The last thing that a landlord wants is a bad tenant occupying their rental property. Selecting the wrong person for a rental property can lead to serious damage to the property, costly eviction, and even non-payment of rent. The first and foremost priority for a landlord is to find a high-quality tenant for their property. In order to achieve this, a tenant screening is an essential part of the process. According to some recent data, more than ninety-five percent of landlords believe that checking all the details of a tenant is helpful for them and for their rental unit. In this article, we will be discussing rental history reports and how they can be helpful.
What Is Rental History Report?
A rental history report is a list of previous addresses which a tenant has rented. This report mostly consists of all the contact information of a tenant’s previous landlords or their property managers. However, it is always a good idea to ask the applicant for a full list of addresses and other contact information of previous landlords. It is likely that this report will also include credit score or other related credit information regarding the tenant.
What Should Be Checked In A Tenants Rental History Report?
In order to thoroughly screen rental applications, homeowners must always consider some important pieces of information.
- Credit History Of The Tenant: The credit history of a tenant can help in telling a completely different and colorful story. According to a report of Fox business, it states that thirty percent of Americans have subprime credit. A lower credit score doesn’t need you to disqualify a renter, however, you can take some supplemental steps while considering an applicant with less stellar credit. In case, the applicant has previously failed to pay the home rent on time or have a certain amount of debt, then these might be the indicators that he or she might fail to make your rent payments on time every month.
- Checking Criminal Background: Among all other responsibilities, it is also important for the landlords to ensure the overall safety of other tenants and even themselves. By opting for a background check of your prospective tenant, you can avoid putting your neighborhood or property at risk. According to research conducted in 2015, one out of five people had a criminal record. Therefore, this data proves that conducting a background check is a key part of a tenant selection process.
- Income: Another major concern among most landlords is the nonpayment of rent. This is especially when the average eviction cost is $3500 and takes at least three to four weeks to complete. Therefore it is important for a landlord to examine an applicant’s average income in order to ensure that their tenant’s rent to income ratio meets all your criteria. Iial If your potential tenant’s income is insufficient, they aren’t the best fit for your rental property.
How To Verify Tenants Rental History Report?
Now that you have understood all the basics of a rental history report, let us understand all the crucial steps that are required for the rental verification process and learn why it is integral to a landlord’s success.
- Understand All Your Expectations From A Tenant: Before you start with the process of listing your rental property on any rental websites, make sure that you will understand what actually your ideal tenant’s background should look like.
- Are you going to accept a tenant having a relevant criminal history?
- Are you going to accept a tenant who has broken their old lease?
- Are you going to accept someone who has paid late rent in the past?
- Are you going to accept a tenant you never had a rental history of?
Questions like these can be of great help in creating a template about your ideal tenant and can also help you in reviewing applications. However, you need to remember that your expectations should always be realistic and abide by all the state or federal specific laws.
- Inform Applicant That Their Rental History Information Is Required: In order to know more about your tenant’s rental history reports, you need to gather specific information about your tenants.
- Contact information of previous landlords.
- Addresses and other details of previous rental places.
Before proceeding further, let your applicants know that you need all this information in order to move forward with the application.
- Start Reviewing The Rental Application: While you are starting with the rental verification process, start by reviewing the prospective tenant’s rental history especially in the initial application. In case you find any significant break in tenancy, don’t hesitate to ask your applicant about it, as there might be some reasons for this gap in tenancy. Always keep an eye on the missing information. Some key omissions might indicate that your applicant does not want to share full tenancy history for many reasons..
- Conduct A Reference Check: Always take time to make sure that you would be a tenant who is reliable and responsible. These checks might save you from any hassle of eviction or costly repairs down the lane. After reviewing their tenant application, you should call their previous landlords. Conducting a landlord reference check can help you in gaining insights into whether your tenant is reliable or not.
- Complete Full Screening Of The Tenant: Finally, getting hold of a great tenant comes down to deciding if the applicant is a perfect fit for your property. Getting hold of the right set of rental history reports, this process can be fairly easy. In most cases, a landlord usually wants a tenant who:
- Has no history of eviction.
- Pays their monthly rent on time.
- Has no criminal charges.
- Will take care of their property.
In case, you are planning to report your tenant’s monthly rentals to credit bureaus, you can try using our service. We, at Credit Rent Boost, work hand in hand with both tenants, homeowners and credit bureaus like TransUnion and Equifax by helping them report their rent payments with these bureaus. With us, you can stay assured that all your personal and financial details are safe. In order to know more about our services and offerings, don’t forget to have a glance at Credit Rent Boost and feel the difference yourself.