Do your own tenant screening?

Question

Hello everyone,

Lots of tenant application/screening services can be seen using a Google search. There are so many that I'm deadlocked due to the excessive freedom of choice! Plus, there are no trustworthy reviews of these services.

Would the price they charge the applicant deter too many candidates from renting a room in my home?

I could just do many of the screening steps myself: check my state's sex offender registry, search for convictions using the websites of each county the applicant has resided in recently, and ask the applicant to unfreeze their Experian credit file for me. And I would phone all the references myself, even if I used one of those screeners.

Only law enforcement people are empowered to search crime databases nationally, as far as I can tell. This makes me wonder how all these tenant screening websites are searching.

Do you rely on such a screening service, or do you have your own process?

Thanks in advance for your ideas and replies!

Lisa Wright · Answer

Definitely don't be concerned about deterring would-be candidates. You'll get applicants if your property is desirable, and anyone unwilling to pay an application fee probably isn't a serious candidate.

You could do most of that legwork yourself, but it's going to take you a LOT of time and energy, especially if you have a wide net of applicants. Many of these companies do in fact have access to national databases.

I have a process that involves my own research and the use of a tenant screening service:

• Meet with any applicants in person at least twice to take notice of how they carry themselves and take care of their property. Are they on time for your appointment? Do they seem polite? Is there car in decent shape? These are good indicators of how they’ll treat your property and interact with you and your other tenants/neighbors/etc.
• Make sure to get references from at least two landlords or employers. Be sure to talk to these people on the phone!
• As for the screening service, I run a full background and credit check on http://www.myrental.com/ and charge an application fee to cover the costs.

Ryan Dossey · Answer

Most of the tenant screening services are done through one of the credit reporting bureaus which gives them a high level of clearance than most civilians have. So they can actually verify information such as SSN, DOB, Spouse, Credit worthiness, Employment history, previous addresses, etc.

While you can maybe "get away" with trying to do it yourself most sites only charge around $35 a pop. I have a feeling if you've got a tenant who won't pay the app fee they're not a tenant you'd want anyway!

Account Closed · Answer

Ryan Dossey made a great point about the application fee narrowing down the tenant pool. An application fee can indicate a prospective tenant's interest level.

Verifying employment and rental history yourself is a good way to get a feel for the tenant, which is especially important if you're renting a room in your home versus a separate property. Using a screening company could save you some time and provide valuable background information to follow up on with the tenant.

Nathan Miller · Answer

Hi @Erik K. - You can definitely do your own tenant screening if you want.  As you've mentioned, there are plenty of them out there.  If you search the forums here, you'll see there's a number of recommendations for screening providers that other BP members have familiarity with so you can get first-hand advice of how good they are.

You can get it done in two flavors:

• There's the smartmove type service where you initiate an order and the tenant then completes it.  They need to have internet access and be familiar with their historical credit data to be able to get through the questionnaire.  These services work well if you do very few screens and don't need immediate results.
• As a landlord, you are authorized to order your own credit, criminal, and eviction data.  There's usually a small application that may take 10 minutes to complete to gain access, but once you are in you can then order nationwide reports on any of your applicants and get the results immediately.   Disclaimer, I work for one of these services, so I might have a bias, but I truly believe it's far more convenient for landlords that have more than a few applicants per year.

To address the other portion of your question about ordering your own reports from the state or county, I would advice against it.  Or at least don't only count on those.  Your applicant might have committed crimes in another state, and you need to know about that too.  Likewise, they may be a sex offender who's on the "lam" and hasn't yet registered in your state.  You need to be verifying this data on a nationwide level.

Thomas S. · Answer

No one cares more about the quality of tenant than the owner. Once you learn the process and have done it a couple of times it becomes very easy. I would never rely on a company to do something I can do better myself. A company can read date but only a owner has the opportunity to read people.

Do your own tenant screening?

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