Zillow screening tool? Pros and cons?

[Kate K.]

Hello BP Community,

So here we are at our 1st turnover on one of our properties. Now, that our tenants, who at first agreed in May of 2019 upon signing the lease, to direct deposit their rent and paid for only 1 month, then said their bank can't do it and continued paying by checks (every month on time, never late, except once), then they asked if they can have a cat despite that their lease does not allow it (only dogs, 1), after we accommodated them with a cat, they said a month later that the floor in the hallway broke, but didn't allow us to come in to repair it (or any flooring contractor, except for their own relative, whom I did contact per our tenants' request, but he was "shady" with me on the phone about his payment structure for his services and I respectfully declined it). So due to their fear of COVID which they believe will kill them, they refused our right of entry so we could assess the damage and take care of the flooring issue; then another week later they suggested that they want to buy a house of their own and move out at all (that's 1.5 years after their initial move in, 5 months after their annual lease renewal)... finally they sent us an official notice of intent that they are moving out on or before their lease expiration. Quite frankly it's for the best because they turned out more difficult than I thought of them and we still haven't had a chance to inspect our property, so because we don't even have an idea in what condition it is, we cannot respond to their expectation to get a full security deposit back. I can only determine how much of their security deposit (or full or none) I will be sending back to them within 30 days, after their final move out inspection not a day earlier. We had no issues with them with rent payments, but the fact that they denied us the right of entry for the past year was a problem and was highly suspicious. 

I consulted several attorneys in Lake County, who explained that our right of entry remains our right no matter what, even through COVID, and it is also our responsibility to maintain the property (which they didn't tell me anything new, I know that myself), but what was I suppose to do if they adamant about letting us in to inspect/repair our property.. Attorneys right away jumped to suggest to evict them but that was not what I was looking for. One local attorney even got irritable with me on the phone, and suggested to involve the police.. But I wasn't sure if force and embarrassment for ourselves and our tenants would be the right answer, so we left it alone, and now, few months later they are notifying about their intention to move. So I am preparing the Move-Out Instruction Sheet for them (I found on here 2 great versions which I combined into 1 and adjusted to our particular situation, thank you very much who posted it!) and pretty soon I'll be ready to re-list our property for new tenants. 

So as we are transitioning to end our relationship with our existing tenants, re-listing our property and start looking for new tenants, I was wondering if any of you have any suggestions to the following:

I had a great success listing the property on Zillow for the 1st time, had a lot of interest, a bidding war and after asking for $1,650/month, was able to rent out for $1,800 to this young couple we have now. I researched on BP the screening process, followed your suggestions that were coming from many of you - more experienced Landlords (thank you again!), and I used Zillow only to list our property. Now I see that Zillow offers "1 stop-shop" and it says on it it's "more common" - to not only re-list the property, but to do rental applications, screening and background checks of perspective tenants, all on Zillows and all at no cost. I think it's very convenient. But before I decide to consider it, I wanted to ask how reliable this is? If any of you or how many of you had actually used Zillow for all of these services? Did you like it? Did you not? If you liked it, why? And if you did not like, what was the reason for that too? What are the pros and cons of this option? Since we are still new to this, I am trying to make my screening process for perspective tenants easier, less stressful but more time efficient, simpler and more effective. Can you, please tell me, if you used it, how accurate and reliable this is? And if you don't like using it, why?

Any advice is welcomed and much appreciated! :)

Kate