Tenant screening is vital among critical steps in rental property management, but mistakes can cause headaches. Allowing personal biases or skipping essential parts of the background check and key steps in the screening process can lead to significant issues, including late payments, damage, or legal complications. Avoiding these mistakes ensures you attract high-quality tenants and keep your properties running smoothly. Here’s how to dodge common tenant screening mistakes with practical tips for effective tenant screening.
Mistake #1: Failing to Screen Consistently
Consistency is the key to effective tenant screening. A significant part of consistency is ensuring that you use the same criteria for every applicant rather than letting emotions or personal biases influence your decisions. Failing to screen consistently and objectively can result in missed chances to find a suitable tenant and potential legal issues related to discrimination.
Legal action is both time-consuming and expensive and an outcome that all rental property owners should actively work to avoid. It’s important to know how state and federal laws against housing discrimination apply to you and ensure a compliant screening process.
Mistake #2: Not Checking the Right References
Another common mistake during screening is failing to verify the correct references. As part of the application process, you should request personal and professional references from prospective tenants in addition to previous landlords. Employment history, financial references, and personal character references are all suitable types of references to request. Then, be sure to contact all of these references and ask the right questions.
For example, you could ask them how long they’ve known the applicant, their job performance, how well they care for their current living space, and if they’ve noticed any red flags. Depending on the type of reference, you should customize your list of questions accordingly.
Mistake #3: Overlooking Credit and Background Checks
A third big mistake in tenant screening is failing to run credit and background checks on the applicant. Both assessments are relatively standard in rental markets nationwide, but some property owners and managers still miss this opportunity to learn valuable information about their renters.
Credit and background checks tell a story about a person and can help you identify possible red flags, such as prior evictions, criminal history, or financial difficulties. While not every negative item on a credit report or a background check is an automatic cause for rejection of an application, these checks do give you what you need to make an informed decision about your next tenant.
Mistake #4: Ignoring Rental History
A top mistake a rental property manager can make is ignoring Rental history, which reveals renter’s likely future behavior. Review previous landlord’s report for lease agreement violations or including late payments. Despite disagreements during the rental period, it informs how they behave as a renter, avoiding a mistake rental property owners and managers make during the screening process.
Mistake #5: Inadequate Communication with Applicants
Finally, a last mistake rental property owners and managers make during the screening process is failing to communicate clearly and consistently with the applicant. Applying for a rental home can be a stressful experience for renters, and frustration can easily escalate into negative feelings. Remember that your renter’s experience begins with the first interaction with you and will continue throughout your association, regardless of its duration.
To foster a positive relationship with your tenant, start on the right foot by being transparent about your application requirements, timelines, and how your decision will be communicated. In this way, you can avoid misunderstandings that could frustrate or discourage applicants and result in negative reviews.
Get Your Screening Process Right!
By following these tips and strategies, you can easily avoid the top mistakes rental property owners and managers make during the screening process. This, in turn, can lead to better tenant retention, fewer headaches, and even boost your reputation as a landlord.
Thorough tenant screening can be time-consuming. Want to leave this task to professionals and enhance your tenant screening in Frisco? Get in touch with Real Property Management Legend. Our quality services include a streamlined screening process, ensured legal compliance, and more. Contact us online or call 214-227-2404 for expert property management services.
We are pledged to the letter and spirit of U.S. policy for the achievement of equal housing opportunity throughout the Nation. See Equal Housing Opportunity Statement for more information.
