Ever wish you could just click a button and fire off a request for a rental application, for a potential tenant?
Enter your applicant’s name and email address, and our landlord software emails them a link to fill out your rental application form. And we do mean your rental application: you can customize it with your own questions if you like.
How long has the applicant lived in their current address? Where do they work? How long have they been there? Do they have pets or cars?
Our free online rental application authorizes you to contact employers, past landlords, credit references and anyone else you need to call to check the applicant’s credentials.
Best of all, you can select to run full tenant screening reports on the applicant as well. Full credit history reports, nationwide criminal background checks, and nationwide eviction history reports — available with the click of a button.
Want to run the applicant’s credit report, along with their online rental application?
How about adding a nationwide criminal history report? Or a nationwide eviction report?
We get it, you don’t want a deadbeat with bad credit or serial rapist living in your rental unit. Or a “professional tenant” that just hops from one unit to the next, seeing how long they can live for free without getting evicted.
And no, you don’t have to pay for the reports yourself. You can opt to charge the credit history report and criminal record report to the applicant directly.
When a prospective tenant wants to rent your vacant unit, you need to collect all their personal information. That’s where rental applications come in.
A rental application is a form that prospective renters fill out, including relevant details about themselves and their finances. It includes information such as:
The rental application form is just the beginning of the tenant screening process. Beyond running their credit, criminal activity, and eviction history reports, you want to follow up on the information in rental application to verify income, employment history, rental history, personal references, and whether they’ve ever left damage or junk behind in their former homes.
We could go on for days about the finer points of screening rental applications and landlording in general… but we’ll spare you the lecture and just offer some quick pointers:
Before you advertise your vacant unit for rent, brush up on a few rental advertising and tenant screening skills. Here’s a quick one-minute video about subtle red flags in tenant screening, and below are some more tips for collecting and screening applications, to help you save time and avoid rotten apples.
The Pre-Screen InterviewMany — if not most — of the people who first call or email you about your vacant property will be an obvious bad fit.
So why waste your time showing the property to them?
Save yourself the hassle of showing the property to people who obviously don’t qualify, by having a quick pre-screen interview. You can send the questions by email, or have a 5-minute phone call with prospects before they even complete the online rental application.
Ask open-ended questions like “Why are you looking to move?” and “What’s your after-tax monthly income?” and “Can you provide proof of income?”
Avoid yes/no questions. Instead, ask questions that require the applicant to volunteer more information. For example, ask how many pets they have, rather than “Do you have pets?” It’s easier for applicants to “tweak the truth” when all they have to do is say “Yes” or “No.”
Ask how long term they’re looking to stay, and confirm whether they have the first month’s rent and security deposit available right now. When possible, opt for tenants who plan to stay long-term. A longer lease term means fewer turnovers, which are where most rental expenses lie.
Make sure to disclose the non-refundable fee they pay for either the tenant screening reports directly or what you charge as a rental application fee. If they balk, consider that in itself a red flag.
Seriously – you’ll save yourself a lot of headaches by doing a quick pre-screening interview, before even letting them see the property or completing the online rental application.
We’re not going to belabor the point here — you already know we offer full credit checks, nationwide criminal reports, and nationwide eviction reports.
You (probably) already know that you should be running these before signing a rental contract. Whether you use us or someone else, just make sure you get all three of these reports.
Make sure you know how to read the entire credit report, not just the credit score. For example, how high are their credit card balances? Do they pay them off in full each month? Have they ever made late payments on any loans or credit cards?
If an applicant doesn’t meet your preset standards, do not sign a rental agreement with them.
Our free rental application includes a release clause, authorizing you to contact employers and others to conduct your tenant screening.
Be sure to talk to at least two people when contacting your applicants’ employers: someone in HR, and the applicants’ direct supervisor.
The HR department can confirm the applicant’s after-tax income, and confirm how long they’ve worked there. Make sure these numbers match what the prospect wrote on their rental application.
Your conversation with their supervisor is a bit more nuanced. Ask them what kind of person the applicant is. How reliable they are, whether they show up on time, whether they’re likely to remain employed there in a year from now, etc.
Look out for hesitations or qualified answers! If the supervisor isn’t decisively positive, if they hem and haw, beware.
Who better to tell you what kind of tenant someone is than their current landlord?
They might tell you the truth about their rental experience. But if the renter is bad enough, the property owner might say anything just to be rid of them.
That’s why you should also call applicants’ former landlord or property manager as well. They’ll give you the real scoop on how reliable — or nightmarish — a potential renter is.
Be sure to ask previous landlords not only whether they pay the rent on time, but how they treat the property, whether they’ve ever had any lease violations, if the landlord ever had to serve them with an eviction notice.
Want to know exactly how they’ll treat your rental property, that you’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on?
Drop by their current home.
Don’t schedule it in advance; you don’t want them to clean up the place for your inspection. You want to see how it looks on a normal, hectic day.
Call them in the late afternoon and tell them you’ll be in the neighborhood later and offer to drop by to go over the rental lease agreement. When you get there, do what you can to get a good look at the property beyond just the living room.
Is it neat and tidy, or does it look like the aftermath of a typhoon?
How clean are the bathrooms and kitchen?
Are there clearly pets, when the prospect wrote on their online rental application that they didn’t have any?
How many kids? How many adults?
Most of all, would you want your property kept in the condition that you find?
Pro Tip: Ask to use the bathroom so you can walk through more of the property.
