Spotting bad tenants before they take you for a ride.
Your job as a landlord is to find the best tenant you can.
For tenants with bad credit, their job is to find a landlord who is in a hurry to rent their home and who doesn’t follow procedures.
Bad Tenant
I call this bad tenant a “serial renter / professional scammer”. You need to learn to identify this type of tenant and avoid them at all costs.
- Do you run credit?
- How fast can I move in?
- I have cash in hand, I can be there in 15 minutes to sign the lease.
- Let me tell you how bad my life is.
- You just need to give me a chance.
- I don’t want to answer any of your questions.
- Please don’t call my current landlord.
- Let me see how vague I can be about my past.
Desperate Landlord
The serial renter / professional scammer has the ability to spot a desperate landlord from a mile away.
You need to learn to identify bad tenants and avoid them at all costs. Click To Tweet
A professional scammer/serial renter is someone who seems great when you meet them and who hopes that you will be taken in by their smooth talking. They plan to suck you in, get into your home and then quit paying rent after a month or two or three.
They know exactly what to do and say to get you to trust them and they also know how to work the system so they can stay for free as long as possible. This bad tenant will talk fast and try really hard to get you to not follow your procedures by flashing cash and offering to move in today!
Problem Tenants Wreck Your Life
Problem tenants will end up not paying the rent, may have pets that aren’t allowed, can cause significant damage to the house and then make you have to evict them and actually set them out of your house. Not only do you lose the rental income, it actually costs you to evict this person and then fix up the house!
Do not become the landlord that takes short cuts or acts out of desperation because you have a vacant rental home. Skipping the screening process for whatever reason is never acceptable and I cannot tell you how many times this person that “sounds great” doesn’t turn out to be the person you thought he / she was.
Successful landlords do not take short cuts, no matter how tempting it is. Click To Tweet
Be A Successful Landlord
Good landlords will not fall victim to these types of renters as long as there are systems in place and they are followed every single time.
Always:
- Look at their drivers license
- Check credit
- Call their current landlord
- Call their current job
- Visit their current home
- If you can, make sure the landlord listed is actually the owner of record
Successful landlords do not take short cuts, no matter how tempting it is to take their cash and just this once, skip the screening process. Pre-screen every potential tenant the same way each and every time and save yourself a lot of headaches.
Use Forms To Run Your Business
Tired of getting bad tenants?
Can’t remember which questions to ask?
What to pre-screen like a pro?
Grab the free Tenant Screening Form
