Tenant income verification

[Ben Crego]

Folks always say they verify income at 3x (or whatever ratio) rent. If you have multiple adults applying, do you look at each separately or in the aggregate? Thanks!

[Ben Riechmann]

I would strongly note that that ratio is only one factor we look at or should look at.  Especially when there are so many screening services that make it easy to look at credit score, criminal background and evicition records.  I had a person that made way more than 3 times the rent but had been evicted from more than one rental previously.  The more legwork you do in the screening process, the less likely you are to have headaches later.  The landlords that I find that bow out and hate renting, when I see what business systems they have in place, I almost always find they are really weak in this area.  You do want them to make three times rent gross as a starting point, but that is just a basic starting point.  If people are low on credit scores or a little more risk and you want to rent to them, I would sugget having them do a co-signer or putting up another months rent.  No matter what you do with tenants, make sure you do it with all tenants across the board.  So you probably want to write down a manual for how you will screen and treat all tenants so if an questions how you do it, you can point back to it to prove you always go through the same set of steps for everyone.