I use www.mrlandlord.com. On the left hand side under Landlord services/tenant credit reports.
I just got a new one 20 minitues ago. A lady called me and said she was sitting in front of my house and wanted to see it. I asked her when she wanted to see it, and she said she was sitting in front of it right now. I asked her if she wanted to make an apointment to see the inside and she said “well I am sitting in front of it now”. I asked her and she actually said 3 different times that she was in front of the house now. That is a prime reason to NOT rent to her.
Blue,
So True! If a person has to rent it today, they aren’t worth a nickle! I had some moron call yesterday that was being evicted BY HIS OWN PARENTS and needed an apartment by Friday! Do you think he would make a good tenant? I had another one today that needed a house right away because she was being evicted from another local landlord (for non-payment of rent)! I swear that I’m going to publish one of those Who’s Who books…Who’s Who of Morons in America! I’m in the process of meeting them all… one applicant at a time!
Mike
Mike,
I know that your requirements for tenants and that you get rid of most of your tenants on the phone, but what do you say to them to end the call? “Sorry we don’t accept tenants who have been evicted in the last 2 years.”
Something like that?
Adam,
Yes, I am very direct with the applicants, whether in person or on the phone. I simply tell them that we don’t take anyone who has been evicted in the past FIVE years (or whatever the reason is).
Mike
It’s almost what I do.
In the initial phone call, most ask about my criteria, and the usual answer is “we do background, credit, employment and eviction checks” Without being very specific, I would add “if you have any problems in these areas, the chances are low due to the volume of people seeing it”.
Some may still ask “can I still see it”?? My answer is “you’re welcome to come, but if you have many places to look, decide if you got the time”.
The trick is, I never turn any one away.
The tricky part is some people ask about the racial makeup of the area, and my answer is “it’s a good area, I see all types of people coming and going, and generally, it’s a very safe area, the schools there are very good”…
Since I don’t discourage everyone from coming, I let them disqualify themselves if during the interview, if the applicant doesn’t sound right to me, I would say "no problem with you leaving an application with me, but since the chances are low as I have quite a few applications on hand (show them the stack I got) I wouldn’t suggest you leave all that personal information you have to provide laying around here.
Most of the time they would agree and say “you’r right”.
Rarely do I have someonse insisting on my processing an application as I make it clear I have dozens received. Usually, if I say “the other people we’re looking at came by first”, that does the trick.
Once I did have someone complaining about the neighborhood after driving around and said “you said it’s a nice neighborhood, and I see all THOSE PEOPLE walking around”.
Since I treat everyone one coming by as a tester I said “I’m sorry you feel that way, but THOSE PEOPLE didn’t bother you, did they”??
Bottomline.
One should be aware of “fair housing laws”, but not paronaid about it if everyone coming by is treated with dignity and respect.
Frank,
I agree with you. That’s why we have written screening criteria and I tell all the applicants our screening criteria. If a tenant wants to accuse me of discrimination, they won’t have a case. I can point to our written criteria and say “Joe wasn’t accepted because he was evicted 3 years ago and our written policy is to disqualify anyone who has been evicted in the past 5 years”.
In addition, we charge a $25 non-refundable application fee. Most people will not spend $25 when they know they are going to be denied. However, there are enough people who will that the application fees can be a nice source of lunch money. I have had as many as 8 people plop down their $25 before finding someone who met our criteria, even though they were clearly told what our criteria was before they placed their application.
Mike
I think the application fee is the way to go. The only problem with saying you have a stack of applications is that sometimes you don’t when the market is slow and then what do you do when they call back a couple of weeks later? They don’t always remember who they called so it could be awkward if you say that and it’s not true.
Also you should never say it’s a safe area. Just a big liability issue. If someone were to break in, you could be sued because saying it’s safe is seen by courts as a warranty. I’d say if they were worried about crime, check with the police department, they have the most current statistics.
Actually, I ran into a slowdown only two out the last 25 years, and when it happened I had to improvise.
There’s been times when I had no candidates under consideration, but with applicants who submitted applications wanting to know about their status. What I did was I lied and told them that we are processing a (non existent) applicant, while waiting for qualified people to call.
We also ran ads the following week, and the week after, and applicants who follow the ads want to know why we’re still running ads. The story we told was several applicants are under consideration. and while we’re waiting for more info from them, and our normal procedures are to continue running ads when no one is yet approved.
Usually this works
It was only one time that even this didn’t work. We had no qualified applicants and only one applicant who wanted it badly. called every day, and we were not able to establish grounds not to rent.
A tattoed motorcyclist, with no real job, is moving in with the daughter of a billionaire industrialists owning several businesses in Brazil and the USA. She has a trust fund, plus an allowance form dad, and her documented monthly income is several times that of most working people.
And trust fund money is even better than “employment income”, and I can’t find any arguments against it.
Neither she nor here boyfriend had bad credit, in fact she had excellent credit, never been evicted. Our only objection is this guy is out of place in the neighborhood, and the tenancy may only last a few months, as it’s obvious he’s mooching off a rich girlfriend.
Finally, I concluded that it made no sense to hold the rental open looking for the ideal tenant who’ll stay for a few years. I explained to this couple we were processing the other applicants, because they were family with children and would stay a few years.
As I said, these families didn’t really exist.
The boyfriend said “Oh no, you’re wrong, I plan to be here a few years”. I shook my head and said “no, you won’t last a year”. We wound up renting the place to them.
I went by to collect the rent each month, and each month he laughed at me saying he’s still there. On the tenth month he made a bet with me he’ll be there over a year. I thought I was stupid of me taking on the bet.
Well. what do you know, his girlfreind threw him out on the eleventh month, and I went by with a smirk on my face to collect the bet. As he was moving, I explained to him that I know more about when and if a tenant would move better than the tenant himself.
She moved soon after.
After they left, the market improved, and I was able to get my usual “stack of applications”. But you’re right, from time to time, there’s a slowdown.