.  You decide what is important to you and what weighting to put on it.  I came up with the weightings by running prior actual applicants through it, making sure that the good tenants make it and the bad tenants get rejected.

As long as it is not a discriminatory attribute, you can add it and put as much weighting as you want.  We also keep the scoring the same but require a higher score for our better places.  The screening report we get back for credit check gives a "fit score", you'd want to modify your system to match what info you get back.  You also probably need to modify it for what you are actually asking for on your application process, we've tweaked that a lot over the years.  Each score sheet gets included at the front of the application and leads us to an automatic yes, no, or holding pattern to explore more, ask for more info or deposit, or wait to see if a better applicant comes in.

I can send the file to anyone who e-mails me.

[Jeff Gates]

These scoring systems are worthless in my opinion. They use a rule set that is applied to all 52 states and 1000's of regional markets. Each market is different. Each reasonable set of applicants should be graded against the mean of who is part of this micro set, applicable to YOUR market. For example; if 90% of your applicants are at or below a 620 FICO, why should you reject everyone below a 650 FICO? There are other factors that should be a big part of a decision. I believe custom questions asked to prior landlord weighs very big. I believe the employment stability weighs very big. Personally I don't like self employed, since I can't easily validate cash flow.

[Jim Roberts]

Terri, did you ever find anything that helped you?  I really like your idea to have a scoring system to help narrow down or to support my initial thoughts.

Thanks!