If you’re a landlord, you probably have enough problems to deal with… from the leaky faucet in 1B, to the broken air conditioner in 4C. However, if you don’t dot your I’s and cross your T’s during the tenant screening process, you’re going to wind up with plenty more headaches on your hands!

A quality applicant screening doesn’t have to take forever, but it does have to be thorough. And, the only way to get the full story on your applicants is to do these 2 things, each and every time:

1. Dig through credit repots

When you’re renting something out, you need to make sure that your tenants are going to pay you for it. After all, it does you no good to have an apartment complex full of tenants if none of them actually write you a rent check on the first of every month!

That’s why credit reports are invaluable to the tenant screening process. They are an unbiased record that lets you know how your applicant really handles his money. You’ll see whether or not he pays his bills on time, how many debts he’s racked up, and whether or not he’s ever run into big financial trouble before.

Credit reports are easy to get ahold of, and they’re easy to read – meaning that you have no excuse for NOT including them in your applicant screening process!

2. See what turns up during a criminal record search
Most landlords make a big mistake during the applicant screening process – they think that a good tenant is the one that can pay them. Of course, having tenants that can and will pay their rent on time is incredibly important, but it’s not the only quality that makes for a good tenant.

If you want to find out the whole story behind your tenant, you’ll need to do a criminal record search. After all, you could wind up with a potential tenant who pays all of his bills on time and doesn’t have any debt racked up – but it turns out that he’s a sex offender, and your property is right across the street from an elementary school. That’s something you won’t find in a credit report!

You’ll have to be careful with the results of your criminal record search. After all, there are laws out there that prevent you from renting to anyone with a criminal past. However, if your applicant’s criminal history has a direct effect on what kind of tenant he’ll be, you need to know about it.