I will give you more background information then!

Of those, 4 have submitted applications, and all are viable applicants (based on income, criminal background checks and credit checks - I'll be calling employers and landlords today).My question now is, since a couple of the applicants live 2 hours away (transferring for work), they won't be able to sign a lease immediately. 

BP has their own landing page on the site as well:https://biggerpockets.mysmartmove.com/#I used to do the data collection and data entry for the background/criminal/credit check myself.  

I thought it would be difficult, but with my background in construction, assessing the repairs needed to the property and the price I needed to secure the contract for was easier than I thought.  

Background came in OK.  

When I do a Craigslist ad, I always note the following: no section 8, we will run a credit and background check, no evictions.  

To give you just a little bit of background, I'm pretty much the furthest thing away from a newbie, and have lived on commission income for the past 12 years.

I have a strong financial background in investing and currently work on Wall St.

You definitely are allowed to have your own screening criteria, like a credit score of at least 650, no evictions, criminal background, etc.

I still have to run the regular checks on him, but he disclosed that his employment ended in april and thats the reason to pay upfront for a year.what would you do if his credit and background checks out fine.