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The Importance of Careful Rental Application Consideration for Real Estate Investors

Property Rental Applications: What You Should Include and Why It Needs To Be Top Priority

When real estate investors put their time and money into a rental property, the last thing you want is for that property to be rented to someone who won’t pay their rent or destroys the property. That’s why hiring professional property managers or a property management company can be crucial. Just as critical, though, is the application. If you hadn’t thought about using an application, you should.

Quality Tenants

You want to make sure that you’re renting to quality tenants. A quality tenant is someone who is able to afford the rent (a general rule of thumb is that their income is at least three times the rent), has a stable job, has paid their rent on time in the past, has a clean criminal record, and is responsible. It is best to have a process that confirms the information.

Rental Property Application

Property managers review applications every day. Hiring a property management company will give you the ability to use a rental property application without having to create it or review it yourself. However, before hiring someone, you should look over their application.

It should include, at a minimum:

  • Contact info for the prospective tenant
  • Current address and landlord’s name and contact info (prior landlords are a bonus)
  • Current and prior employers, job title, salary, length of employment
  • Credit and background check authorization

If any of these things are missing from the application, ask for them to be added. If a prospective tenant fails to fill in any of this information, that should be a red flag.

Verify Information

Real estate investors should also make sure that their property manager verifies the information that the prospective tenant provides. They should verify employment and references. When possible, they should contact the current landlord and make sure the tenant pays rent on time, and isn’t a lot of trouble. They should also contact prior landlords. While a current landlord may lie to get rid of a problem tenant, a prior landlord will have no reason to lie and thus will admit if the tenant failed to pay rent, damaged the property, etc.

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"Let each of you look not only to his own interests,

but also to the interests of others..."

Phil. 2:4