Nine times out of ten, your best and most effortless ROI on any SFR is going to come from minimal turnover and vacancies with a stable tenant who keeps the place reasonably clean and tells you promptly when stuff goes wrong, but doesn't demand immediate fixes. 

Some things we have included that we have seen common include:Makes 3 times the amount of monthly rent paymentHas 3 or more good years of rental references Has no prior evictionsHas not made excessive late paymentsHave not filed bankruptcy or been foreclosed on in the last 5 yearsHas a good credit score (any one have any specific number they don't typically go below)Does not have any drug, violence, theft, fraud, capital or sex offender convectionsHas no breeches of leasesHas no history of damage to propertyMust be neat, clean, prompt and courteous Any one have any others they would add to the list?

Answering or returning calls promptly even if it simply to acknowledge the call was received and that you are too busy to address whatever the need is at the time, goes a long way.

Usually if they are dealing with the owner a real person and not a big management company then they will not want to take advantage of you they will just want things fixed promptly.

Tenant shall keep the Dwelling Unit free from insects and pests, and promptly notify the Landlord of the existence of any insects or pests.

Then we sent a final notice that we would be filing a claim in small claims court, attempting to garnish their wages, hiring a collection agency and doing everything we legally could to recover the money to pay for the damages, and they actually promptly paid the entire bill!

In fact, I was impressed with how promptly my landlady handled everything. 

I would let him know that because he is late he is in breach and he will need to sign my lease and pay the rent due, and if done promptly (by xx date)this one time I'd give him a pass on the late fee.

We say let us know by (about a week later) to give them time to find a new place and then let them know if they decide not to move and the activities continue, we'll share our observations with the local police department and encourage the neighbors to phone in police complaints as well.We've now done this twice and both times the drug dealers moved, left our place reasonably clean, and expressed appreciation for the prompt deposit return.

The $100 or 10% is common, but I like the fixed dollars - - it's expensive enough to be painful and to encourage prompt payments.BTW:  TRAIN your tenant by issuing a courtesy notice ONLY ONCE;  "Your rent was late this month and if it is late again, I will apply the late fee of $xxx."