All Forum Posts by: Daniel Miller

I emailed my pre-viewing list to initial applicants, before even telling them the address of the house (I didn't put the address in my ad, this time around; just general area).  My checklist more or less included what you list above.  It was *very* effective in dealing with people who didn't qualify (including several Section 8 applicants); about half the people who made an initial query, did not respond further once I sent my initial expectations message.  

However, the application fee still ends up being awkward, for all of the reasons that I listed in my original post.

BTW, here's my initial email:
Greetings <name>;

Following are basic requirements that I will be looking for in applicants:

> 3 * monthly rent in income (> $10,000/month)
> established credit scores of >600 for all applicants
> established rental history for all applicants (I *will* contact past landlords)
> current permanent employment
> no past evictions or bankruptcies

Please review these and confirm that you meet them all. If so, contact me again and we'll set up a meeting time at the house. I plan to show the house this Saturday, July 18.

Dan Miller

I know that folks on this forum always recommend (rather strongly) requiring a security deposit along with applications for a rental property.  (This is the deposit for the application, *not* the deposit for actually renting the house!) This is supposedly to reimburse the landlord (that would be me) in the event that he puts alot of work into studying an applicant, only to have them say "Oh, I found something elsewhere, nevermind".

However, this deposit has ended up being very awkward in my case.  Prospective renters cannot even contact me unless they have email, I send out the application by email, and I strongly recommend that application and documents are returned by email... but that makes the deposit handling quite awkward... do I want them to pay postage just for that one document??  (not really) or do I go out of my way to meet them somewhere to pick up that check??

I made the mistake of trying to ask a couple of people who were viewing the house, to give me a deposit check at that time, but that went very awkwardly (which I sort of suspected it would).

My inclination is to just drop the application deposit entirely; if they go through the trouble to fill out the application and scan the documents that I require, I suspect that I can treat that is meaningful interest.  In the meantime, the rest of my research doesn't take all that much time, and doesn't cost me anything at all...

Is anyone here horrified by this idea?

The main reservation I have about the SCU grads is that they likely don't have an established employment history; I already know they were at different rentals every year during their studies (which is common for college students, including myself back then).

But no matter, I'll collect data from all applicants and pick the one that looks and feels best (as @Kelly N. and others have suggested)

Aye, I attended Santa Clara U also, got my Master's there.  Excellent school, but one definitely doesn't attend there unless you have plenty of cash.  I'm going to be showing the house to them.

And yet, no matter how I approach this rental, the reality is that only one applicant will be selected... for all the others, it's not a matter of "why I rejected you", it's a matter of "I chose the best-qualified applicant"... 

Ha!!!!  Yep, now I see it... who'da thunk that key data *wouldn't* be available once I logged in ?!?!?  Thanks for the cues, @Silvia B. !!

Really??  I just went to Landlord Dashboard, logged in as myself, and looked at all 5 tabs, I don't see costs listed anywhere... ???

However, I used this service the last time I rented out this house, and was quite happy with them, worked very well, and very easy to use!!

Okay, I understand and accept this wisdom... I'll go ahead and send initial queries to all who applied, and see how the open-house goes... 

That's really the second test, I think; if they agree to be at the house at a given time, but don't think it means they have to be there at that time, this also gives me useful insight.

Oh my!!  Yes, that's exactly it, thank you @Steve Babiak !!!

I've now bookmarked it for future reference... huh... and it never even *occurred* to me to see if those counters below my image were clickable... now I know!!

On a related question, if I accept initial applications from multiple applicants, do I *have* to accept the first one who qualifies in any way??  

It seems to be that I should be able to choose what I think is the most qualified... for example, someone who has been on their job for 10 years, has been at previous residence for years with excellent reference, and plenty of money in checking account (I'm describing the previous tenants).