Reply To: Screening Tenants

[Jonathan Forisha]

Some say screening is the most important part! Doesn’t matter if you’ve got the prettiest rental in your market if you move in terrible tenants.

So to make sure you get the best tenants, you want to establish a really clear list of rental criteria. What’s your minimum acceptable credit score? Will you allow smoking indoors, or pets? Minimum monthly income?

You can also do additional things, like check out applicants’ social profiles or speak to their past landlords, but make sure that you’re doing those things for every applicant. This is the stage where it’s most likely that you’ll discriminate, even if you don’t do it consciously, so we recommend setting your criteria and then moving in the first applicant that checks all your boxes.

If you have two or more applicants who meet all your criteria then 1) congrats! and 2) we still recommend to move in the first one who came in. That’s the best way to completely avoid any possibility of discrimination. You’re not looking for a new best friend, you’re looking for a tenant who will pay on time and keep your property in good shape.

Screening reports are one of TurboTenant’s core features, and we use TransUnion data to show you credit score, eviction history, and criminal history (where allowed).

We recently made a webinar that talks more about screening: https://testwpstaging.turbotenant.com/education/webinars/tenant-screening-in-2024/

testwpstaging.turbotenant.com

Tenant Screening in 2024

Finding a great tenant is a science. This webinar breaks down the best practices landlords should use to find tenants who pay rent on time.