Top 5 Things You Should Check When Renting Your Houston Rental
You would be surprised by the amount of landlords that I talk to who call our office once it’s already too late for them and they haven’t collected several months of rent. My first question usually follows up with, “did you screen them before they moved in?”.
Part of the process of finding the perfect tenant will always include a proper background screening to make sure the application you are looking at, will be the best possible fit for your Houston rental. You always want to make sure you are following FHA guidelines when looking at an application, but the following items are very important to find out while searching for your new tenant for your Houston rental.
At Flat Fee Landlord we actually run all of our applications through our “perfect 10ant” screening service. I will share the first 5 with you. I’m happy to go over the total “perfect 10ant” screening in detail if you reach out to me directly.
Credit - Credit is going to be a very big indicator as to what type of applicant you have. Just like every lender, car dealership, credit card company, apartment complex checks credit scores, you shouldn’t short change yourself in this area at all. A great benchmark to use for a “good credit score” is around 620 - at this score you can most likely get approved for a mortgage.
Identification - Always ask for a copy of their ID! In today’s world with so many scams and identity theft, you want to always ask for a copy of their ID and make sure all of the information on there matches the information they have added to their application.
Copy of most recent paystubs - Make sure they can afford to pay the rent! Also, make sure the paystub has the employer that is mentioned on the application. Talk with their previous landlord - ask them the questions that you really want to know the answer to. If possible, try and speak with the 2nd to most recent landlord, they are usually the most truthful. I have also seen some landlords not be 100% honest on the applicant especially if they really want them out of their rental property.
Rental History - Be sure to verify the previous addresses that are listed on the application, you should be able to verify this if you get ahold of the previous landlord. If you are not able to get ahold of the previous landlord, this is a way to figure out if they are telling the truth If you have the tools available to be able to verify rental history/previous rentals.
These are just the basics of what it takes to go into a real tenant screening. If you opt to take advantage of our tenant placement service you will have all these areas confirmed along with others, that is how we are able to keep our eviction rate at less than 1% for client’s who use our tenant placement service. Along with all of this, we also will have you covered for the first 9 months of the lease, if the tenant leaves early/gets evicted, we will replace them again for no additional cost! Contact the Houston Flat Fee Landlord office today!
Sam Hashem
Sales & Leasing Advisor
281-542-3999
Flat Fee Landlord
13201 Northwest Fwy #777
Houston, TX 77040
