How To Screen a New Prospective Rental Applicant

Landlords should try and find the best renters available who they think will pay the rent in a timely manner and not damage the rental property. This can be accomplished by performing credit checks and other pre-leasing tests. Here are the proper ways to screen a new applicant for a rental apartment or rental townhome:

1. Perform a credit check through your local Credit Bureau or sign up with a company where you can do it through your company's personal computer. A few good companies that provide this service are DataFaxInc., CBC Innovis and CompleteLandlord. We suggest the applicant have a score that is 580 or higher to be approved. If all other screening tests come back with good results, you may want to approve an applicant with a score between 520 to 580.
2. Perform a criminal background check through your local Credit Bureau.
3. Check the applicant's previous rental references. Try and check at least two of them. Also, check the addresses that come back on the Credit Report and see if they match what the applicant has listed on his application. If they do not match, ask the applicant for an explanation.
4. Verify his employment through his current employer. Many employers will not confirm the applicant's pay rate but will just confirm that he is employed there and his hire date.
5. Require the applicant to have no bankruptcies in the last year or two. This can be found out by looking on the Credit Check report. If the applicant has had a bankruptcy, look to see how he has done since then as far as paying his bills and managing his credit obligations.

By performing these above steps, a landlord can avoid renting to someone more likely not to pay his rent and/or do damage to the rental apartment or rental townhome.

The rental industry should strive to start implementing the same requirements for all applicants, regardless of whether you are a small landlord with just 1 or 2 rentals or a very large corporate landlord with 200 units under ownership. If landlords had the same system of checks and balances in place to report bad tenants to, this would allow the landlord to gain a higher quality tenant. With some universal system of checks and balances, those applicants that like to break leases and cause damages would find it harder to just keep doing it to the next landlord that they run across.