Basically, as mentioned above by others, there are a lot of yellow flags for the following reasons:-The tenant may want you off their back so they can participate in illegal activity -The tenant may want to STR the property (not necessarily a bad thing--you can actually make more money this way by partnering with a tenant to do this--it's only bad if they are trying to do it without disclosing to you and obtaining your permission to do so)There a couple a reasons why someone may want to pay rent upfront with good intentions:-Perhaps they are a student who took out a loan for student housing (or their parents are footing the bill and wish to pay for the entire semester/year upfront)-With today's housing shortage, perhaps they have had so many issues competing for houses they want to remain competitive with other applicants in this market by using this negotiation tactic The way to protect yourself is to do exactly what you and others said: solid screening/background check and if it were me, I'd also ensure my tenants knew I'd be doing lots of (legal) checks on my property through the year.

Charlotte is booming, Asheville is hot, and the surrounding areas are suffering from a rental shortage. 

Welcome to Texas....Landlord friendly state, growing like crazy, shortage of homes, plenty of commercial real estate deals going on that will continue to feed the residential market.

And I wouldn’t have enough for the down payment on the 600k multi family.So I’m taking a step back and pivoting.My city planning department truly encourages ADU’s and converting SFUs into duplexes due to the housing shortage in our area.  

Here in Columbus, we have a housing shortage.

To say there is a shortage of homes for sale is an understatement.

My college is growing at a ridiculous rate which has created a shortage in student housing and consequently has make rents go up.

Shortages will require you to increase their mortgage payment and overages will require you to refund it back.  

Prices going up is likely due to the housing shortage.

That with the new builds in Elverta, Antelope, Roseville, Natomas will we still have the crazy amount of housing shortage in sacramento that we do currently?