My "unique" applicants! Would you rent them?

[Sam Schlacter]

So as some of you who may have seen my posts would know..its about a month since I bought my first rental property. The property is awesome, in a great area. Even though I couldn't rent it out in my first month I am actually excited with everything I am learning about figuring out correct rental price, marketing, leases, rental applications, screenings and just in general everything about being a landlord (though I am not yet one!). Fortunately I am going to be able to support myself even if I couldn't rent the property right away.

One thing I clearly underestimated though was the quality of tenants. I assumed that there are very few who has credit issues. How wrong I was!!!! Even though my house is in one of the very good neighborhood with tons of professionals around, somehow almost every applicant I got has issues that I am uncomfortable with. I had to already reject 2 applications due to really bad collection issues that they didn't tell me upfront during our conversation.

Now I have two more people who are willing to rent it right away and I am again confused. Need some help from you guys to suggest if I should reject or consider them?

1.) The first lady came with couple of kids. Appeared very friendly and very nice. Asked right type of questions. She said her husband mostly is out of town as he works in Atlanta. His salary 5k+/mnth, her salary zero. Then she filled two application forms one for her and one for him. She signed his form as co-applicant and gave me application fees for both. After she left, I glanced over the forms and saw that she did not put in her SSN or Drivers Licence info. So I called her back to see if she mistakenly forgot this information. She told me that her immigration papers are in process so she doesn't have SSN yet. What should I make of this? I have known many people who are waiting for immigration and in some cases they would not be able to get SSN in certain visa categories. But she left Drivers Licence field blank too. What should i do now? Can I go ahead based on her husband's info and get his screening done and rent them if he is all clear? As per fair housing act I am not supposed to ask someone's immigration status but if I allow her in and if she happen to be not legal immigrant, would I get into trouble? What would you do?

2.) The other girl came with her kid and said she wants for herself only. She said she lives with her family right now as she just went through divorce. I sent her the application but she never filled it. Then few days later her husband called ( I didn't know he was her husband). He said he is very interested and want to put in the application for him and wife and said his wife has already seen the house. I asked him to give me email ids so I can send them the application link. So his wife turns out to be this girl whom I sent application earlier, who said she is divorced and looking to stay alone. I asked him about this and he said not sure you must have heard something wrong. Now what do I do? Would you rent them if their background/credit checks come out good? Or would you close doors on them?

I do not mind waiting for as long as required to find the right tenant. But having said that I want to make sure I don't panic at smaller issues. So your opinion will matter a lot to me here :-) .

Sam