Landlord tenant screening is somthing that needs to be taken very seriously. Problem tenants are a bane for many landlords and even some property management companies suffer losses over mis-judged characters, mis-handled applications or sloppy paperwork after the fact.
In the residential rentals market, “after the fact” is usually way too late, especially when we’re talking about undesirable or problem tenants. Just glancing through the Craigslist apartment rental section you can see that many landlords still don’t understand about landlord tenant screening.
tenant risk verification
Landlord tenant screening starts with your advertisement
Your apartment advertising should be effectively dissuading anyone with poor credit, no job or a questionable background from ever even calling you.
When tenants see that landlord tenant screening require:
1. A credit check
2. An employer’s contact information
3. Previous landlords’ contact information
4. And possibly a criminal background check…
…well, the fact is, problem tenants, many of them, are likely to look elsewhere for housing. Your landlord tenant screening is well underway already!
So why aren’t more landlords posting their own application procedures and policies for Landlord tenant screening?
The simple fact is that many of them would rather run the higher risk of not properly perform landlord tenant screening, or of screening them through other, more expensive and time consuming methods later on. Many more of them have been running the same ads for decades and don’t pay much attention and suffer the occasional problem tenant. These are usually landlords with friends in local government or absentees who are making just a fraction of the money they could be making.
Landlord tenant screening for smaller landlords
If you’re a smaller landlord, you may not want to appear so in your advertising. This is another important factor. Many fraudulent or otherwise problematic tenants will target smaller firms because they believe they can either catch a break or pull a fast one.
Consider doing business, and posting your ads, under a business name instead of just your personal name.
This can significantly improve the quality of tenant inquiries you receive but it can cut both ways. If you’re bigger, and you’re having trouble finding the right tenants, you may actually want to appear smaller. In just about every case, it’s going to help to experiment by writing ads that make you sound both ways and then, see which one works best for you.
Remember, applying the same standards to everyone is still important, but having your standards of landlord tenant screening spelled out clearly in advance, in your ad or posting can make a big difference in the quality of inquiries you’re receiving.
Source : ipublisharticles
