How and where to get tenant's credit report and other Qs

[Account Closed]

Which sort of resource do you guys/gals use to look up your tenant's credit score, rental histories, and past crimes/evictions? 

Also, any other things you've learned to screen for in your experiences? Any tips on finding "the best!" tenant? Any big red flags you've noticed pop up with people over and over? 

Last question, is the application fee typically supposed to cover the credit checks?

[Levi Vincent]

Hi Raymond Atzbach ,

I'm don't own any properties yet, but I currently work for a decently large management company. We go through creditbureareports.com for credit and criminal record searches. We don't look at the applicant's actual credit score, but we don't allow for anything to be in collections except medical or school bills.

We look for past evictions and bankruptcies as well. We also check their resident history for the previous 5 years and we require proof of employment. Gross income has to be 3.4x rent. The property I work at is 402 units and we are 98% occupied. If we aren't as full we lower the income req. to just 3x rent. Our app fee is $75.

These requirements may be too strict or too lax depending on you're area. The higher the demand in your area the more strict you can be. This is just how we do things and we tend to get pretty high quality tenants. Our turn times on vacant units is about one week because the tenants usually leave them in such good condition.

Hope this helps!