Tenant Screening: Tips to Help You Protect Your Property Investment

Being a landlord of one or multiple rental properties can be a hugely successful and fulfilling enterprise, but if you haven't taken the right steps to protect yourself and your investments; it could be downright disastrous. Below, we offer helpful tips for new and experienced landlords, to help minimize the effects of bad tenant behavior by showing you how to find good ones.

There are a host of ways that landlords find tenants to fill their properties-through advertisements, contacts, and referrals. The most valuable means that every landlord looking for a responsible tenant should begin with is inquiring of his/her friends, colleagues, and family to see if they know of anyone interested in their accommodations. Second to this, request referrals from realtors, past/present tenants, and other capacities who may have quality tenants to refer. If none of these are productive, you must advertise-online or in print. In all of these situations; however, it is advised to screen these prospective tenants to doublecheck their reliability and safeguard your interests.

• Conducting Screening via Telephone (pre-screening): Typically, the first point of contact between a landlord and prospective tenant is through the phone. Use this opportunity as a prescreening to form an impression about the applicant. Ask general questions and take notes, so that you can refer back to this with their complete file, when the final review occurs.

• What to Ask: When you get to the part of the screening process when in-depth questions can be offered-typically, at the first in-person meeting-know what questions to ask to gauge if they are the right candidate for your tenancy. Ask them why they are interested in your property and why they are leaving their present residence. Inquire into the nature of their work, its proximity to the property, and how long they have worked there. Moreover, ask potential tenants how many people will be occupying the property and how long-if known-they will be living there. All of these questions will give you a better working knowledge of just who is renting from you and what sort of person they are; but this is only primary information, and should be used only in part of your decision to rent or not to rent.

  While the above questions will be extensively covered in the formal application form, it is better you know before the application documents review, what to expect from your prospects. The earlier you ask and the more directly, the better equipped you are to make a decision

• Application Forms Screening: Once you have had your applicants for tenancy fill out formal application forms for screening, it is now time for your review, assessment, and analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of each tenant candidate on your short list. This process takes time and must be affected thoroughly, as the wrong choice could be disastrous. Moreover, in comprehensive review of these forms, you must be on guard for fraudulent references and fraudulent contact information. Make sure to always reference the phone book for professional and personal references to ensure that you get the right information. Moreover, do not let emotional stories from potential tenants sway your decision making-as you may be tempted-as this is your welfare and investment that is on the line and it must be chosen over that of a stranger.

Do not forget to set your screening system earlier using criteria that are acceptable by the law. Do not use any standard that is prohibited by the law obtainable in your state. If you do a proper work, you will have your dream tenant.