What do I include with my college student rental applications?

Question

Hello! I am a soon-to-be rental property manager for my father's college rental business located in Whitewater, WI. We have 85 units in our portfolio. We recently purchased Buildium for our property management software, and the software includes a rental application that I can customize which fields to include/exclude. Currently, we require basic contact info of the applicant, a drivers license, and an emergency contact (parent). We have not run any background checks on college students since they have no credit history, but the software allows us to run checks on them if we wanted to on our higher end units.

My question is, what information have you found useful for renting to college students? Any recommendations to background checks/co-signing parents, etc.? Thanks!

Ryan Swan · Answer

@Ben Freiermuth nearly all college students I run have credit history, and some criminal history comes up as well (minor alcohol type infractions).

I think you're getting bad advice from any landlord that tells you it "might not be worth it to run". That's a huge red flag for selectively screening tenants and can get you a Fair Housing Violation. You need to have one set of application/screening criteria and apply it consistently to ALL applicants.

If the applicants are paying the application fee to cover the cost of screening, then it doesn't really matter to you if their report is light on credit/criminal/eviction history. Tenants expect a reasonable application fee.

Ben Freiermuth · Answer

@Ryan Swan That sounds like a better plan. One more question: how much success/history do you find with running background checks on college students? I have heard both good and bad with running checks with students. Some say that they think it's well worth the money, as (I say this lightly) a "majority" of landlords say there is not enough history from a college student to really make a decision based on it. What do you think?

Lastly, I was thinking that the application fee would rid off of any potential bad renters who don't want to pay for the fee. Do you agree?

Ryan Swan · Answer

@Ben Freiermuth application fee should be enough to cover the full screening, which is usually at least $30/applicant. You need to be consistent with your screening as well. All applicants 18 years of age or older should be subject to the same application/screening process whether they are college students or not.

I usually do one group viewing on a set day/time, and then often have multiple applications in my inbox by the time I'm back at my office. All tenants use the same link and complete the same application electronically. It's even mobile friendly, so they can submit from their phones.

Some of my hot properties have people applying sight unseen just to lock it down and make sure they are first on the list.

Ben Freiermuth · Answer

@Ryan Swan we may charge an application fee of $10-$15. Rental season is still 9 months away.

How do you structure your lease signing? Currently, we show the unit to them, then if they have the time, they come in to our office and sign the lease.

Otherwise they will come in at a later date. I would have them go through the application process to input their information at the office, or have them do it on their own. I am currently having a very hard time getting them logged in to their resident portal, so I don't know if making them do the application process on their own would be very possible.

We do not have assigned parking at most of our properties. Our one apartment building requires a paid permit.

I will take a look at your application and try and re-engineer our lease signing process. It is only my father and I, so I try to make it as streamlined as possible.

Thank you for your help! Any added input is greatly appreciated.

Ryan Swan · Answer

@Ben Freiermuth are you not charging an application fee? Buildium can do that automatically at the time they submit the application. It's probably also smart to have a link to a PDF copy of your Application and Screening criteria (you can add a link to a pdf file at the top of the application).

I also require all applicants to submit a photo/scan of a gov issued id, as well as 3 most recent pay stubs (or other proof of income for students). After much pestering, we finally got Buildium to add this file upload tool to their application.

Another section you may wish to add is "Vehicles"...it's also nice to know which vehicles belong to which tenant, especially if parking is assigned.

I sent you a PM with a link to my application so you can see how much more detailed it is.

Ben Freiermuth · Answer

Forgot to add--the rental application would be online where we set up 3 to 5 kiosks in our office. When the surge of students come in to our office during rental season, we receive about 30+ applicants a day. Gets pretty hectic. Check out what I have built so far: https://hsirentals.managebuilding.com/Resident/apps/rentalapp

What do I include with my college student rental applications?

Most Popular Reply