With any real estate investment that involves a rental aspect, properly screening your prospective tenants is one of the most important things that you can do to protect your investment. If you look at any professionally run lease or rental business, you’ll see that proper investigation and screening is always the most important factor that is considered with tenant selection.
Hence, it’s pretty obvious that as a rental property owner, one of the necessary to-dos you must bear in mind before accepting any tenants is screening them. The good news is that there are tenant screening services from a reputable service providers that will help you get the job done. The right company which has authorized access to necessary confidential information will be able to check the potential tenant’s overall credibility as well as go a long way to determining the potential tenant’s likelihood of fulfilling the rental terms.
What a Good Tenant Screening Report Should Show
You will likely come across a number of tenant screening service providers in your area, but as you are presented with options, keep in mind to choose a provider that can produce an extensive tenant screening report that shows the following:
Criminal Records. A thorough tenant screening process can involve looking into a potential tenant’s criminal record history. A criminal background check could be extremely important to determine a tenants suitability no matter how good everything else appears. Access to institutions that can disclose criminal records is limited, however. It is something only authorized/licensed professionals can carry out.
Credit Record. A credit score is a three-digit number that measures how a person is likely to repay any debts they have. Banks and other lending institutions make use of this as a determinant to whether a person’s credit card or loan application is worthy of approval or not. A tenant with a good credit score is obviously much more desirable.
Eviction History. A tenant screening service provider can also gain access to renters history with previous landlord’s and a potential tenant has records of eviction and any warnings or other rental issues that may be of concern.
Why Tenant Screening is Extremely Important
- Verification of Submitted Documents. It is easy to submit required documents showing proof of address, employment, and other references but not all property owners have the time to verify these. This is one of the primary duties undertaken by a tenant screening service. The screening process can even possibly determine if the potential tenant is faking his/her identity and other records. A mismatch of information between the result and the submitted documents draws a red line and should disqualify the applicant right away.
- Protection from Criminal Threats. With the help of a tenant screening report, a background check against criminal records may also be undertaken. This will increase your confidence that the tenant will not do any misconduct in the future.
- Prevention of Loss in Business. Tenant screening will make sure the applicant can afford the property’s monthly fee, ensuring a steady passive income from your property.
- Easier Rental Application Process. Tenant screening can actually help the tenants too. Those who are on the lookout for a property can just volunteer themselves to a reputable tenant screening service provider for a check. It does not only ease their rental application process but it will also give a positive impression from the rental property owner’s viewpoint.
“Which Tenant Screening Service Provider Should I Choose?”
As the screening result is critical to your tenant selection process, it is important to seek out a reputable tenant screening company. Look for a company that:
- Performs thorough and extensive screening. Tenant screening basically involves finding out key information that will negatively or positively affect your prospective tenant. Hence, the company should make sure it runs a thorough check to get the facts that you can confidently rely on.
- Has reasonable requirements. If a company runs a site inspection aside from looking into the information at hand, then it is a major plus.
- Delivers fast results without compromising the report’s quality and reliability. Although it may sound like a good thing if a company can provide fast results, it does not automatically suffice if the report’s content is compromised. Reviews and feedbacks from past clients will help you gauge a company’s past performances.
