They partner with Naborly and they have a free screening service.

That will indicate whether they are just really busy or if they're screening calls.The work was scheduled to begin next week? 

You don’t worry about finding a screening service as every agent has that.

There is the obvious risk of bad tenants, but screenings/background checks would help reduce that risk along with the price of the rent (a higher income tenant generally tends to mean a higher quality tenant).

I was also looking at a Book called “every landlords legal guide” for the fact I want to learn about preparing a lease, the precautions when evicting, and how to screen tenants.

Any cold calls that end up in a active transaction in less than 30 days, are just cream and will probably be  one out of thousand (or less) conversion rate, if you are not calling well pre-screened or using targeted marketing to generate inbound call traffic.IMHO

@Leslie MangrumI use erentpayment for payments only, but you can also use it for maintenance requests, expense tracking, and tenant screening.

I am pretty unhappy as I told the new property managers I hired a year ago to screen hard because I was considering selling... it was still nice before these tenants moved in.

There are many  tools to help you screen for a good tenant and this way you can make sure you are getting fair market rent as well. 

These are the ones out there talking to brokers and who will do whatever it takes to find a multifamily deal.This is not a quiet, shy and retiring personality type.The BrainsThese are the folks that look at the deal that the hunter finds and underwrites the deal putting it through a thorough screening process to make sure the deal will work in real terms.The MoneyWe all know that multifamily investing takes money.