Deciding between Tenants

[Donald M.]

It looks like I may have multiple acceptable tenants for a rental. Am I allowed to increase the rent and see if someone is willing to pay it (or ask each tenant to give me a monthly amount they are willing to pay), or is this not acceptable? It would be possible that I am setting the rent too low but it would not be trivial for me to find comparables due to specifics of the rental. 

[Jered Sturm]

I would pick the resident you feel will be better over the life of the lease/stay. creating a bidding war seems like it can only end bad. I would check you local laws before doing that if you decide to go that route. 

In the past I have had multiple very qualified tenants apply for one unit. In order to protect myself from a discrimination claim I created the following math equation to make the final pick for me Because math cant discriminate. I used to use this much more when I first started out, but I thought it may help the reader of this forum. I had this equation built into a excel spreadsheet so all I had to do is plug in the info and out poped a number.  This graphic was made to explain the math if a applicant ever asked.