Tenant screening is crucial for landlords to avoid potential problems. It includes criminal records, employment verification, and financial history. Tenant screening agencies provide comprehensive reports, including problem renter reports, to help landlords make informed decisions.
Tenant screening is an important tool for landlords and property managers to help them decide whether or not to rent a unit to a particular person. It’s important to use common sense and look out for warning signs, but these aren’t always enough to avoid problems for tenants. Information such as criminal records, criminal records, and employment verification are all part of a good tenant check, which can greatly reduce the likelihood of problems for the landlord later on.
For a homeowner to be able to get the full picture, it helps to get information from a variety of sources. An essential part of tenant screening is preliminary housing information. A landlord will want to see if a potential tenant has ever been evicted before. A single eviction can be attributed to extenuating circumstances, but multiple evictions are a loud warning sign. However, most problem tenants don’t make it to court for eviction, so problem renter reports, compiled by a reputable tenant screening agency, will help complete the picture.
Criminal records are another essential piece of information. The ability to see past criminal history is a must when evaluating a potential tenant. Many tenant screening agencies have nationwide criminal searches, which can be of great value. Often, simply having each applicant sign an authorization for criminal records search will scare away those for whom this would be a problem.
It is also important to establish a tenant’s financial responsibility. Proper tenant selection will include a snapshot of a person’s financial history, their debt and, of course, employment. The purpose of this part of the screening is to verify that a person is able to consistently pay full rent and do it on time. A credit report and current pay stub are things a landlord would like to obtain, and a call to the person’s employer is also well advised.
Tenant screening agencies have been in operation since the late 1960s and arose in response to a lack of information available at the time to landlords about potential tenants. Getting things like criminal records has taken so much time and effort that most landlords have failed to do so. In general, the more active a screening agency has been, the more reputable it is. Landlords pay a fee for using these amenities, but many will pass this fee on to the tenant as a non-refundable application fee. This actually serves the dual purpose of reducing a landlord’s costs, as well as filtering out serious renters from those who are casual buyers.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
