How To Find quality Tenant For Your Rental Property?

Last Updated on: 11th January 2023, 09:25 am

Finding high-quality tenants can not only save you headaches but also tons of money.

Why is that?

Well… high-quality tenants stay longer and don’t mess your property up.

So, in this post, we’re gonna have to dive into a few things to keep in mind when it comes to finding good tenants as well as some of the mistakes we need to be avoiding doing so.

To start, let’s answer the basics.

How do you actually find quality tenants?

So here’s the thing, as much as we wanted to answer this question straight away, doing so wouldn’t make much sense because there are a number of things that comes into play before your property can actually attract tenants.

We’ve listed a few steps to follow before starting to put your property on market for rental.

• Make sure your rental property is in presentable condition. If you want to stand out from all the other units that you are in competition with, your property has to be clean. This means that the cupboard, stove, microwave, dishwasher, fridge, etc. should be cleaned up from the inside out. Make sure that you do a good job in this part because nobody likes a horrible-looking place
• Make sure that you’ve taken high-quality photos of every room and corner of the property as well as a video of it (outside look included). This will help you not to mislead your potential tenants on what your property actually looks like.
• Make sure that you are as descriptive as possible on your property when doing your marketing.

Assuming that your property is ready to be put on the market, how do you actually start finding tenants?

To find tenants, try posting or listing your property’s information on Facebook marketplace, Facebook Buy and Sell groups online, and on other similar platforms relative to the industry that you’re in.

In addition, here are the websites where you can list your rental property to get tenants:

1. Zillow
2. Apartments.com
3. Rent.com
4. Craigslist
5. Realtor.com
6. HotPad
7. Trulia
8. Zumper

Please make sure that you’re listing has the proper postal code. Go into detail about what’s included in the property, what amenities are around, what recent updates have been done to the property etc.

There’s always an option of doing paid ads if you want to reach a wider audience and if you have an allocated budget in place to do so. Paid ads can be a very effective way of marketing your property and a lot of rental property owners are having success doing it.

Here’s a video instruction on how to do it: Real Estate Rental Marketing (Tutorial)

Now…
Let’s say that you have potential tenants that you’re talking to, what do you do then?

In this case, the question then will be…

How do you prescreen tenants for your rental property?

Well… before you start to set a meet-up with your potential tenant, you want to make sure that you’ve done your due diligence by screening them and getting as much information as needed.

Here are the two things you need to do when screening potential tenants.

• Create a questionnaire using Google Forms: This form should be sent out to them to fill out. Questions should include things like their income, do they smoke, do they own pets, their credit score, etc. Doing so will give you an overall picture of what kind of person they are and whether or not they’re gonna be the best fit for your property. This is gonna save you a lot of time so make sure that you implement this.
• Make sure to run a background check:  Know if your prospect did or didn’t have recent evictions or has any kind of bad reputation when it comes to paying rent on time. There are services where you can look into your applicants’ information to vet them.

Here’s a list of property management software you can use to run a background check:

1. Buildium.com (Recommended)
2. Showmojo.com
3. Tenantturner.com

These online property management software run background checks, including eviction history, credit score, criminal record, etc.

This process can be done through the online system itself or you can just let your potential tenants know that you’re gonna be sending them an email to get their permission to run a background check.

• Do an in-person rental showing or open house. Let all your appointments know when it is going to be and what specific time each of them is scheduled at. Make sure that you arrive early to prepare the property for showing. This is gonna be your second opportunity to screen your prospects the second time. Don’t forget to engage in conversation with them and maybe ask them further questions that you didn’t ask on the form.

Let’s say that your applicants check out, what’s the next step then?

Well… it’s time to review their application. Do so by asking them for documents that are gonna support all the information that they gave you on the Google form questionnaire.

Here’s a list of documents a rental property owner needs from a tenant:

1. Income Report
2. Credit Report
3. Letter of Employment
4. Government ID

Make sure that all of these documents are real and up to date because some people can actually forge documents with fake income reports and fake credit scores. They do this when they know they are not gonna be approved to rent the property.

But once the tenants check out on this part and are a good fit for your rental property, it’s time to get the lease agreements signed. You can send it via DocuSign for electronic signature or do it personally.

Signed up here: Docusign.com

Keep in mind that the documents have to be filled out in full and not missing any important details. Doing so is gonna make sure that you’re legally secure in the event that a problem arises with one of your tenants.

Another thing to make sure that was settled is the rental deposit and key exchange. Collect the first rent and the last rent, as well as proof that the utility bills have been transferred to their name before you hand over the key.

Do this right because the last thing you want is to have to go through the process of evicting a tenant who is causing problems.