While many landlords perform adhoc apartment viewings, take applications at the time and get referrals for potential tenants, many more end up getting blown off. This pre-screening method can save a lot of time, gas and effort in renting your apartment to qualified tenants.

Place your ad in the paper with a phone that is hooked up to an answering machine and state in your announcement that you need their full name and telephone number for a callback.

When you receive or return a call, tell your potential tenant that you must have their full name and an address in order to mail them an application.

At this point you may or may not get what you request. That is the best pre-screening tool. You may also get questions such as if you take DSS or Section 8 (both are government programs that pay you the landlord directly).

You may also get questions as to whether you accept pets. That too is an easily answered question.

If you get their full name and address, mail the application to them and include a different phone number (such as a cell phone) where they can call you and then set up an appointment.

With this information you may then visit their current home (something that has been stated as being a great pre-screening tool) or you may look up their current landlord in the local property owners website. (If you don’t know what that is then send an email to srpoa1@yahoo.com and we will send the link back to you)

Also with this information you can look up a name in the ecourts website. Information on that is located further down this blog. On this website you can determine if a potential tenant has been in court for an eviction process.

Sending an application is easy. Going to eviction court is not.

Advertisement