Marriage is a strategy.There's the business school joke about the advertising executive who got married and traded reach for frequency.

Hey guys, hopefully all your answers will be legit and not an advertiser but struggling to find a good screening company for a new tenant.  

Look at the advertisements. 

Times like now though they're too backed up to get into the cheap work and we can find a local painter, normally someone new that is just starting out on their own and doesn't have the name recognition to command the higher price, advertising on local town FB pages.

But it's not protected under the Federal Fair Housing Act.Here's a link to what's protected under the Federal Fair Housing Act:RaceColorNational OriginReligionSexFamilial StatusDisability   Even apartments.com's own Terms of Service don't seem to prohibit what you posted (again, as long as you didn't reference source of income):Compliance with Fair Housing LawsAll Content is subject to federal fair housing laws, which make it illegal to indicate in any advertisement any preference, limitation, or discrimination because of race, color, religion, sex, physical or mental disability, and/or familial status.

The only sticky point is how California (assuming that's where you plan on doing deals) views the advertising of property you don't own.

The only exception to that would be if they had gone out of pocket to buy expensive advertising for your property.

I would have them both apply, pay the application fee and see if the second person is really better or not.You could tell applicant number 1 that they are in the qualification stage but that property is still being advertised until you sign a lease.

You should be able to do whatever you want with your properties as long as it doesn’t violate any criminal laws.1 - They don't want to screw over the hotel industry that pays so much of the taxes and help drive tourism.

Track properly and organize the expenses in appropriate categories (rental income, maintenance, utilities, office expense, advertising, legal, and another 10 other categories).