After drawing interested candidates from a successful marketing campaign, you turn your attention to screening renters for your San Diego rental property.
Being thorough in matching potential tenants with your criteria can help you avoid problematic residents. Keep reading to learn more!
Choosing Top-Quality Renters
With a well-executed tenant screening process, finding the best renter for your San Diego rental property will be a breeze. You just need to note down a couple of things to identify excellent occupants, with these characteristics:
Someone who:
- Is capable of paying the rent
- Is steadily employed
- Has a good rental history
- Has no crime record
- Can handle responsibility
The Tenant Screening Process
How to Screen Tenants
It is critical to know what type of renters you prioritize by listing your criteria. With this list, you can easily make a good tenant selection that you want to welcome in your San Diego rental property.
We recommend thinking about your standards and minimum criteria for renters to meet.
Should You Do Pre-screening?
Yes. A lot of time can be saved by landlords when opting to pre-screen interested candidates.
You also help potential tenants save time by being upfront with what you are looking for or providing the essential information to limit wasting anyone’s time interviewing or gathering documents to support the rental application.
For example, you might ban pets in your San Diego rental property. Stating this outright can help tenants with pets find other units that accommodate their needs for a comfortable stay with their pets.
Include specific details, like pet policies, breed, and size of pets if you plan to cater to pet owners.
While conducting a phone pre-screening, tell the renters directly about your critical policies on the number of occupants in a rental unit and whether utility bills are included in the rental fee.
Conducting a pre-screening allows you to check for red flags and even if running a comprehensive screening can end up taking a while, this can be advantageous in the future. You can sidestep renters who bring in problems that can drain your time and lead to possible financial losses.
How to Review a Rental Application
For your San Diego rental property, you need to ensure that you get specific details from a prospective candidate, such as:
- Contact information of the applicant
- Present residential address
- Present the landlord’s name and contact information
- Previous residential history with information on former landlords’ names and contact information
- Present and previous employers
- Details of job title, salary, and employment term, including contact references
- Authorization for credit and background check
Learning the earning power of the candidate helps you assess whether they can comfortably afford the monthly rent and security deposit.
Many landlords prefer renters who earn at least three times the rental rate. However, this requirement is subjective, especially if a renter’s history demonstrates a strong track record of prompt payments.
How to Verify a Tenant’s Income and Employment
Should you verify an applicant’s employment? The short answer is yes. It is necessary to find out whether the candidate gave accurate information, especially regarding their income when you are screening potential tenants.
It is critical to know whether they have a steady source of income to meet the monthly rental payment obligations.
Questions You Should Ask Former Landlords
Reaching out to a candidate’s former and present landlords can require extended time and effort but this is recommended to learn more about the interested applicant.
When talking with a current landlord, there might be missing information relayed since a renter moving out can offer more peace of mind to the existing landlord.
Evictions can be time-consuming, which is why some landlords might skip essential steps just to remove a renter quickly. With an eviction protection plan, you can avoid these rushed decisions and handle the process more efficiently and legally.
Now, when communicating with former landlords, they have no hidden incentive to cover the truth and will provide you with the details you need, such as if a renter received a complaint report, skipped rental payment, or didn’t maintain the rental.
How to Check Tenant Credit Reports and Background Checks
Performing a credit and background check requires finding out a tenant’s complete account history, credit score, prior evictions, and criminal history.
Excellent credit scores will tell you that the renter’s finances are healthy. A score of 680 or higher equates to a good credit score.
With a candidate who shows a poor credit score or a massive debt even with good employment, you want to be wary.
As for a renter who has a crime record, the security of your San Diego rental property can be in jeopardy.
It is always best to know how to spot red flags to prevent such renters from occupying your San Diego rental property.
How to Approve or Deny a Potential Tenant
When you complete the above steps, you need to decide if a candidate is accepted or not as a renter of your San Diego rental property.
You can call or send an email to inform them whether their rental application is approved. After breaking the news to them, you need to provide details on signing the lease agreement.
If you plan to decline a candidate, it is crucial to record it in writing or email as evidence of the rejection.
It is advisable to be direct in denying the application. You need to be familiar with the Fair Housing laws to ensure you don’t discriminate against any of the protected classes.
Bottom Line
Although performing a detailed tenant screening can cost time and effort, you want to ensure that you accommodate outstanding renters for your San Diego rental property.
A good option is to hire a trusted property management company to help you assess the right tenant/s for your property.
Aside from conducting a detailed tenant screening, professional property management firms like Penny Realty, Inc. also offer equally superb services, such as marketing, property maintenance and repairs, lease creation, rent collection, and more. Contact us today!
