First time tenant screening

[Jon Swift]

This is my first time screening for a tenant and was hoping to get some advice. I have a woman who would like to rent but she told me she has horrible credit due to a divorce, I figured that if she had good references from previous landlords I could possible move forward but she doesn't have any references either. 

I know I've read that credit score isn't everything but with bad credit and no renting history should I pass?

[Daniel Raposo]

If this is your first time screening tenants, you need to first establish your rental criteria. Most new landlords don't realize the importance of establishing actual criteria and then sticking to it in the future, I made this same mistake when I first started. Making a tenant decision should be a pretty black and white decision for you, but this will only be possible if figure out your criteria first. The only bad tenants I have had so far were because I made judgement calls like this. Some criteria you should have a clear cut answer or might be as follows.

Income to Rent Ratio - (Monthly Gross Income = 3xMonthly Rent)

Credit Score - (600 or 650 or something like this)

Credit History - no late payments within X number of months

Other Debt - factor other debt into the above Income/Rent Ratio

References - how many and from who, and then contact them.

To answer your question directly, I probably would not rent to this person. I might be willing to work with someone if they have one issue with my above criteria, but this tenant seems to be checking a lot of those boxes...