prospective tenants with high debt to income ratios

[Jestin Sorenson]

I have a couple applicants that are married with a newborn baby. She plans on staying home with the baby. They both have mid 700's on the smartmove application, which I think is really good. They both are college educated and would seem after talking to them, that they would be great tenants.

I'm fairly certain they will both have good rental history. They've lived together for their past 3 places. I am still going to do my do diligence and check those references. I called today, but I think it was too late and nobody picked up the phone.

However, I'm more concerned about their debt to income ratios. The woman owes 75k and the man owes 101k with 14k of that revolving; the rest student loans. The man hasn't paid his student loans in 4 months. It's not late. It just says N/A. The woman's is spotty. She has N/A for many months and then she'll pay for months.

I've had student loans before and that generally means that it was deferred or forbearance. You can get up to 5 years forbearance and I'm not sure about deferred. 

He makes 3.7 times the rent gross, but from his w-2's, after taxes and other taken out, it's $2100 every other week. The rent is $1000. From what smartMove says, they're student loans, revolving and rent would be $2600. That's -$500 not counting utilities and car insurance, and whatever other bills they might have.

They pay $950 a month at their current residence. 

Based on the numbers, I'm thinking no. They're a ticking time bomb. I don't have too much experience with having tenants. I just bought a duplex and am renting out the other half. Any insight into this would be much appreciated! Sorry for the long post. I wanted to make sure I got all/most of the facts in there.