What should I check when buying a rented property?

[Val Ault]

Hey BiggerPockets, I'm a (soon-to-be) house hacker in the Salt Lake City area in Utah. There's a property I'm looking at now that is currently rented out to two different tenants, one on the main floor, and one in the basement.

I've been looking pretty hard for a property that can rent out the basement and is in my budget, so this looks pretty promising to me. The realtor said that the tenants are on a month-to-month lease, and that I would be able to move in right away. What I imagine myself doing is moving into the main floor, and keeping the basement tenants. I have a couple questions though:

- When people sign a month-to-month basis, is this just part of the deal, that they can be kicked out whenever? I'm slightly hesitant to just uproot the main floor tenants so I can move in myself, unless this is something that any month-to-month leaser can expect.

- Should I worry about trying to screen the basement tenants somehow?

- Are there any other general pitfalls I should watch out for with this kind of deal?