Tenant Background Check

[Rose White]

When is the best time to ask your new / possible future tenant for a background check? Is it before you interview them? After you interview them? Or after you have showed them your rental?

[Carl Millsap]

Hello Rose,

What type of property are you renting? Is it a room in your house? 

Our process:

1. Schedule showing.

2. Prospective tenant views apartment and decides if they want to apply.

3. We outline our criteria if they express interest so they know upfront.

a. No evictions within the last year.

b. Gross incomes must be 3x the rent. $1k rent means $3k in gross income minimum

c. Background check

1. Current landlord questionnaire - we send the current landlord a couple questions about on-time payments, cleanliness, eviction status, etc.

2. We run a background check to look for drug distribution charges and sex offenders

3. Credit report - We review their credit report for payment history and ongoing bills. If you have gross income of $3k but ongoing bills of $1800 we know it may cause a financial hardship so that reflects in our scoring system.

Hope this helps, but in my experience an interview is:

a. Time consuming - if you have 10 applicants are you going to interview each?

b.  Not likely to produce the result you think you'll get. Everyone has a story, don't get caught up in their story. Current and past behavior is a good indicator or what they'll actually do, thus our process above.

Good luck!

[Rose White]

Were renting out a room in our house.

[Nathan Gesner]

Quote from @Rose White:

When is the best time to ask your new / possible future tenant for a background check? Is it before you interview them? After you interview them? Or after you have showed them your rental?

I recommend you include some of your key qualification criteria in the advertisement. For example, I mention that every adult must pay a $30 application fee, pass my credit/criminal background, make a combined income of 3x the rent, and whether or not the property accepts pets. Use the top three or four discriminators so applicants can screen themselves.

Then you need to have clear screening criteria yourself. What's the lowest credit score you will allow? Do you check Landlord references? Do you verify their income? Do you know how to read the credit/criminal background? What if they have collections or judgments?

Here's a detailed guide on how to screen applicants: Application Screening Guide