City of Oakwood, however, it seems that point of sale ordinances that call for criminal penalties (whether or not actually enforced) will most likely be held unconstitutional, at least where no administrative warrant procedure is provided.

No criminal record. 

The main thing of course is to be aware of and follow all the additional tenant protection ordinances that seattle has which go a lot further than WA state landlord tenant law does.Seattle has a just cause eviction law ,    additional categories of 'protected class' that you cannot discriminate against,  there are rules around what you can and cannot consider when doing screenings  (you cannot consider most criminal history for example),   and there are rules forcing you for example to accept a six month interest free payment plan for deposit and last months rent if the applicant requests it.   

If you tell them up front that you require a minimum income of 3x the rent, a credit score of at least 650, and that you will conduct a credit/criminal background screening on every adult, that should weed a lot of them out before they bother applying.

People are much more likely to tell you, "We'll think about it...we have a couple more places to look at", than they are to tell you "I have a criminal record/bad credit/eviction record/whatever and don't think we'll qualify for your rental".Of course, if your rentals are overpriced, and they are able to find comparable housing for less money, then that's another possibility as to why they aren't coming back to complete an application.

That's will take time, effort, and money on your part.Please don't take offense, but yes, while great deals like the one you're sure you've fallen into exist, everyone who's been knocking around real estate for a while has heard of sure things going wrong for all kinds of reasons.

My in-laws sounded a lot like you a couple of years ago(no offense James).

We got hosed by a criminal turnkey company there in Chicago so that was/is a tough experience.

Didn't want to be offensive in anyway and do not want to be discouraging.I am facing the same dilemma with land that I have in Ohio..

What is the best site to use for background, eviction, credit, criminal checks?