Can lower rent actually get you better qualified tenants?

[Johann Jells]

My wife has this theory that lower rent actually gets you better qualified tenants, on the premise that since they're more desirable but often just as frugal as anyone else they can stand out from the field and get the unit.  I worry that I'd get so many applicants that I'd never find these better qualified ones in the stack of marginal ones. 

This last vacancy was pretty brutal. Lots either on unemployment due to Covid or with bad credit, or both. I had a family of 4 adults applying for a 700 ft unit with 2 7x10 bedrooms! Normally need 3x gross and 650, but finally rented to a guy with a solid State Govt job of 6 years that paid 4x rent, but had an abysmal 530 FICO. He was putting his finances back in order and we took a chance on our sniff test. Done it couple times before and it worked out, but I'm not happy about it. I have another vacancy coming on the 15th and I'm dreading it...