All Forum Posts by: Alex Smith

Hey Kate. Congrats on buying your first (and second) rental! There's a few things you can do. 

There are services like cozy.co where the tenant pays the application fee directly to cozy and goes through the screening process. I'm not too familiar with how cozy works, but I believe that you get a copy of the applicant's credit report. I'm also not sure how much control you have over specific criteria. Someone else probably can shed light on that.

A local PM company might be able to screen them for you for a fee. The con here is that the PM company won't be able to share certain details with you, so you'd want to thoroughly vet their criteria.

There's also services like Transunion SmartMove (there are a few Transunion reps that pop in and out of the forums here) that you can use to screen https://www.mysmartmove.com/

Why is their credit score low, are you able to see that? 

Starting off month to month is a good idea, and also taking the higher deposit. I'm interested to see what other folks have to say. 

How long does the eviction process take in your state? Is this UT you're talking about? 

I don't own any rental houses (yet!), but I still like to keep tabs on my financial health

Welcome! There's a ton of information and resources throughout this website, so you've come to the right place

Here in TN, things start dropping off in August. July isn't ideal, as you mentioned, but it's not the worst time either. 

Since you're planning on showing the home pre-move out, then that should help. 

It's been said already, but you want to start with your must-have list and go from there. We use appfolio. It has reports out the wazoo and makes everything relatively easy come tax time. 

Docusign!

I don't really see them not viewing the unit as a red flag either. That happens with us from time to time and we also have a sight unseen addendum for prospects to sign. 

It's their income I would be worried about. The wife's income doesn't mean hardly anything without a job in their new location. 

A lockbox is a good option. There's also Rently too. You can set the pre-qual questions yourself, and you don't have to deal with the hassle of phone calls and the back and forth that you might currently have to deal with for each showing. 

To add to what Thomas said, most utility companies will give credits for "higher than normal" usage. If her water bill was that much higher, tell her to go to the utility company. She'll need to take some sort of invoice showing that the problem was fixed and when.