@Dana Williams Hi, Joshua has a lot of good info in his post. For tenant screening yes you need al the details but start with the a more big-picture approach. Enough Income? Credit? Evictions? The main three.
Gather your data on the applicants and your impressions of them (do try and meet them) and the see if it passes the gut test. You want to find people who can AND want to pay the rent each month, and who seem like they would be able to take decent care of it. So, must have a have a job that pays(gross) at least 3X the rent. Verify that the job is real, I like to force them to prove it to me but also do your DD. One easy step is to call the company and ask for the tenant by name and see what happens. Credit score over 600 but that can be a misleading metric, people could have had medical issues that the bills were late and that might not make them bad tenants. So you want to ideally see the list of credit accounts they have and the payment histories. Last of the big 3 is evictions, NO evictions or eviction filings on record! It takes a while to get evicted so someone who went through that vs. moving out tells you something.
One thing some DIY landlords forget is to make sure they are who they say they are, everyone over 18 has to show a valid drivers lic (picture) and make sure it's them! Thats why it's critical to meet them or at least do a video call with them. Also all people over 18 have to sign lease as a Tenant, only children as "permitted occupants". You don't want to show up 3 months later and find that only the Permitted Occupants live there and that the Tenants are long gone. Theres no one to evict? Obviously you can, but it drags things out. Call landlord references!
Don't forget Pets are NOT a protected class, you can say yes to one persons dog but no to anothers cat/dog or whatever. Some of my best tenants have a dog(well behaved, loved, friendly) and there are no issues. Do collect a non-fundable pet fee though. Many people treat their pet(s) better than others treat their kids, and those tenants have a harder time finding rentals so often stay longer. I try to keep it to one or two animals, NO- Zoo's. No Fishtanks over 20gallons and I don't think its an issue since circa 1985 but no waterbeds.
It's not a one step process but its not rocket science either, use common sense and seal up the soft spot in your heart, don't fall for the "give me a chance" hard luck stories, let someone else take that on. This last one is probably the hardest part of being a landlord! I tell people LTR prop mgt is not really a Property business its a People business.
Good luck.
