Accepting an offer of higher rent?

[Sara Ratliff]

I recently listed a rental and got an offer from someone to pay $250 more per month than what we listed for. I want to be ethical and legal, and haven’t found anything that states otherwise, but wanted to check with all of you experts and get your thoughts.

I do believe we have listed it too low, but we have had trouble with this rental property, mostly due to our newbie mistakes, and thought we would severely limit our tenant pool if we went any higher (already in a small rural town). He has a criminal history (from 10 years ago) and says his credit is not good, but is trying to rebuild it to buy a house in a couple of years. (I have not run credit/background yet to confirm to what extent). He also would like to sign a 2 year lease. He tells me he is willing to pay this higher amount to save him money from what he is currently paying in rent, and also was aware of the interest the house was getting. He has fulfilled his previous lease and is currently month to month. The rental pool for tenants in this area is not great, so we have never had squeaky clean backgrounds/credit, but also have a lot of turnover and lease breaking- literally the past 4 out of 5 tenants due to the couple splitting up. We decided we were going to be stricter on criteria this time around to break this cycle of turnover, but are considering this offer. Would you give this guy a chance? Are there any repercussions for accepting him as the tenant simply for his offer of higher rent despite the red flags with background/credit? I’ll add, he is also willing to pay a larger deposit, and I will check references and with current landlord.