Friday, September 25, 2009

Tenant Screening and Property Management

Tenant screening is the process of looking up and gathering criminal, commercial and financial records of tenants. These days, it is of vital importance to verify a tenant’s background prior to letting out premises. Tenant screening includes gathering and evaluating information of tenants to come to a wise conclusion regarding his/her suitability to reside in the premise. Often times, the landlord may find it complicated to validate the tenant`s background as well as his criminal history if any. Relying on the guarantee of friends, past tenants and any other verbal sources may sometimes be dangerous, as experience has proved that verbal guarantees would not hold true on most occasions.
So, it becomes crucial for real estate owners to provide help in handling these verification matters. They can help in property management by preparing a tenant credit report containing personal and family details, tenancy history, financial situation, state of his bank accounts and credit cards, his basic habits and conducts, his nature and temper, his relations with people around him and many more.
It has to be made very sure that tenants fill up all the columns of the rental property legal forms without fail. All the facts specified should be authenticated by documentary evidence. Any disagreement found should be taken sincerely.
People quite often refuse to reveal details of their past lease due to the fact that they were ejected from there for one or the other reason. He/she may even possess a criminal or addicted past. Only government supplied identity cards attached with a photograph and other original documents should be relied on because other kind of documents can easily be produced or manipulated by innovative people.
Now, Landlords can really have an ideal relationship with their tenants. It is seen that most of the tenants want to live in a place which is rational with a reasonable rent. But the property owner’s investment is their property and it maintains continuous follow-ups at the expenditure of tenants. To help landlords ease their burden American Apartment Owners Association provides its members with free rental application forms.
Real estate investment can be very profitable for landlords if they seek help through genuine sources. They guarantee successful landlord help by supplying good tenants and assure landlords that they will rarely have vacant property. It is essential for a landlord to run a beneficial business while renting property. The American Apartment Owners Association is a landlord association that assists property owners with leases and rental agreements. It assists with landlord forms explaining apartment holder basic rent rules, how much can landlords charge its tenants, rent control properties, rent raising, returned check charges and related matters.
However, with an array of eminent tenant screening firms doing their rounds, landlords have the choice to approach the best to get their potential clients verified.

Monday, August 17, 2009

American Tenant Screening

There are various issues that come up between landlord and tenant; these issues always arise due to ineffective lease agreement. Thus, many landlords find themselves in trouble due to incompetent rental agreement. For effective management of your property it is recommended that you take help from established landlord associations. These organizations assist landlord with personalized landlord agreement and specifically inform homeowners about their rights and how they can include beneficial clause within rental agreement.
Sometimes property owners suffer because of bad tenants; these tenants stall rent payment and usually abscond or overstay breaking tenancy agreement. It is important that before you sign any lease agreement you verify background of your potential lessee. Tenant screening agency like AMERICAN APARTMENT OWNERS ASSOCIATION offers property owners with tenant background verification, renter eviction history and tenant credit check.
Tenant screening agency will provide a detailed credit report of your potential renter from elite national credit bureaus. They will check public records, searching for any discrepancies in terms of civil judgments, tax liens and bankruptcies. It will give you comprehensive banking records and current status of tenants credit score. This information will help you analyze financial condition of your potential renter.
The American tenant screening company performs verification in a step by step procedure. It first performs credit check by analyzing tenant credit report, banking history and credit frauds if any. Detail verification of the information provided by the renter, these tenant screening agencies verifies past forceful eviction history, checks address and verifies current employers address.
After verifying tenant credit report, the next step these agencies perform is to check for criminal background. The most important thing to note is that AMERICAN APARTMENT OWNERS ASSOCIATION performs verification number of times to give you competent and trustworthy report, also subscribing with this agency will help you save money.
There are many applicants who do not have SSN number, this will make difficult for you to obtain credit report. You have full legitimacy to reject such application, just mention the status quo that there is no reflection on the character of applicant.
To check tenant credit report and to verify its background, landlord must obtain a signed consent of tenant before proceeding any further. The best way to perform verification is to charge tenant legally with a nonrefundable fees covering verification charges.
To disqualify an applicant you need to specify valid reason, if you want to save yourself from legal complication. It is imperative to mention this clause within rental agreement that applicant will not be disqualified on the basis of cast, religion, race, color, marital status, sex and age.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Importance of Tenant Screening

At the time of renting your properties it might seem easy to just allow the first person applying to rent the apartment, house, condo who applies. Though, tenant screening is required before you allow them to rent you house or properties. Here are some reasons that will give you a better view about the importance of tenant screening.

Tenants History
A tenants background check or history is going to brief us about how will they behave in your house or property. If they have a tendency of not maintaining the property and leaving your house before their lease is due or have a history of getting the cops called in their past rental situations, this will give you a better picture of them repeating the same in your rental situation.

Rent Payments
It is very crucial to make sure that the tenants are able to pay the rent amount within the specified time every month. Getting the rental amount from your tenants shouldn’t be something that is difficult for you to do. Thus you should take a look at the previous rentals payments made by your tenants to their landlords, just to be sure that they will pay you the monthly rental amount which is due.

Behavior
It is necessary to know the behavior of the tenants before you permit them in your horse or property, as it will give you a good idea of what their lifestyle is. It is essential to know if they are going to be having noisy parties with loud music. As you have invested money and time in your property and if you allow people to live there you don’t care about the surrounding area or people residing near it might create problems for you. You should make sure that your tenants have taken care of their past homes and have not ruined anyone else’s property. You can get the required information by checking up on the references that are provided by the tenants.

Even if screening your potential tenants is a time consuming process, it should be undertaken to make sure that you are renting your house, apartment to the people who will value the home, and take care of it.
American Apartment Owners Association is a group that provides tenant screening services for landlords, and property owners. They provide instant credit evaluation or the credit report of the prospective tenant which helps to make an informed decision before rental your apartment or property. They have three packages under this service:


a) Tenant Screening Red Package: Here is an overview of the details included in the Tenant Screening Red Package sample report.

b) Tenant Screening White Package: Here is an illustration of the specifications which are incorporated in Tenant Screening White Package sample report.

c) Tenant Screening Blue Package: Here is an example of Tenant Screening Blue Package sample report.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Tenant Screening

Investment in the rental property has become one of the biggest investments around the world. We can easily see a regular growth in the number of people looking for rental property investment. However, most of the people tend to neglect the most critical aspects of investment in rental property; one of them is finding a good tenant.
To find a genuine and good tenant is indeed a very tough task, first and prime reason for this is that it is really tough to find people, who can take care of your home as you can. It is very common that you find a tenant who would not care about your home and may do some holes in the walls, scratch up the wood and can sometimes cause a great damage to your property.
To find a genuine tenant therefore, should always be of great concern for landlords, for the proper care and treatment of their property.
Good and bad people can be found everywhere on this earth and similarly good and bad tenant also exists. Finding good tenants may be a tough task to do, but they do exist. Proper tenant screening can always help landlords in finding a good tenant for his rental property.
The American Apartment Owners Association (AAOA) is a group that provides help to apartment owners, real estate investors and property management companies who understand the need to maintain a property efficiently and deal with tenants professionally. The American Apartment Owners Association also understands the need of property owners and serves them according to their requirements.
American Apartment Owners Association also provides tenant screening service to property owners and real estate investors. Real estate owners can get their first report of the tenant screening for free just by signing up with the association.
AAOA group provides different packages and individual products under tenant screening service. AAOA group has three different packages to offer for tenant screening to real estate owners and apartment owners. These three packages are:
1) Red Package (Instant Credit Decision or Credit Report, Previous Address Tenant History, Statewide Eviction History)
2) White Package (Instant Credit Decision or Credit Report, Previous Address Tenant History, Statewide Eviction History, Statewide Criminal History, Sex Offender, Terrorist, & Federal Search)
3) Blue Package Instant Credit Decision or Credit Report, Previous Address Tenant History, Statewide Eviction History, Nationwide Criminal History, Sex Offender, Terrorist, & Federal Search)
All the services offered by AAOA provide important information to help apartment owner or real estate investor in tenant screening.
AAOA also provides some individual products or services for tenant screening. These products are:
1) Tele Check Verification
2) Previous Address Tenant History
3) Statewide Eviction History
4) Nationwide Criminal History
5) County Repository Criminal (24-72 hrs)
6) Landlord Verification (24-72 hrs)
7) Employment Verification (24-72 hrs)

Landlords and real estate owners can have detailed tenant screening information using any of the above packages and products offered by AAOA.