Finding the Right Tenant

[Christina Zimmerman]

Hello! New landlord, here. I've recently listed my first rental property for rent, and, while it's gotten A LOT of interest and inquiries, my minimum requirements seem to turn people away.  I have the general requirements suggested by BP-- minimum income of at least 3x rent, minimum credit score of 630, no prior evictions, and clean background check. It's been listed for a month, now, and while I've given many tours and followed up on every lead (I listed through Tenant Cloud which also lists on popular rental websites such as Zillow and Apartments.com, and I posted it on FB marketplace), I still haven't gotten the right tenant. Is this common? After a month should I be considering lowering rent and/or the requirements? Not sure if I should stick to my guns, here, or listen to the market and lower my requirements. Obviously people are interested at the current rent because they keep reaching out. I've got one potential on hold with a lower credit score (535) than I'd like but plenty of income. Any and all advice welcome. Thank you for your time!

[Charles Carillo]

@Christina Zimmerman

I do not see any issue with your requirements. We are in COVID so you do not want to waver from these requirements too much because if you rent to the wrong tenant, you may be stuck with them for a very longtime. On another note, we rent to tenants with lower credit scores, if they are willing to put up a larger deposit; 2x, 3x possibly. The good news is that it sounds like you are getting leads and you have priced it correctly.