Help with tenant screening

[Zac Boelkow]

We recently listed a duplex for rent in Milwaukee, WI. We received three applications. After calling the references and verifying income, etc. we narrowed it down to one possibility that looked good. We informed this person that she would need to create a "Smartmove" account for credit and background check. She was hesitant to do so and supplied us with her own credit score printed out from "CreditKarma". Seemed strange to me that she did that. After we told her that it is a requirement to do a credit check/background check she agreed and did the "Smartmove" App. When I reviewed her debts and ran her budget based on her six months of check stubs that she supplied. It was clear that she would not have enough money to cover everything. I called and asked if she could verify any more income. Also she had $100,000 of student loan debt that is in "deferment" currently so I asked her about that as well. I was genuinely trying to figure out her "financial picture" to understand if she can afford the rent. She did not like that I was questioning her credit report, which clearly shows that she has too much debt and is struggling to make all payments. Then she said that I just did not want to rent her because of her race, except she put it a lot more blunt.

My question is does it pay to try to understand the tenants income while in the vetting process or should I just run the numbers and either qualify or deny based on that and not go the extra to try to understand if there is more income or if a 100 thousand dollar debt is going to be forgiven? Also I know I must write her a reason for not qualifying for renting my property because her income/debt ratio is too high. Is that all I need to basically say? "Based on your income to debt ratio you are not eligible to rent the property."

Thank you