Screening Tenants

Recently I have been very disappointed by Realtors and how they deal with their clients. As a Landlord I will always have a need to know certain things about someone applying to rent my property. In this day and age of a rotten Real Estate market most of the applicants are from Short Sale and or Foreclosure situations. I get a lot of the same story over and over again. So for you Realtors hoping to get a commission for just calling a listed rental wake up and do your homework. I want to know why someone’s credit is bad if it turns out to be. I want reasons it was bad here are a couple of reasons it could be bad.

1. They lost their job.
2. They got divorce.
3. They have medical conditions that cost.
4. They don’t like to pay bills.

Some of these can be worked with. I will want to know when they lost their job or got divorced  or had to get medical attention. If they are employed or through the divorce or medical situation. I will want to know how much they make on their job and would ideally like to meet the client where they presently live. This will help me decode the credit report and assess the risk to the property. When I ask the friendly Realtors these questions they are always stunned that I would want to know these things. Well you might be shocked to find that the property owner can end up with 3 months of not paid rent Carpets that are worthless and a new paint job needed minimum when dealing with a problematic tenant and no way to get the full commission back from the Realtor for a broken lease. Not to mention the downtime of looking for a new tenant and new commission to the next clueless Realtor. On average the Landlord will be out around $12,000 from a bad tenant. Do your homework Landlords. Get the story of why the credit will be bad then charge for the credit check and see if the times of credit hiccups matches the story or if the person doesn’t want to ever pay a bill.