If you are one of those landlords or property owners, doing a tenant screening process is necessary. When you entrust your property to others, it can be viewed a risky move.
If the person is trusted or they aren’t trouble makers, then your property would likely be in a good hand.
But your life would be a living hell if your tenants are somewhat troublesome; creating more problems than bringing you profits. So, what you should know about tenant screening, anyway? And how you can grow your real estate investment from there?
More About Tenant Screening
So, what is tenant screening, anyway? It’s a process to find the best tenant (renter) for your property. You can always do it manually, but these days, leave the process to a handy tool that can make everything go faster and easier.
When you use an application or software for the screening, you only need to generate your own screening criteria. You will be given reports or a list of those interested in your property. From there, you can remove the unqualified ones systematically (and also easily and fast) until you come up with the best option.
Also known as tenancy check or tenant vetting, tenant screening would check the tenant’s personal stability and also finance. Such a screening is crucial because as a landlord, you need to know:
- Whether the tenant can pay the rent on time or whether they have past history with late payments or such thing alike.
- Whether the tenant is responsible or not. From their past record, you can tell whether a tenant can care for the property within a respective or responsible manner or not.
- Whether the tenant has the potential of becoming a troublemaker or not. Would they be a disturbance or nuisance to other tenants? Would they give you issues in the future?
You need to remember that you have a top priority to protect your rental property. It’s only logical if you want to play it safe against irresponsible tenants or tenants who aren’t willing to care for the property according to the standard. Basically, you want to remove the ‘bad seed’ so you can enjoy your investment in peace.
What Should You Check?
When you perform the tenant screening, what are the main things you want to check? In general, the screening can include the following things (but not limited to them only, mind you):
- Previous address (tenant history)
- Credit score
- Credit checking
- Eviction state specific
- LeaseGuarantee Analyzer
Choosing a Service
So, how do you perform the check? How can you screen the potential tenants? First of all, you need to decide whether you want to use a software or do it manually.
When you perform a manual search, you may not need to spend extra, but the overall check itself will take quite a while. It’s up to you if you are willing to go the extra miles so you won’t have to spend more.
Most landlords or property managers would turn to the specific software. It is generally automatic. Now, the option is that you choose the paid service or the free one. If you go with the latter, the features would be limited. It wouldn’t be as comprehensive or complete as the paid one, for sure.
If you finally decide that you want to go with the paid service, there are usually different packages of them. The more expensive packages typically can offer more features and more information.
Some landlords and property owners may go with property management software, which generally include impressive features. Besides rent collection, administrative management, and billing feature, you can also enjoy the marketing tool and even tenant screening. Not only this kind of tool can put your property in the market’s listing, but it can also help you screen the people interested in your property.
Benefits of the Screening
There are tons of benefits to enjoy from screening out the tenants
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- You can prevent the low quality tenants and improve your chances of getting the high quality types. You really don’t want to deal with low quality tenants whose payments are often late, who may be irresponsible not for taking care of the property as they should, or who may be disruptive. You want to get more tenants who keep it to themselves, not being trouble makers, and are always paying on time.
- You can also reduce the possibility of vandalism and crime. Tenants who tend to break or damage things are nightmare for landlords and property owners. You also don’t want to deal with tenants with criminal records or those who may commit the crime on your property.
- You can avoid lost rent and vacancies.
Final Words
Screening your tenants is a crucial process that shouldn’t be underestimated or skipped. Whether you use a special software or you do it manually, never skip on tenant screening process.
