Blog Screening
Screening
Screening tenants the right way. What to check, what you're allowed to ask, and how to read a report without guessing.
Posts
9 posts-
Printable tenant screening checklist: one page per applicant
A one-page screening sheet you fill in for every applicant: the criteria at the top, a line for each check, and a decision box that names the reason. Plus the wording that keeps the sheet on the right side of fair housing law and the FCRA. Screening -
How to run a tenant background check
The mechanics take about ten minutes. The obligations attached to them are what most landlords get wrong: permissible purpose, written authorization, what the law lets a report contain, and what you owe the applicant afterward. Screening -
How to accept or deny a rental applicant
There are three outcomes, not two, and the middle one is the one landlords get wrong. Approving with conditions is adverse action under the FCRA. Here is the paperwork each outcome owes and the order it goes out in. Screening -
How to follow up with rental leads: one written cadence, every lead
The fair way to follow up with rental inquiries is also the one that fills units: a short written cadence, applied the same way to every lead. What goes in it, what never does, and how the statuses in a lead inbox keep track of it. Screening -
What credit score should a landlord require?
There is no correct number, and that is the useful finding. What matters is that the number exists in writing before the applicant does, that it fits your market, and that you have a written answer for applicants who have no score at all. Screening -
Great credit score, terrible tenant: the signals that actually matter
A credit score predicts whether someone repays credit. It was never built to predict whether they pay rent on the first, keep the unit, or stay past month eight. Four signals that do more work, and how to write each one into criteria you can defend. Screening -
The tenant screening checklist every landlord needs
Most screening mistakes happen before the application arrives, in the gap where there is no written standard yet. This is the checklist, in the order the steps actually happen, with the four lines that never belong on it. Screening -
How to verify tenant income and employment
Pay stubs are the easiest document in this whole process to fake, and they are still what most landlords ask for. A ranking of the documents by how hard each is to forge, a short employer script, and the income rules that vary by state. Screening -
Questions to ask a tenant's previous landlord
Start with a question the reference cannot fake. Then eleven more in a fixed order, the two you are not allowed to ask, and the reason the previous landlord is worth more than the current one. Screening