Implementing New Applicant Screening Requirements During COVID-19

[Amber Carter]

With the novel Covid-19, Many Americans are battling economic uncertainty.

Over 6 million Americans are seeking Unemployment and are experiencing a significant decrease in their household income. Treading uncertain waters, many furloughed employees still, may be without a job even after this pandemic ends.

Mortgage lenders have now taken steps to implement more strict lending requirements by raising minimum credit scores, increasing down payments and even eliminating some loan types altogether.

Many States have postponed eviction proceedings during the Covid-19 Pandemic. Renter’s are taken heed to this information and aware of their options when it comes to Rent Relief.

“Leasing Season” is upon us and Renters still need housing. A lot of Renters may now only have one household income or significantly less due to only receiving unemployment benefits. While unemployment benefits are temporary how will you as a Landlord now calculate rent - to -income ratio?

As a landlord, have you implemented new screening criteria for applicants, whether that be more strict or less strict and why?

Fast Forward to 2021-2022, if a resident has an eviction due to financial hardship during Covid-19, will you still accept their application or automatically deny?

[Bruce Runn]

@Michael Tempel

I think you may misconstrue the Minneapolis ordinance.  You are able to look at make decisions on credit/criminal background checks-  You just can't make your sole decision based on the individual credit score but you get a full read out of why the credit score is low and can make decisions based on those miscues or non payments.  Just be a smart landlord and use good judgement.  

You can also make decisions based on misdemeanors up to 3 years and felonies 7 years.  Again look at each criminal incident, I do.  If someone has a pattern of arrests, that's much more impactful to me as they could go to jail again and no rent will come in.  Just be a smart landlord and use good judgement.  I turned someone down because he had driving W/O a license-Of course he was arrested 11 different times for it.  If he can't make good decisions about whether he should drive, what kind of decisions is he going to make on a place he lives but doesn't own- Rejected.

Evictions,  ask them what happened, and use your judgements.  You can use evictions up to a certain point If they have evictions on their record, most likely they have missed other payments as well so there should be smoke coming from several places.  Use good judgements

Income isn't the only area of discretion.  You just have to spend more than 1-2 minutes reviewing the application which you should be doing anyway if you are going to be attached at the hip with these people as your renters.