It take just a little over a month to evict someone, and if they are not paying rent, it's very easy to get possession of the house and a judgement.  

It is not unheard of that tenants with poor or bad credit or a history of evictions, collections, judgements or late pays will hide behind the one with a higher credit score or who does not have these on their record.

To evaIuate properties I used Trulia crime maps, and Google & Bing street views to some extent, but mostly I depended on the judgement of my RE agent, @Rachel De Faut .

So good luck renting an apartment somewhere with an eviction judgement.

Should we just get a notarized affidavit of small succession(I'm buying for $6,500), or do we have to have a judgement of possession in court?

@Eric H. its $114 per month - now there are several types of searches you can run like - address tracing - trace detail - enhance people search- license plate trace- judgement search- and more it goes really deep, if this tools gets in the hands of the wrong person it can be deadly . 

Poor can often be because of circumstances beyond the control of the people involved or even because of a choice to forego money for a desired lifestyle that makes them happy.I do look down on people that make a series of bad judgements and then want somebody else to pay for their mistakes.In my many years of landlord experience, people that expect the government to bail them out with handouts normally make for noxious tenants who normally break the community rules regularly or expect rule changes that suit their lifestyle.

The judgement could go either way--might split the dispute down the middle.

But on the off-chance the judge says the tenant has to move-out you still need to get the judgement.

Do we need a money judgement before we can hire a collection agency?