Effective Tenant Screening For Landlords

Thanks for visiting our WorldVentures site.

I became a landlord when I inherited an apartment building from a family member. It proved itself to be a great way to earn income and it definitely keeps me busy. While I enjoy it, there are things that I have learned along the way that I had to learn the hard way.

When dealing with people you have to be careful as they are not always as trustworthy as they might first appear. As a landlord I have an obligation to protect my property, my family and the other people who rent from me.

One sure way to try and protect all people and property is to run some screenings on people before you rent to them. There are several types of screenings that you can run, to help you decide if you want to rent to someone.

I like to do a background check, a social security background check and a tenant screening. I use MacDataAdvantage.com, a great site that can help me with any and all of the screenings and checks I need to run on someone.

A tenant background check is an important process before a rental agreement is signed. Personally I would not want a sex offender living in an apartment next to a family with young children. I also wouldnt want someone who had a history of destroying property.

I know I wouldn’t want someone with a known history of destroying property to live in my building either. I have also found that running a social security background check is useful. If I have someone who constantly runs out on their rent, then I’m probably not going to take the risk of them running out on me.

A couple of years ago I had a couple approach me to rent one of the apartments in my building They were nice and neat, well mannered and their application form looked fine. I was pleased that I was renting to them because I was sure that they would be no trouble and would rent for a long period.

Then I run the screenings and all the warm fuzzies I had with those two went right out the window. Not only did they have a history of nonpayment of their rent, they had forfeited their security/cleaning deposit twice before for breaking things in the home and for leaving things very dirty.