By now, we’ve established many times over that tenant screening is one of the best ways to keep your investment safe, but also focus on the tenant safety. However, you’re not the only beneficiary of thorough screening — so are your current tenants. Tenant retention is one of the best ways to succeed in this… Read more »
How to Keep Your Best Tenants
As any good landlord knows, the first step in filling your rentals with quality tenants is a well-rounded screening and interview process. We’ve written extensively on both tenant screening and interviewing prospective tenants, so we know you’ve got that in the bag. So what comes next? You have great tenant who pays on time and… Read more »
Should I Invest in Student Housing?
If you’re considering investing in student housing near a university, there are a lot of things to consider. The appeal is certainly there — property near colleges is easy to fill and almost guaranteed to have full vacancy during the school year, provided it’s priced appropriately. These properties are in highly desirable areas, and if… Read more »
Security Deposit 101 for Landlords
Whether you’re getting ready to rent your first unit or you’ve been renting for a little while already, security deposits are probably on your checklist. You know they’re a way to guarantee coverage in the case of damaged or missing property, or an unforeseen issue that breaks the lease agreement. -But what don’t you know?… Read more »
New Credit Score Rules Are Here
Starting this past Saturday (July 1st), a series of new credit score rules hit and people may already be noticing the difference in their scores. These changes affect all three of the major credit reporting databases, and we’ve written several posts discussing the new VantageScore approach and how it differs from FICO scores, if you’d… Read more »
Best Questions to Ask a Tenant on a Phone Interview
We’ve written several posts over the years detailing the best questions to ask prospective tenants to ensure you’re getting the best fit for your property. You know to ask why they’re moving, who’ll be living on the property, whether they have pets, where they work, and when they’d like to move. You know not to… Read more »
Preventing Bad Tenants with Due Diligence
In this blog, we’ve gone over a variety of ways to avoid bad tenants, between performing screenings and refining your application process. Even so, the point is really never belabored. No matter how experienced you are, there’s always a risk of ending up with a tenant who mistreats your property or causes problems with your… Read more »
Secret Answers to Rental Application Questions
There are a lot of skills associated with being a landlord that only come with time and experience. Knowing how to “read between the lines” of a prospective tenant’s responses to rental application questions is one of those skills. After you’ve been in the game for a while, you start to recognize patterns in behaviors… Read more »
Best Practices for Screening Tenants
We all know that one of the best ways to protect your investment is to carefully screen tenants before choosing who you’ll rent your property to. Trouble is, not every landlord or property manager knows how to do this effectively. Asking for a credit report is easy enough, but what exactly should you look for… Read more »
Can Landlords Require Credit Reports?
There are many regulations that landlords must abide by, such as not discriminating by race, gender, or disability. Because many of these stipulations are required by law, it makes sense that some might wonder if it’s legal or ethical to require credit reports or specific credit scores from prospective tenants. This is an excellent question… Read more »