The Real Estate Investor’s Guide to Finding Quality Tenants for Your Ashland Properties

If you are a property owner or landlord, then it’s probable that at some point you have leased or rented your Ashland property to tenants that were simply less than desirable. It could be that the tenant(s) brought you problems or perhaps did the same for the other tenants.

So how can you avoid making the same mistake again when choosing tenants in the future? Is there a guaranteed way of finding quality tenants and avoiding the bad ones? Well, there are measures you can take now to ensure better chances of finding the most ideal tenants for your property. These measures can help make the rental process easier, hence saving you the time and money that bad tenants could cost you.

The first measure to getting quality tenants for your rental property is to place an advertisement that basically intimidates bad tenants. Make it clear to potential tenants that you like keeping a quiet place and nuisance will not be tolerated. Landlords have the right to run credit and background checks and so be sure to mention that in the ad as well. With this, the seedy types will not even bother responding to your advert if they know you’ll do a background check on them. Similarly, a prospective tenant with poor financial history or who hasn’t been responsible in paying rental fees will also not bother responding to the advert because of the credit check condition.  So clearly, a well-worded ad can easily eliminate the bad tenants even before you start taking calls.

When potential tenants call about your apartment, you can screen them further by asking them to provide pay stubs for at least three months to confirm their stable employment. You can also request proof of a savings or checking account using the last three months of statements.  If they are self employed, you should even ask for 2 years of taxes to verify that their income is legitimate.

Here, you can also state the minimum credit score requirement (if any) to rent your apartment. Keep in mind that these steps are used to help you find responsible tenants and scare away irresponsible ones.

As a real estate investor, you want to ensure potential tenants understand and can adhere to all your requirements before filling out your application. This saves you and the tenant time and any sort of aggravation that may arise now or in the future. Don’t be afraid of sounding stern with a no nonsense attitude when handling prospective tenants. Bad tenants always tend to settle on landlords they think can be walked all over. Don’t exhibit that kind of vibe. The idea behind these tactics is to frustrate bad tenants and make them go elsewhere.

When you talk to prospective Ashland Oregon Tenants over the phone, you can easily weed them out even further:

1. Ask them what their credit score is.  If it is below your minimum, then you don’t even have to show them the property.  Sometimes we aloo high levels of cash, verified in a back account, to allow us to look beyond some credit scores. (unless poor credit caused from evictions or foreclosures.  In those cases, we need to hear the story behind the report)
2. Ask how long they have lived in their current property.  The less, the worse.
3. Ask how much their household makes every month, before taxes.  If they do not make at least 3X what your monthly rent is, then don’t even bother, they cannot afford your property.
4. Ask if you will find anything when you run a background and criminal check.  Depending on what you find out here, this may influence your decision.  We will not rent to someone who has a felony resulting from anything sexual, children, violent crimes and theft within the last 7 years.  There has been recent precedent set that limits your ability to reject a potential Tenant based on them having a felony alone.  It can only be certain types of felonies that you may reject an applicant for.

Once you decide to show the property to someone, here are a couple more tips to help weed out potential poor performers:

1. Drive by their current property and see how they treat it.  This is EXACTLY how they will keep up your home.
2. Look at their car.  Is the inside clean?
3. Look at how they dress.
4. How do they act when you meet them?  Are they respectful?
5. Do they look for reasons to put down your property?  When you walk around with them, do they make you feel like they will be problem Tenants?

Taking the above measures will help you weed out most potential bad tenants before any application is filled out. By making your demands and expectations known from the very beginning, and by ensuring that these demands are of the highest standards, you can be confident of finding quality tenants for your property. Decent tenants will not have any issue with your demands.