Tenant Screening Research Proposal

[Michael Tapia]

Hello Landlords and Property Managers of BP,

I have been working on a research project for a while to look at how common and alternative screening methods predict different aspects of what I'm calling Tenant Performance (including Payments, Vacating, Maintenance, Cleaning, Interactions with Landlords, and Causing Damages). I have collected some initial data and presented on research that is based on tenant self-reports, but I am now interested in getting real-time business data.

I am looking to collaborate with a larger scale landlord(s)/property manager(s) who are interested in helping me collect unidentified but matched data on screening outcomes, screening decisions (acceptance/rejection of tenancy), and basic questions about how the tenant behaves and your view of them as a good/bad tenant.

My hope is to build a data collection process into at least one, but hopefully a few, screening processes, and collect data over a year, resulting in a research presentation/paper I can share.

If anyone is interested in talking more about this, please PM me. I enjoy conducting research studies like this and hope that others may find this interesting as well.

Thanks for your time in reading my proposal.

Best,

Michael

What I can provide:

-Complete support in data collection and building out the method/process, and consent forms.

-Results at the end of the study regarding what predicts performance and what doesn't for each of the performance variables. This, hopefully, can provide some insight into what to look for when screening tenants. For example, if you are interested in only gathering rent, then Credit Score is probably going to be a good tool to use. However, my initial research shows that Credit Score doesn't do a great job predicting other performance variables, such as whether the tenant is easy to work with, maintenance behavior, and so forth.

What I need help with:

-Implementing a process for collecting screening data during your screening processes.

-Outcome data (how tenants perform at time intervals during their tenancy).

-Properly matching the screening data and outcome data for use in analyses. I do not want to identify any applicants/tenants. This is for research only and I need your help as the landlord to keep this data confidential.

My background:

I am an IO Psychologist that works as a Research Consultant during the day, and a real estate investor on my own time. I work on research projects like this at my day job and I'm interested in merging this type of research with my investment interests.