Renting out my first house hack

[MarieChele Porter]

Hi all,

I put my house on the market for rent 12/31 and have already received upwards of 50 inquiries.... This has lit a fire under me like no other.. I wish I had more houses to offer !! I have these thoughts of omg people are actually excited about moving in my home and paying my mortgage for me !! Yessss, I have been pre-screening tenants and hearing so many stories so it keeps me humble... 

Some questions that have came up though... 50 leads I only have one house !! I finally just stopped marketing it on most websites this evening as I feel like I'm already going to have to turn a lot of people away. Through pre-screening I've been able to ditch some of the people that are just playing around and also those that don't qualify for whatever reason.  My question is should I have kept marketing it? When do you stop marketing? Do you get to a certain number of people and stop or do you continue until the house is filled? I won't be able to show it until Wednesday so that's a part of the reason I pulled marketing. I have to thank the forums because the biggest amount of leads came from turbo tenant which is a site I learned about through here.

Another question is with how many leads I have I feel like I will have a ton of people I have to deny. I am not letting people apply until after the showings btw... How do you decide who to deny? I want to follow the rules to the T to make sure I am not breaking any laws but I just wonder if it comes down to 2 tenants that are both equally qualified do I just pick the one I like better? Or that I feel is the most responsible? What are some good tips? I'm in Fresno, California and if any one knows CA it is tenant friendly so I just want to make sure I'm crossing "T" and dotting "I's"

Last question, the central valley is heavy with immigrants. Is it possible to screen a tenant properly that doesn't have a SSN?

Thank you,

MarieChele

[Nathan Gesner]

@MarieChele Porter you should continue marketing until someone has been approved and put money down.

I see far too many Landlords accept an applicant and agree to rent it, then they take payments on the deposit or wait for weeks for a deposit that never shows up. If they are serious about renting, they need to pay the deposit with certified funds (money order, cashiers check) within 24 hours or I offer it to the next person. And I never hold a property for someone more than 14 days after receiving the deposit (usually 7 days). If they want it, they can start paying rent on it.

50 applicants is too many. That means you're either priced too low or you're not pre-screening them in your advertising. I list a few requirements in my ad and then even more in the header of my application. They must make 3x the rent, they must pay an application fee, every adult must apply and be screened, etc. Even on a hot property, I won't get more than 6-7 different applications before it's rented.

Getting two "equally qualified" applicants is pretty rare. One of them will stand out over the other. You are in California, so be very careful about creating situations where someone can claim discrimination. I recommend you process applications as they are received and then offer it to the first person approved by your objective standards. In other words, if Applicant A applies and is approved while Applicant B applies and is approved two hours later, you would offer the rental to Applicant A even if Applicant B is a much stronger candidate. If you go with Applicant B and Applicant A finds out, they can claim you rejected them because they are a minority or a single mother or whatever.