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Looking to rent out your home?
This should serve as a solid investment for your future. But, bringing in the wrong renters can damage the home and cost you a ton of money.
Choose your tenants wisely. Read on to learn about three reasons why you should perform a tenant screening background check.
1. Protect Your Property
You put too much into your investment to let it get destroyed. Learn about your prospective renters prior to making any decisions on offering them a lease.
Tenant screening should look into their rental history. If they ruined past rentals, then the landlords certainly will not remain quiet about it.
Find out where they lived for the past 10 years. If they leave time gaps, ask detailed questions to find out where they stayed during that time and why they did not provide any information.
As part of your screening process, contact landlords, beginning with the most recent. This way, you can stop after a couple if you only received rave reviews on these people as tenants.
You might also find that a previous landlord does not offer much. In this case, move down the list to gather more info.
Ask how they left the property when they moved out. if they trashed their last place, chances are they will do the same with yours.
2. Keep Everything Safe
Would you allow just anybody into your home? Then treat your rental property in the same respect.
About 50% of convicts repeat crimes. Running a tenant criminal background check will give you insight into who wants in.
You may want to protect the neighborhood by opting against renting to a violent criminal. On the other hand, some people want desperately to begin again, so maybe you can overlook a past, victimless crime, for somebody who checks out in other respects.
3. Get Paid
Owning a rental property comes with a number of costs. You pay the mortgage, homeowners insurance, renovation costs, and more.
So, renting to people who do not pay on time can end up costing you money. Avoid this by staying adamant with your tenant background check.
First, check their income. People tend to fudge numbers in their interest, so ask for proof of steady income.
They should provide multiple weeks of pay stubs to prove that they consistently make enough money. When looking at their gross income, consider that everybody needs to cover more expenses than rent. For you to get your money on time, they need to cover rent, utilities, groceries, a car payment, etc.
Run a credit history as well. This shows you the additional expenses they need to cover. Good credit also shows you that a person is reliable with paying bills.
Require a Tenant Screening Background Check
When renting out your property, always require a tenant screening background check. Do not make any exceptions, even when you really like a potential renter. This can cause you major problems down the road.
We understand that property management can get overwhelming when you go it alone. Contact us to see how we can help!
