The Ultimate Guide to Vetting Tenants

Bad tenants = big disasters.

But do real estate investors really have any way to determine whether they tenants they’ll get are good or bad?

Even the best judges of character have the potential to make a mistake every now and then. Thankfully, there is a way to help determine which tenants are worth having. It involves a little extra legwork on the front end, but it may help make the rest of your process a whole lot smoother.

Watch this video to find out more about vetting tenants and how it can help your property management efforts to be successful.

Utilizing Criminal Background & Credit Checks

The best way to ward off many of the worst tenants is to require criminal background and credit checks as part of your screening process.

You might think that these options are over the top, but the reality is this – there’s nothing worse than being targeted by the worst kind of tenants.

Whether malicious or not, many tenants with poor credit or a criminal background are forced to resort to applying for living situations at the few properties out there that don’t require these elements of the application. That means that if you’re managing one of the few properties letting these two background checks slide, your odds of getting the tenants that would otherwise fail increase exponentially.

Rather than getting stuck with a tenant that’s criminal or one that won’t pay the rent, ensure that you do your research and ensure that you know what you’re getting.

If a tenant does receive poor results from a criminal background or credit check, you may still have the opportunity to gain them as a tenant. Just work to ensure that you find out the reasoning behind these poor results – does the tenant have a reasonable explanation such as divorce or medical bills? If not, then you may want to consider other options.

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