Let me first start by saying that Alborz Real Estate Co specializes in residential property management in the greater Denver Metro area. Today I like to talk to you about how to screen a prospect, someone who is interested in your rental property. It first starts by asking the potential tenant filling out your rental application. In the rental application you will ask the applicant to provide you with their complete name including their middle name, social security number, date of birth, most recent residential addresses including the landlords the applicant has rented from, as well as employment information.
It's also important to mention here that anybody in their household over the age of 18 should also fill out a rental application. It does not matter whether those individuals have source of income or not or whether they will be contributing towards rent or not. You want that information so that you can check their background. Once you gather all the applications and the supporting document like a copy of their driver's licence and their most recent pay stubs.
You would want to make sure that you have a good screening company that you can take that information to, and they can provide you with detailed and comprehensive results. A good report should include but not limited to the applicant/s credit report, background report, eviction report as well as current and a few past address and current employment. The report should also include a nationwide criminal search, which should also include the sex offender lists, as well as the Homeland Security watch list. You also want to ask the screening company to provide you with the social security verification report and that report will show and confirm the Social Security listed on that application belongs to the person who is applying to rent your property.
You also must be aware that the responsibility of securing that personal information from the applicant is upon you. Federal Credit Reporting Act requires you to take strong measures to secure that information in a place like your filing cabinet that is locked when you're not around so nobody else has access to that important information which belongs to the applicant. Once you have all the reports from the screening company then you need to carefully review, make sure everything looks good. If there's anything in there that does not look alright to you, make sure you ask that question directly from the applicant. You would want to make sure the person who is going to reside in your property have good clean record. Make sure to set a minimum household income for the financial qualification. In other words, enough income to be able to pay rent and live comfortably.
You may be curious that, what it will cost to get all these reports. Processing rental application costs anywhere from 25 to 50 dollars, and most landlords ask the applicant to pay for it.
This is in a summary of what’s involved in screening a tenant. I hope you find this information helpful.
