Finding the most qualified resident for your Murrieta rental property requires a strong screening process. This is one of the most important parts of leasing and managing a property. The tenant you choose will dictate what kind of rental experience lays ahead. With a good tenant, you’ll earn consistent and recurring income. Rent is paid on time and that tenant helps you take care of your investment property. You do not have to worry about lease violations, lease breaks, or lingering property damage. With a tenant who was not screened well, you might find yourself chasing down late rent, and potentially heading to court to evict.
The purpose of a tenant screening process is to get a complete sense of your applicant’s full background. You want to make sure you’re offering a lease agreement to someone who can be trusted to contribute to a pleasant and profitable rental experience.
From the perspective of a Murrieta property manager, there’s very little that’s more important than good screening. You have to be rigorous, but you also need to follow fair housing laws and requirements.
It’s important to establish a fair, consistent, and well-documented process.
We screen tenants all the time as your local property management resource, and we’re sharing some of our best practices on how to navigate good tenant screening.
Establish Qualifying Rental Criteria for Murrieta Applicants
Before you begin investigating the backgrounds of potential tenants, you want to have a process in place that is fair and well-documented. This starts with a legally compliant application.
A comprehensive rental application is essential when it comes to successful tenant screening. By collecting a wealth of detailed information about prospective tenants, you can get a full picture of how they’ve performed in terms of money, properties, and general responsibilities. You can use the application to ask for information on:
- Past rental history
- Employment
- Finances
- Evictions and bankruptcies
With a complete application, you will be well-positioned to make an impartial and objective decision between multiple potential candidates.
Once you have an application that’s available to prospective tenants, it’s time to establish some rental criteria that reflects what you’re looking for in a tenant. Then, put that rental criteria in writing. Not only do you need it for your own process, you also want to share it with any potential applicants who visit your home and express an interest in applying.
The criteria you’ve created tells everyone what you’re looking for and what will be required in order to be approved for the property. Written rental criteria is your best defense against any claims of discrimination or fair housing violations. It also holds you accountable to the way you screen your applicants.
What Should You Be Looking For While Screening?
If you’re wondering what you should be screening for, we have the following suggestions:
- Criminal History
Conduct a nationwide criminal background check. You’re looking for violent crimes and convicted felonies that may potentially disqualify a tenant from renting your property. California cities and municipalities are pretty strict when it comes to when and how you use criminal information. Make sure you know your local laws or consult with a property manager.
- Eviction Checks
Do a national eviction search. Those records don’t always show up on a credit report, and you want to make sure you’re not renting to someone with a history of evictions.
- Verify Income
You need tenants who can afford to pay rent on time every month. That will require looking at income and deciding whether you believe they earn enough to pay what you’re asking.
Murrieta property management best practices say that you should look for income that’s at least three times the monthly rent. If there are roommates moving in or two adults who earn incomes, you will combine what’s earned to meet the necessary requirements you set.
Verify income by asking for proof. Typically, that means collecting pay stubs, tax forms, or bank statements.
Murrieta Tenants and Credit Reports
Running a basic credit check is usually something all landlords do pretty easily, but you want to think beyond the credit score. Having a minimum credit score makes sense for your qualifying rental criteria, but make sure you’re looking at the entire credit profile before you approve a tenant. There’s a lot to learn from it.
Use the credit report to evaluate financial health. If there are debts owed to former landlords or apartment buildings, you’ll want to think twice. Utility bills should not be in collections because it likely means that tenant does not take their housing responsibilities seriously. Multiple credit card balances may seem like bad debt management, but it does not necessarily make your applicant a huge risk. You’re thinking about how they handle their rent and housing-related bills.
Evaluate Rental History
After you have collected and analyzed all the information you have on a tenant’s credit, income, and criminal history, you’ll need to think about their rental history. Talk to current and former landlords.
Your application should request contact information for at least two landlords the tenant has rented from previously. These references can tell you a lot about what it was like to rent to the tenant you’re considering. Send them an email or make a phone call. It won’t take more than a few minutes, and it will give you some very valuable information.
Always make sure you’re actually talking to the landlord or the property owner or the property manager. Sometimes, tenants who have had a bad experience in a property will try to fool you by providing the contact information for a friend or family member. Do some light digging to ensure you’re talking to the right person.
Some of the things you should ask a current or former landlord while screening tenants include:
- Was rent paid on time every month? How quickly was the rent paid in the event that it was late?
- Was there any property damage during the lease term?
- Was proper notice given before they moved?
- Did the tenant have pets?
- Did the tenant receive a full security deposit refund?
- Would you rent to this tenant again?
These are some of the practices we put into place as Murrieta property managers when we’re screening tenants for the properties we manage in Riverside County. If you’d like some help with your leasing process or you have any questions at all, please contact us at Diamond Property Management.
