Need to Conduct a Tenant Background Check? Here is How to Do it From Home

Are you looking for how or where to conduct a tenant background check? In as much as an empty apartment is a goldmine not being put in use, no landlord would like to have a renowned armed robber as a tenant in his or her house also no landlord will like to rent out a house to someone that has a history of not being able to come up with the rental fees as and at when due. The only way to get the details that can prove if a person is a credible tenant or not is to run tenant backgrounds check.

A good tenant background check result will include the employment status, credit ratings, names of former landlords and payment records of the tenants. The employment status will help the landlord know the kind of job a prospective tenants is doing, this will go a long way in determining if the person will continue making payments on the property without much fuss. The credit reports will help the landlord in verifying the tenant's credit history. A credit report will also let you in on all cases of convictions and evictions that the tenant must have gone through in the past.

There are things you have to do your self when it comes to the tenant background checks. Ensuring that the tenant application forms are filled out with the best details is a very nice starting point. The details to watch out for are firstly, name of the prospective tenant's last landlord, the applicant's social security number and also their driver's license number.

With this information you can head to any of the background checking services out there. You have to make sure the service is a reliable one so as to get optimal results. You can get these background checking services both online and offline. The online companies will do all the work for you and submit a report on time. The offline option is to go to apartment service providers and for a nominal fee they will do all the work for you.

To conduct a search, you will need the full name and the city and state of the said tenant in order to conduct a tenant background check via a public records lookup directory.

These directories are not free to use but the very best among them are able to provide you the information you need for a very small amount of money and you can be sure of the accuracy of the information provided for you.


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7 Ways to Identify "Tenants From Hell" and Avoid Financial Disaster

Having the skill to recognize a problem tenant before renting to them is perhaps one of the most important a property manager will ever develop. Tenants do not all of a sudden become "tenants from hell". There is a pattern of behavior over their entire adult life that will show up when conducting a thorough background check. A good property management company should be able to identify the signs of a potential "dead-beat tenant" and disqualify their application.

1) The applicant has little or no credit history. If the applicant is young than most likely they just have not established any credit of their own yet. But there are other instances when this means the applicant is using a false social security number. Often times it will be the social security of an elder person who does not check their credit history. Our Tampa Property Management company has even seen applicants use the social security number of a deceased person in an attempt to cover up their own bad history.

2) Verify the Employer information. Applicants who have recently lost their job will often have a friend or family member pretend to be their supervisor. I require our property managers to find and call the main phone number of the business and ask to be patched through to the supervisor or HR Dept. Most legitimate companies will require you to fax in the application before releasing personal information on their employee. We also require two recent pay stubs. If you do these two steps, you will find the tenants who are attempting to lie to you very quickly.

3) Question the Landlord. If the previous address was managed by an individual versus a verifiable property management company, pay close attention to their answers when speaking with them. Similar to their employment history, applicants will put the phone number of a friend or family member as their current landlord so that you don't find out they just skipped out on a month's rent and trashed the unit. The person posing as their Landlord will often pause and use "umm" and "uhh" when trying to come up with an appropriate answer to your questions. They do not know how to answer them in a professional manner. Ask detailed questions and if you feel uneasy you can ask for a copy of the Lease or the rental verification to be sent on Letterhead.

4) The address listed on the application for previous address does not match the address reported on the credit report. Credit reports will show previous addresses reported by the tenant when applying for credit. If the tenant's application says they lived at Tranquility Lakes from 99-2009 but the credit report shows they lived at a different address from 2007-2009, do the research on the address listed on their report so that you can receive the most accurate rental history. You should require landlord information for their two most recent addresses. If those addresses do not appear on their credit report, you should be concerned that the tenant is lying. This is not always the case, but it is better to be safe than sorry.

5) The credit report shows a balance due to a Utility Company. If you ask the prospective tenant, they will usually pretend to be surprised. Owing money to a Utility company is a major red flag. In our experience, 90% of tenants with this kind of history turn out to be serious problems. Do not approve anyone with this issue on their credit report.

6) Immediate Move Ins. It is hard to resist someone with some cash in hand that wants to rent the unit you have had vacant for 15 days, but often times the people looking to move in the same day are hurrying to get in because they have just skipped on their current lease or are hoping to get in before something very negative hits their credit history. Be very thorough and ask a lot of questions.

7) The tenant has no rental history. You will encounter younger people on a regular basis with no previous rental history. I realize that some of them will be decent tenants; however, it is not worth the risk. They should only be approved with a qualified co-signer.

If you keep these 7 items in mind when qualifying your prospective tenants, your property management company will save a ton of money and aggravation by avoiding the dreaded "nightmare" tenants.


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A Landlords Insurance Holders Guide to Keeping Good Tenants

The most important asset in a landlords insurance holders portfolio is not their property, but the tenants living in that property. Finding the best tenants and keeping a hold of them once you have them is the main struggle landlords face. Following this guide should make such worries a thing of the past.

For most landlords insurance policy holders, the worst thing that can happen is for their property to become vacant. Empty properties are not only a massive risk for the landlord, they also cost more to insure, and to make matters worse, they don't bring in any revenue. While some vacant periods are unavoidable, many are not, and by improving relations with their tenants, many landlords could save themselves a lot of hassle as well as some money on their insurance premiums. The following four steps should help landlords to both find good tenants and hold onto them as well!

The first step to having a good relationship with your tenants is making sure you've picked them out wisely, you could be the greatest landlord the world has ever seen but if your tenants are bad, you will suffer for it. A good tenant referencing agency and a legal expenses and rent guarantee insurance policy can help bring to light any potential problems before they become actual problems as well as giving you a safety net just in case the worst does happen.

While nice guys may finish last, there is no denying that your relationship with your tenants will be greatly improved if you treat them kindly. No one likes being treated as an inferior, especially when they have to pay the other person every month! Treat your tenants badly and they will eventually leave, leaving you out of pocket. In addition to leaving, tenants who are treated badly are more likely to treat your property with the same amount of respect you treat them, getting over a bruised ego costs nothing, repairing the damage caused by tenants can be very pricey indeed.

Conversely however, your relationship with your tenants is likely to be better if you don't let them walk all over you. Fair but firm is the motto to go by, remember, you are your tenants friendly landlord, not your tenants friend. At the end of the day both parties have obligations to one another that come above any friendships. Another relevant saying is "give them an inch and they'll take a mile" or allow them to pay late once and that will quickly become the norm.

The final tip for keeping a good relationship between you and your tenants is to keep your property in great condition. If you make your property somewhere you would want to live, your tenants are likely to want to stay there too. This can have a knock on effect, increasing the overall value of your property and encouraging further good tenants to want to move in if the situation arises.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, wise words for any situation but particularly apt with regards to the relationship between landlords and tenants. Follow these tips and your landlords insurance policy should be nothing more than a safety net if the unimaginable happens, rather than a clean-up policy for unwanted tenants.


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