Tenant Screening - What's Your Process?

[Joe P.]

Hi all - finally hit the ground running and closed on my second (first real investment property) property on Friday, and have been trying to get a tenant into one of the units (other unit is occupied) ASAP.

Here is my process, and I'm sure ready for some advice and/or tweaks you would recommend. The property is in a C/B area -- its very blue collar but also would attract likely more tenants with cash/bad credit versus tenants with cash/good credit.

1.  Placed ad on Craigslist

2.  Received e-mails from prospects, responded with minimum income requirements, our required deposit, and that we will execute full background check/check references.

3.  (Assuming agreement with #2) show property, with paper application on site.

4.  If they pass rudimentary check on paper application, initiate them with my 3rd party (TransUnion SmartMove) for full background check.

I think doing #2 is saving me from showing the property, unnecessarily, to people who would not qualify. Do you all agree? I've had 15 e-mails in 48 hours, but have only had one person make it to actually visiting and putting in an application.

I'm a BIG guy on having the right processes, so I'm curious to see if others are doing things differently, or if there should be changes to my process. What I want to avoid, which is what I dealt with with my first property, is showing it to everyone who wanted to see it, getting a ton of applications, but then not having any actual interest from there.