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.