Good morning,
A client asked me for some landlord resources so I decided I would compile what I have and post them for all my investment property clients and property managers. If you have any resources that I should be aware of, please let me know via the comments or drop me an email.
Tenant Background Check:
I use http://www.ntnonline.com/
They do criminal, eviction, terrorist and credit checking for about $17.
They don't verify employment and rent confirmation. I have to do that myself. NTN is nice because it spits back an answer in 10 seconds, 24 hours a day. They can verify past addresses via the credit report so you can detect address they "forgot".
The local NTN contact people are very helpful and will make sure you do it all to your best interest. You can also submit evictions and they will forward that stuff to someone that can act as a collection agency if you choose. I talk to Linda at (210) 590-0280 EXT 104.
Strict background checking and enforcing high standards with troublesome tenants means better lives for the other tenants at the property and for neighbors. If you are loose with your standards, everyone suffers except for the troublesome tenant. Respect yourself and your good tenants with tough love towards unreasonable tenants. Ultimately, you are respecting the troublesome tenant by expecting and enforcing your high standards, even if it leads to an eviction.
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I am a landlord and own 5 houses in three states. Over the last couple of years I have seen a decline in the quality of tenants that I am getting. I do the usual credit check and also call references, which I will continue to do, but after having two really bad experiences that cost me $9K total, I question the reliability of information I receive. In both cases, the tenants received glowing reports from the landlord listed on the application to rent. I don’t know if the landlords just wanted to get rid of these tenants or if they were friends of the applicant, but it ended up costing me significantly in unpaid rent and damages!
As a result of the above, I have been looking for new ways to research potential tenants and recently found a website that I have started to use. It is AboutTenants.com. It was launched in 2008 so it is new, but has significant potential for landlords. It is a free site (though does require registration for full access) that allows landlords to prepare reports on tenants and view reports that other landlords have completed. The reports are in a yes/no format so they are easy to complete and professional. It is similar to a reference but more detailed. The idea is that if enough landlords fill out tenant reports, people that rent long term will have a history, with reports that have been completed by many different landlords over many years. This could be really useful when evaluating whether or not to rent to a potential tenant! The report asks whether you would rent to this tenant again, about the tenancy in general (did they pay rent late, etc), whether you reimbursed their security deposit or they owed you money and how much, the type of damage you withheld for... it is all in the tenant report. AboutTenants.com also has great residential rental agreements, addendums and a host of other rental forms available for free to registered users. It is free to register and truly free to use the site.
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