Tenant Screening Tips - Park City Property Management
In my very first blog post I wrote briefly about the necessity of properly screening tenants for Park City property management. If you would like to read my original post, 3 Tips For Successful Park City Property Management you may do so by clicking here. Today I would like to dive a little deeper into tenant screening and given you some of the top things you should do in order to find the right tenant for your property. Tenant screening cannot be stressed enough. Properly screening all potential applicants can be the difference between having great tenants who will take care of your investment and spending thousands of dollars and lots of your time trying to fix what the wrong tenants have ruined.
Verify Employment
When looking at prospective tenants you might think "I don't want a person with a dog", or "How soon can you move in", but what might go overlooked is how a person will pay the rent. Unless your tenant has a trust fund or parents paying rent you should be concerned if a person indicates they do not have a job on your application. And if you aren't using an application it is time to change your ways. An application should also ask gross monthly income. If your rent is $1200/month and the stated income is $1400/month there might be a problem. Having this information, along with a telephone number and name of the prospect's supervisor on your application is only the first step. You will also want to call the person listed as a supervisor to verify employment. This doesn't, and really shouldn't be a long conversation about their work habits and how much money they make. Just simply state who you are, that the prospect is applying to rent your property and you are calling to verify the employment they listed on the application. You really don't need to know more than this and employers cannot tell you more without violating the confidentiality of the employee. Now you know that your prospective tenant can pay let's take a look at some other useful things to check on in your Park City property management endeavors.
Rental History
It is said that past behavior can be a predictor of future behavior. While not fool proof a great way to see how a prospective tenant will behave is to check their rental history. Your 
application should ask for previous rental history, amount of time spent at the previous rental, monthly rent and landlord's contact information. If a person seems to have moved frequently in the past year and doesn't have a reasonable explanation for it then you should probably stop right there. You should also contact the previous landlord and ask them how the prospect was as a tenant. Did they pay rent on time? Were there any complaints against them? Did they take good care of the property? Would the landlord rent to them again? If they have a pet how did the animal behave and was there any damage caused by the animal? Asking these types of questions can help you weed out potential tenants who might be a problem and find great tenants who will take care of your property. You are turning over the care of an expensive asset to a person, you should make sure they are the right person for the job. A little effort here can save you a lot of headaches and money in Park City property management.
Background Check
A good background check is another tool in a landlord's toolbox to help determine if a potential
tenant is the right fit for your property. A background check should include a credit score, list of creditors, as well as criminal history based on the most recent address provided. Minor traffic violations and the like will not show but things like DUIs, felony convictions, sex offender registry, etc. will. Credit score should be taken with a grain of salt, in my opinion it is not the magical number that some use it as. Life circumstances such as divorce, a business closure, and medical problems can damage a credit score but not necessarily a person's ability to pay rent. Use your best judgment and you can end up with a great tenant.
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