How to Choose Right, Safe Tenants
Posted By admin on November 19, 2012
As a landlord, choosing a right, safe tenant for a long term is the best deal and almost everyone’s dream. It will not only protect your valuable property, but also keep your investment money flow. Therefore the decision needs to be made at a certain point, whether you would do this job yourself or hire lease agent to perform all the necessary jobs including background check, credit research and document preparation.
The big advantage of hiring lease agent is that he/she is most likely familiar with all the required processes and knows exactly what to do. Also they are constantly updated with market news, trends and where the recent potential tenants are coming from. If you don’t know someone already, you may want to go with agent who is registered with Property Ombudsman, as they are reputable and reliable in most cases.
Agent will also check the potential tenant’s credibility through 3rd party company who is specialized in the field. There may be some unknown facts that won’t be revealed by the background check, but most of major issue can be avoided by this method. If the tenants are not verified with good credit history or employment records, you could ask for guarantor’s statement who can be their backup. If not, you might want to ask for a few months’ rent fees upfront, which will be an insurance for any unexpected situation including damage or non-payment situation. Don’t just accept a person’s application until the credit check is complete, even if all the documents are ready. A tenant who wants to move to your property ASAP won’t justify his/her qualification and speedy process of approval decision. Think of worse situation when the tenant stops paying in the middle of terms, which is totally unexpected at first.
If necessary, you could talk to the tenant regarding upfront deposits for minor damage, along with co-payment of property insurance which can be used towards bigger issues later. Of course this deposit should be returned to the tenant when the term is over and there is no damage found after the final inspection is complete.