Income verification for travel nurse

[Bian Dahab]

Hi, I have a prospective tenant who is a travel nurse on a 13 week assignment. The background check, credit check and eviction history came out fine.

But the candidate is refusing to provide a verification of income. Only the top half of the assignment letter(that doesn’t show the income and the living stipend), no previous paystubs, no previous tax return, no W2, no 1099. We have been back and forth about this and the rationale has been diverse: 

- Does not feel comfortable providing the info without knowing about us personally 

- Offer letter does not guarantee a future income because travel nurse is an at will employee 

- Tax return does not indicate her affordability 

I Would appreciate any advice for us to push back for the right level of information! 

[Brent Langlinais]

Great points all.  I'm a travel nurse of 9 years and most of my veteran travel nurse friends do not share their income with MTR landlords (same as we don't share with hotels or air b&b hosts) because we are too often taken advantage of. In fact, we have seen a massive increase in our housing costs as our industry has gotten a lot of negative press about how much money we make. I've even heard the sentiment on BP podcasts that travel nurses make a killing, encouraging investors to switch to MTRs to take advantage of our housing stipends.   Indeed, there was a boom during the pandemic with news headlines of nurses making $10,000 a week, not mentioning that we worked 90 hours a week at $90/hr for this income, and paid 40% or more to taxes.  My tattoo artist makes more than $90/hr, so does my electrician, plumber, diesel mechanic, etc. lol 

Part of this $10,000 was a per diem tax free stipend which is based on GSA per diem allowance and varies by zip code and season.  To receive the stipend we are required to duplicate our houses expenses so we are paying rent or mortgage in our home town AND at our duty station. Also, in an attempt to cut costs, some hospital systems cancel our contracts without warning, due to low cense, or hiring new travel nurses who sign contracts paying less than the current traveler is making.  Some predatory travel nurse agencies routinely cut pay as soon as the travel nurse begins their assignment with a take it or leave it approach knowing the nurse waited weeks without work for the contract to start, gave up other opportunities, and accrued thousands in out of pocket expenses for flights, rental car, signed a MTR lease, and maybe even relocated their family.  Many new travel nurses initially fail to realize the "contracts" are not binding in the legal sense, but At-Will job offers.  When the contract is canceled, many real estate investors refuse to let these nurses out of the rental leases and nurses pay for 3 months of MTR rent that they were unable to use while the landlord immediately rents their property to the next travel nurse, and gets double rent for a period.  I could go on and on about how nurses have been burned during the pandemic, sometimes by hospitals, sometimes the staffing agencies, and sometimes their landlords but this is likely why they are hesitant to share their income, i.e. fear of being taken advantage of.   

Quick tip: the travel nurse market has shifted drastically in the last 12 months, falling to pre-pandemic pay levels and often below.  During the pandemic peak, there were as many as 60,000 current listings for travel nurse contracts with pay packages between $4000-$11,000/week ($16K-$44K/month) depending on location, hours worked, specialty, and experience.  We are now down to 6000 current listings with pay between $1500-4000/week ($6K-16K/month).   

I don't think landlords have to worry about our earnings/income.  But I might be concerned with the increasing supply of MTRs and decreasing demand for MTRs with fewer travel nursing contracts, and fewer nurses willing to travel for the reduced pay.