How to Evaluate Prospective Tenants for Your Rental Property

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Damon Thompson, I've been a landlord for over ten years and I have five multi unit buildings. This is how to evaluate prospective tenants. The first thing you need to do is have your tenants fill out a rental and a credit application. This application will give, this will require their financial information, previous landlords, employment history, credit history as well as personal references. These things will help give you an idea of who this person is on paper. The next thing you want to do is charge a fee for this because most credit reporting agencies that you check with will charge you a fee for running someone's credit. So you want to charge, you want to pass this fee on to your prospective tenant, you charge them for this. Because if it comes back and you don't rent the person, you don't want to take a loss for the money on that. The next thing you need to do is check all of their references. Call up their references, check to make sure that they're employed, check their credit report, see what it says, check with their financial institutions and most importantly check with their landlord. You want find out what type of tenant they were, how well they took care of maintaining the property, how well they paid and just were they an overall pleasant experience to have as a tenant. You want to find these things out from their previous landlord. The next thing you want to do is have a one on one with the person, you want to meet with them in person, you have an idea of who they are on paper, but there's nothing like a face to face conversation with an individual, to get, so you can get to know them. You want to do this, that's very important it shows a level of respect for, toward the prospective tenant and it's just good business practices. I'm Damon Thompson and that's how to evaluate prospective tenants."