Renting out - Screening for tenants
 

For those of you who are renting out your basement or part of your house, how did you guys go about screening potential tenants? Any advice to ensure that they are people who will pay their rent on time and not mess up your house?

I know there's always a risk but I'd like to hear what you guys did to reduce this risk. Is a credit check or something like that necessary?

credit check

employer reference w/ recent paystub
length of time last employed

resume

monthly property inspections.

Personal grooming (do they smell?).
Seriously. If they smell, and they don't notice it, then they wouldn't notice if they made my house smell either.

You could also ask if they can provide you with a letter from their bank stating that their account is in good standing.

Another strategy you can employ is just lowering your rental price by $100 or so from the market price. This way, you would have more interested parties and thus, you can pick and choose who you want: whoever seems the most stand up / families / professionals / long term tenants. If you think about it, 100 a month is not really that much; you'd be at risk to lose much more than that if you end up with a bad tenant.

You could also bluff and mention that you do bi monthly inspections of every rental property you own, just so you can easily weed out the grow ops.

that bluff might turn away otherwise good tenants no?

ic wut u did dere :p

Alway make an application form and ask them to fill it out.
You can find application forms online and add to it *just make sure it's legally ok to put what you plan to add*

I can usually cut it down to 5 from many just from the application form.
People who are organize would bring their own pens, have their references and shit together. They should be professional just like how you should be in an interview.

Talk to them and ask them why they are moving and are looking at places and how long they lived at their old place *getting that place as a reference would help too*.
Ask them what they are looking for in a place, because if they find a better one, you're going to have to do it all over again.

See what they do for a living. I can always tell if they are bullshitting when they put their occupation down and them for yearly salary, they put down a high number.
Get work references, numbers and years worked
Also find out where they previously worked

How many kids they have or any cars that are leased or financed.

If they have good credit reference. They don't HAVE TO, but if they are cool, they can give you a business card to their bank manager to let you know if they are in the clear *with their permission of course*

Ask how long they plan to stay.

Take a look at their habbits like do they take their shoes off, what are they looking at when in the house, are they asking questions. Like what the person above say, do they smell, maybe you don't want smokers. That's an easy tell if you smell them.

OH and yes what the person say above. MONTHLY INSPECTION just to see their reaction.

But i usually talk to the person and get to know them. I hate dealing with ass hats.

I rent out a seperate apartment suite, so it's harder to see what car they pull up in, so I usually try to schedule the person who sounds the most professional over the phone as the first person I meet with for the day. (I usually do about 8 potential tenants a day over a 2 hour span.) That works out to be roughly 15 minutes each potential client and I like doing this, because this shows them that I'm busy and there are also a lot of other potential tenants that are wanting to rent the place out.

While I show the apartment I always talk to them really friendly, and will always work in questions about their occupations, life, kids if any which gives me a good idea of what kind of people they are, of where they're going with their life, of what, what kind of lifestyle they have, which will show me a good general idea of if they will take care of the place or not. I find that the sharper people out of the bunch will jump on the wagon and offer me references right off the bat when I mention occupation.

I generally don't look too far into their credit unless I have serious doubts, which I have only done once, but that was only because nobody was looking for a place to live at the time, but now I don't think you'll have that problem, when I last showed the place, about a year ago, I had numerous responses just by posting it on Craigslist.

During the 15 mins I will usually work in that I do reserve the right to do a routine check every month when I collect the rent, which we will sign for an agreement for with the one year lease that I require. But to be honest, I don't really care about the one year lease, if they do decide to leave within a year I will not withhold them to that, unless the tenants just absolutely gives me a hard time. With the one year lease statement that usually weeds out the financially unstable people.

Hope this helps.

Only tell them you are doing monthly inspections if you want to chase away potential good renters who happen to value their privacy.

If they have nothing to hide then why would it matter?
I obviously call before I come pick up the rent, and they know exactly which day of the month it is every month.

I guess it'd also depend on how badly the potential tenants want to rent, if they need the place/love the place, they shouldn't mind.

It's not like I'm literally opening every closet, cupboard and carpet.
I just walk into the hallway, stand in one place and look around with my head.

Because as a tenant, it's a pain in the ass having a nosy landlord poking around all the time. Hands-off is the best way. It may be your property, but it's the tenants' home.

Checking in once in a while is fine, but if a landlord were to tell me they'd be stopping by every fucking month, I'd walk away.

I still haven't met my current landlord in the 17 months I've been renting this place... Just email correspondence once. That's the way I like it :thumbsup:

I agree, my landlord has not done a single "inspection" in the 3 years I have been living here. They have been in the house a few times when they needed access due to renovations they have been doing and I have no problem with that, but if they said they wanted to start coming by every month just to check things out I'd be moving pretty quick.
I know they would never do this, as they're not going to find another tenant who does things like cleaning up the backyard (including taking shit to the dump), powerwashing the driveway, building garden plots & garbage bin keepers etc. They treat me good, I treat them good, works both ways.

Yeah I dont imagine they have grow op problems in HK either.

Yeah my place is in way better shape than it was when we moved in. The people who lived here before us (and this was the case with most of the apartments we looked at in our price range) were absolutely disgusting. Mold everywhere, and the walls had mites crawling all over them.

I've rented 2 places so far. The first place I showed up with my mom and I guess that was convincing enuff for the landlord. They didn't do any kinda check whatsoever on me, I put down a deposit and moved in a week later. The 2nd place I've rented did a short interview with me and went to my work place and spoke with my manager. The 2 places I've rented out, neither of the landlords have ever stopped by to check the inside of the suite.

I lived in a place where they did monthly inspections.

It annoyed the shit out of me every damn month. It wasn't the inspection itself that was the most annoying part, it was the small talk if you were home when she did it. You get home from working all day, trying to make some dinner, and bam! interupted.

After a couple of times with a new tenant,, and the place isn't trashed, you would think a person would put you down as 'chill' and move the fuck on in life.

When we took over as managers at this building, we did one inspection for all the maintenance issues that were neglected. We immediately saw what the issue apartments were. One guy has lived here for 5 years, and hasn't dusted in...5 years. I know next month, he is still not going to have dusted. Why look?

Besides, in our 25 unit building, it took 3 hours to go through. I can think of more useful things to do for 3 hours in the building than irritate people.

A lot of the buildings that do shit like that are the big property management companies. Overall, I think you are better off at privately run buildings. You can build a relationship with people and get way more flexibility.

When people come to me and say, I want to paint. As long as it hasn't been recently painted, its a yes. I provide them paint in colors of their choice, as long as its relatively rentable after. One lady wanted to put in a small garden. Go nuts...clean up after yourself.

It makes it far more enjoyable to live here.

On screening tenants.

All the usual stuff is covered. We do credit checks, and honestly, sometimes even with bad credit, I'm a go.

I look for what they are wearing. I expect a person to present themselves nicely when coming to look at a unit.

A BIG one for me is asking the right questions.

How much light does it get in the morning? How quick are you on repairs? Stuff like that.

A person that inquires about 'living there' questions, has no white elephant on their mind when they are looking for a place.

Some people walk through and are thinking, oh fuck, I hope they don't call my previous place. How can I present myself better? And subsequently the conversation is different. They don't care how loud the neighbors are, they are getting desperate for a place.

Applications:

Without even reading it, I can go with a yes or no, depending on the volume of information.

I had a guy that I showed an apartment that was being renovated to. We had just dropped a couple grand in, and I wanted the right tenant to move in. We had showed it to every junky in the city in the search.

He was well dressed...younger guy but had it together. Asked all the right questions. It was obvious he wanted a quiet place to live. Very chatty, but not in a way that was trying to hide something. Filled out an application. Went on his way. He came back, about an hour later, concerned that he had put a wrong number on the application, and didn't want to have the application have an issue and wanted to make sure.

I skipped the credit check, and rented it on the spot, and he turned out to be one of the best tenants. His place is always spotless, he is super friendly when you run into him and just a great guy.

The point is, it was a natural conversation. I knew he wasn't trying to hide anything. He didn't talk too much.

I think..you know. You know when someone is an issue. You get that feeling. People get into trouble when they ignore it to get someone in there. It's end of the month and you've seen 50 people on welfare and you find someone that gives you a strange feeling, but say yes.

And you are fucked.

OH! On credit issues. I have put a couple through. The key is if when I mention that we do a check, and they tell me then that there is an issue. Tell me why, and what happened and be honest about it. I'm ok at that point. Rent is different than your visa card.

Shit, I have a rather large item on my report, and I manage the place. I guess I get that we can't all be 750's.

You just really can never tell. I rented out a room to this guy whom offered to paint two of the bedrooms in return for $100 off his rent for the first month. And hey, he did it and did a good job. However, every week he is constantly asking for a little more... Then it was to use the Garage, and then today, I catch him steeling my lawnmower to go cut the grass at someone elses house. WTF!

So now I have to lock my garage, and make sure the lawnmower is inside, otherwise this guy will be making a living off my tools and shit.

:haha: