Would you rent to a convicted felon?

[Jason L.]

A couple applied to rent one of my houses (note: this is through an independent leasing services and I have not met or spoken to the applicants myself). They sent a long intro letter saying the boyfriend was convicted of a felony in 2014 for possession of a firearm. Their story was along the lines of: "He wielded a firearm to defend his elderly relative from an abusive uncle but never actually used it."

I'm conflicted because it was non-violent (shades of gray at worst), 5 years ago already, and they're assuring me his record is clean since (I have not run their background check yet since I wasn't going to make them pay for that unless I thought I'd actually rent to them). However, it feels like a lot of work to vette them and I'm probably going to require a larger deposit regardless.

Where do you stand on renting to a felon like this? Is it worth vetting further (pulling court records and/or police reports?) or hard no?

[Matthew Olszak]

I mostly manage class C rentals, and I LOVE a subgroup of felons who are "aged-out" of the delinquent nonsense and have proven themselves as reformed. IE they have a solid job and appreciate it, connections to family and a support system, and have clearly separated themselves from that previous life. And sometimes it takes 10 years locked up to reach that point.

Why do I like this? Because since they are felons, they have a very hard time finding housing, which means my turnover/vacancy is kept to a minimum. 

Also to note, I don't care about the background story. The judge/jury heard that and found it not-convincing. If they are feeding you an excuse story they likely haven't accepted responsibility for their actions and likelihood for re-occurrence of bad decision making is high. My solid felon-applicants state up-front their history (I'm not just discovering it through background checks) with no excuses but rather try to bolster their applications with all of the positives of their current situation.