How to Screen Tenants the RIGHT Way!

One of the most stressful unknows for new investors is the question of these strangers who will be living in their property. Who will they be? Are they good people? Will they take care of the house? What will they do if there is a leak under the sink? Do they have a 400 pound dog or an emotional support goat? How do I pick the right tenant?

First and foremost, landlords should NEVER “pick” a tenant. They either qualify for the rental or they do not. Once you start picking the “better” tenant, you are putting yourself and your property at risk for a Fair Housing violation. Those are not fun and they’re easily avoidable.

While these mystery people can cause plenty of stress for new investors, it is almost all unfounded, especially in a great market like Boise. The Treasure Valley is filled with plenty of hard working, honest, on-time paying tenants who want to care for your property and provide a nice home for themselves. You might think it will be tough to find one of those when combing through your stack of 50 rental applications. After all, Boise has a vacancy rate around 3% right now, so you will get a ton of applications and be buried in paperwork, right?

Nope.

The process is mind bogglingly simple with you understand it and execute properly. Want to know the secret? It’s Fair Housing. Yep- that ongoing series of regulations that is just there to punish landlords, right?

The reality is that following remarkably simple tenant screening and placement guidelines will make your life SO much simpler and it will limit your liability when it comes to discrimination. So how does it work?

It’s simple- you, or your property manager, come up with a few basic criteria that your tenants must meet- income, credit score, criminal history, references, etc., none of which have to do with any protected classes. You publish exactly what these criteria are, so prospective tenants know the rules going in.  

The first applicant that comes in and passes all of your criteria? They get the house. Simple. You’ll want to give them a limited time frame to pay their deposit and settle up whatever other financial terms you have in your lease, if they don’t make the deadline, you move on the applicant #2.

You can read more about the Fair Housing Act here.

If you want to learn more about what Boise TurnKey tenant screening criteria are or what we do to protect our clients and provide quality housing to all, you can reach out to us here.

Happy Investing!