A credit report alone is not sufficient for screening a tenant

rental property trashed by bad tenants
But they had a good credit score.

I last wrote that you should never accept a credit report provided by the applicant due to easy online availability of fake credit reports.

In this post, I would like to explain why even a valid credit report is inadequate by itself when screening a rental applicant.

Credit reports do not contain enough information to properly evaluate an applicant.

The applicant’s income, in addition to eviction and criminal history are very important when considering a potential applicant and none of these are found in a credit report.

Typically the required income to rent ratio is 3 to 1. If the rent is $1000 per month, then the income for all the renters need to be at least $3000 per month.

I am often asked about verifying income. We recommend that the agent or owner ask for 3 consecutive pay stubs. You should request the 3 most recent bank statements to verify  the income deposits if the applicant is self-employed.

This method is far easier and quicker than attempting to get salary or wage information from the employer. Many large employers will direct you to a third party that requires a fee for income verification.

An eviction report is extremely important.  A person who was evicted in the past, is likely to be evicted again. It is very time consuming and costly to evict a teannt. Repairs to the property also need to be taken into account. Most evicted tenants don’t exactly leave the property “broom clean move-out” condition.

Don’t think a criminal report is important? Think again. I was speaking at a real estate investors group about tenant screening best practices.  An elderly landlord told me a very scary story. The tenants in one of his properties stopped paying rent and would not respond to his phone calls. He went to the house to ask about the rent, was beaten severely by one of the occupants and ended up in the hospital for 2 weeks.

It was discovered after the tenant was arrested that he was a convicted felon.

A criminal background check would have identified his criminal history and saved the landlord from the pain and suffering of the beating.

Here are some more stories that will help convince you about the importance of tenant screening. http://buildrealty.net/blog/2014/12/21/6-insane-landlording-stories-that-prove-the-importance-of-tenant-screening/

No tenant screening process will be 100% effective. But a comprehensive background search can significantly reduce the number of problem tenants.

Jay Apple is co-founder of TenantMagic, LLC  www.tenantmagic.net

Why you shouldn’t use a credit report provided by a rental applicant

Fake credit report web site

Here is a big reason why you should never use a credit report provided by the rental applicant for an application.

It is quite easy to get fake one.  Simply by Google “Fake credit report” and fill out the on-line pdf. Here is a link to one of the sites so you can see for yourself. https://fake-credit-score.pdffiller.com/

Agents and landlords should always use a reputable online tenant screening program to avoid fakes.

You obviously want to know that the information in a completed rental application and screening report is accurate.  It is also critical to know that the person submitting it is who they claim to be.

A quality screening provider will verify the information provided by the applicant and their identification.  When an applicant enters their social security number into the system. The credit bureau will then check to see that the personal data of the applicant matches with what the bureau has on file (date of birth, current address, etc.) The process should then require the applicant to verify their ID. This is accomplished by answering questions that only the applicant would know the answer to such as amount of car payment, previous address or auto loan amount.

Additionally, a credit report is only one of the reports that should be considered by an agent or landlord You really need an eviction report, a criminal history report and a sex offender report to do a thorough review of an applicant.

There is no shortage of scammers out there. And once they are in a property, it is difficult and expensive to get them out.  Then there is often significant damage to the property once you do get them out.

Fortunately there are high-quality tenant screening service providers that you can use.  A good tenant screening service will help identify unqualified applicants before the lease is signed, saving you time and money.

Jay Apple is co-founder of TenantMagic  www.tenantmagic.net Continue reading “Why you shouldn’t use a credit report provided by a rental applicant”

How far and how fast will home ownership swing back?

I recently had lunch with a senior finance executive who is in his mid 30s,  married and has a young daughter. The conversation turned to home ownership and how it is viewed by people in his age group.

He rents and said that currently he and his wife (also a professional) have little desire to purchase a home. He went on to say that many people he knows that are in his age group feel the same way about home ownership.

This made me think about how fast and far the home ownership pendulum is going to swing back.

Since 2005 home ownership has steadily declined from 69% to 63.7% at the end of 2016.

As can be seen in the US Census Bureau graph below, the decline has been longer and steeper than in any other period going back to 1965.

A closer look will also show you that the drop off continued after the 2007-2009 recession.

Hone ownership rates 1965 - 2016

As we all know trends don’t continue forever. But we do need to look into what has changed that can affect any rebound. For more data check out the entire report at https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf

During my conversation with my finance exec friend, he mentioned 2 reasons he and his wife did not want to buy a house. The first was he didn’t view it as a good financial decision. Housing prices are still recovering from the 2007 – 2008 housing crash. Secondly, his career could require him to move regularly and he didn’t want deal with buying and selling his property every couple of years.

Industry research on this topic has identified 2 other reasons that millennials are not buying homes like people their age did a generation ago.

College loan debt plays a very large factor. Graduates are saddled with this debt for a long period of time which makes it difficult to save for a down payment. This coupled with a less than robust job market adds to the headwinds in home ownership, especially among people in their 20s and 30s.

If history is any indicator, the trend in home ownership should reverse itself. However the trough is deep and even returning to rates of the 1980s can take some time.

Bottom line, real estate agents should be prepared to deal with home renters for the foreseeable future.

Jay Apple is co-founder of TenantMagic  www.tenantmagic.net