Want the best tenant? Follow these tips!

If you’ve got a house, an apartment complex, or office space for rent, you need to get it filled — and quickly. However, that doesn’t mean you have the luxury of cutting corners. If you want to get the best tenants in the most efficient amount of time, follow these 3 tips when it comes to your tenant background checks:

1. Don’t confuse them with an employment background check
When you’re screening a potential tenant, you’re looking for different things than you are when you’re screening a potential employee. In an employment background check, you need to make sure your other employees will be safe sitting next to this person. In tenant background checks, you need to make sure that this person won’t do anything that you could potentially be liable for later.
For example, if your apartment complex is near a school and your potential tenant is a sex offender, you might wind up in trouble if you rent to him.
That being said, though, you can’t turn potential tenants down simply because they have a criminal background past. Even if your tenant background checks turn up information, you have to make sure that your approvals and denials follow the law.

2. Don’t just focus on criminal activity
If you’re a landlord who doesn’t search for a credit report, you’re making a big mistake. After all, your tenant will be responsible for paying you money every month — wouldn’t it be nice to know if he has a track record of paying his bills on time?!
By doing a landlord credit report search, you can find out just what kind of debts your potential tenant has. You can also see how long he lets those debts rack up before he pays them. That way, you’ll know what you can expect when the first of the month rolls around.

3. Don’t assume you have to run all over town
Did you know that all of your work can be done online? In fact, some companies offer online tenant check services! That way, you can get the expertise you need, without leaving the comfort of your office.
The biggest benefit to doing an online tenant check?
Other than your own convenience, doing everything online speeds up the process. You’ll be able to get results in a matter of seconds. That way, when you’ve got a good applicant, you can approve him right away. If you make him wait too long, he may move on to someone else. Remember, time is money!

The team at Tenant Screening Services LLC can help you find the best possible tenants!