In Ask All County today, we’re talking to one of our best property managers about how to qualify a tenant. Darlene is telling us about screening tenants, and what to look for. It’s important to screen your tenants and put the best qualified tenant in your property. You are looking for someone who will take good care of your home while they are living there.

Application and Screening

Once we put an available property online and begin to market it, we ask interested tenants to submit an application so we can do a tenant background search. First, we check criminal backgrounds because we have a requirement as far as criminal history. We also pull credit history on all prospective tenants. We don’t eliminate applicants based on a certain score, but we do want to see their credit background.

Employment Verification and Income

Next, we do a rental verification. Our process is to call previous landlords and ask a series of questions to get an idea of how the tenant has performed in the past. We make sure rent was paid on time, that proper notice was given, and that the tenant has a consistent rental history. We also do an employment verification. With the tenant’s permission, we verify that they are currently employed. We also ask for income verification, which can be the last three paycheck stubs. If a tenant doesn’t make three times the monthly rent in income, we’ll allow other sources of income such as social security or alimony. Some tenants receive child support payments or retirement and pensions. Section 8 vouchers are also accepted.

We have a thorough screening process. Not only are we interviewing tenants, but previous landlords as well to get an accurate rental history and find out how they treated the home. These are some of the things you can do to qualify your tenants. If you have any questions about your tenant check or anything pertaining to South Florida property management, please contact us at All County PPM.