Howdy,
I thought I was going to be extremely thorough in my rental application and ask for pretty much every thing between heaven and earth. At later thought (Really my wife’s) I am wondering if that is such a smart thing, for your pros out there, in your rental applications do you ask for:
Bank Information (Checking, savings etc, to include acct nr, balance, branch etc)
Credit card information, what type, what limit, what balance etc?
I am thinking that I might overdo it with all the questions…
Have a great day y’all
Tex
Bank Information (Checking, savings etc, to include acct nr, balance, branch etc)
Credit card information, what type, what limit, what balance etc?
I am thinking that I might overdo it with all the questions…
Yeah, I think that’s over doing it. I don’t ask for bank or credit card info. In fact, my application is only one page long. Even so, I still deny the vast majority of people who apply!
Mike
Thanks Mike,
As always your input is much appreciated 
Just don’t tell my wife
If you really want to, you can put a statement on there where they can sign saying you are authorized to pull their credit. If you want to view the actual report, you will need to get a home office inspected. If not, the company will issue a “credit decision” which will basically say approve, disapprove, approve with extra deposit, etc. We get basic personal information on our application. If you’re checking public records thru the court system, you’ll want to be able to differentiate between John Smith (your applicant who has a clean record) and John Smith (the convicted felon with a rap sheet a mile long). Birthdates and SS# will help with that.
Also very important are their past couple residences/landlords and current job info (so you can verify employment and income).
Thanks Justin,
I have that statement on the application and I think I will use one of the landlord resources available…
Of course I will also be looking at the public records to see what I can dig up on my own…
One additional question that popped up in my mind, if I use a screening service and they come back dissaprove, do I refer the tenant to them for further explanations (Fair credit act and such)…? Or do they provide me with which credit report they pulled and so forth?
Thx
If anyone is denied for something in their credit report, they need to receive that form letter that states because of information contained in your credit report, you have been denied credit, you can contact the credit reporting agency, etc. If you use the LL agency to make the decision, you won’t be the one actually viewing the report and you wouldn’t receive it if the applicant was denied (you would have to have the home office inspected to get the actual credit report). So I don’t know whether that form letter comes from you or the LL agency because the LL agency just gives you a credit decision. It’s still up to you if you want to follow that or not.
If you deny the applicant based on the 10 felonies you uncovered during a public record search, you’re not required to send that letter. We generally just send our own letter stating what we found.
I think I will do just that. This lovely single mom wants to rent my first house ever, tells me how much she likes it and how much her daughter would love to live there… One search was all it took
DWI, Assault of family member, eviction, all in the past 8 months. Now this is before the application was filled in so I wasn’t sure if this was the correct person. Sure enough it was, and she also mentioned in the application that she had been evicted, did not say anything about the criminal assault on a family member though, guess I need to tell her bye bye
Yep. So much better to pass on people like that and have your place stay vacant for a bit longer than to let them in to become your nightmare. You could charge a little for an application fee to cover the LL agency credit decision if you go that route. We just haven’t done that. It’s worked out ok so far to just check public records and verify income. My dad has always prided himself on being able to pretty accurately peg someone from when he first meets them. There were some applicants we had that he felt really good about. Then I told him about the things we found out about them from the court website. Some people put on a good act as you just saw.
Yeah it is kind of scary, She did look like a really nice clean cut girl with a two year old daughter. I thought she would be ok judging by first impressions but I guess I know better know. I think I read somewhere on this board (or it might have been Mike’s book) that tenants lie 90% of the time. I think I just realized that this must be true…
Like you said, I’ll rather stay vacant another month or two then having her in there not paying rent or beating up some poor family member…
Good thing is, I am still as excited as ever, my refinance closing is scheduled for two weeks from now, I am getting cash back and a fixed 6 and 3/4 for 30 years on a NOO property with LTV being less then 68%… It feels like a good deal to me… P&I is going to be 354 and rents are 915… Thank god for this board or I would have been screwed
Hey Tx,
What bank did you use to refi and what were their seasoning requirements?
Hey you never know. :evil Maybe she got caught in a DWI sting :beer, family member went to pick her up at the station, they come from a very physical and loud family :argue and this member happen to have encouraged her to drink at the family party earlier in the evening :deal, some shouting ending in a shove or slap in the station she would have ended up being arrested on the spot for assault :banghead, judge decided to make an example out of her and gives her a high bail she cannot pay :help, being in jail she missed her day to pay the rent :shocked, and thus the landlord evicted her :anon.
:cool
Good story Sammy Think I will go with that one…
Vittorio, I used a local mortgage bank with 6 months seasoning requirements…
Sammy’s post looked like one of my kids’ books where some of the words are replaced by pictures.