Your thoughts on two potential renters...

[Brian H.]

I have had my first rental ad out for almost a month. Wanted to get the rental filled by 5/1, but if I need to wait for better candidates I will. Much rather wait for better renters than jump the gun into a nightmare tenant.

I have owned my properties for 1.5 years now. Just the first time I've had to rent a vacant unit.  So, this piece is new to me still.

I have had so many people send emails of "interest" only to never respond again.  So, of all of those people I now have two that have shown actual interest. One has filled out the application.  

Person 1 is a single mom with a teacup chihuahua emotional support animal. She is on disability from the military and makes more than 3x my rent.  She claims to not have any past landlords since she has mainly lived with family and then as a family with her now ex-husband.

She has been on disability since leaving the military and has not had a job due to that. So, I cannot contact past landlord or managers. I was having some trouble fully understanding her disability paper work to determine if it is temporary or permanent. Maybe someone here could help me with that piece?

With her do I just run the criminal/credit check and if everything looks ok she should be ok?? What else would you check?

Person 2 is a woman that has contacted me about renting to her son who she claims is 32 with a decent paying full time job and has just separated from his wife and so he needs a place to stay.   I had responded that I would prefer to work with him and have him communicate with me. She is clearly in a hurry and said she could bring him with her to see the apartment?  I am more iffy about this because why is he not communicating with me instead of his mom... since he is 32.  Why would she not just pass off the communication when I asked about it?  Or maybe this isn't so odd?   So, I don't even have an application from this person yet and am not even sure who is applying. The mother is local to the area. She breeds little dogs.  So I am fairly sure this is a real thing, just very odd in how it is being gone about.

Any help or advice is so very welcome! Thank you all!

[Sandy Gabin]

Hi Brian, 

Yes, you have 2 big red flags. If you can wait just a little longer, it would be better and you will find the right tenant. I've been there and I waited a long time but I was able to have my best tenants so far. Only you know how long you can wait. I wish you the best.