Avoiding Bad Tenants

[David Vaughn]

I am new to Bigger Pockets but not to real estate. I have been in the buy hold game for over 20 years. I can honestly say I have made about every mistake humanly possible in real estate but I have always been good at screening my tenants and managing my properties. IF you can become skilled at these two aspects you can afford a bit more mistakes on the other. If you do not become skilled at these two aspects no matter how well you handle the other it will not work. Just my opinion. 

It is my personal belief that you can do the scientific side of tenant screening but there is still an art to it as well. Maybe some other buy hold guys can chime in and we can discuss and learn from one another. 

[David Vaughn]

I prefer to self manage over a property manager. Most definitely do NOT under and circumstances sacrifice instant rental to someone who doesn't meet your minimum standards to satisfy your wife. I can assure you she will not be satisfied when you are in eviction court and repairing damages. IT's worth to to be selective. I struggled with most of the same issues as everyone else when I first got into real estate. Tenants can lie, mislead, screw you over and walk away blameless because they have no investment in the deal. That is why I developed my site for us to exchange the worst of the worst tenants. www.undergroundlandlord.com . It is where we connect to one another via tenants information and gets us in touch with the landlords they didn't put on the application