Everyone is afraid that their tenant is going to trash the place, skip rent, and make the owner’s life miserable. Why? Because the most widely spread stories are the ones that include something going terribly wrong! The first step toward finding a cure for these situations is prevention. Let’s take a look at how we make sure that we are placing quality tenants that will take care of your property and pay on time.
Everyone benefits when we do a great job screening tenants.
Here is a snapshot of our screening process:
1.The screening begins the first time they call. Before we show your property to a prospective tenant, they have already been “pre-screened”, so to speak. We try to get information about why they are looking for a rental, where are they moving from, what their needs are, credit scores, gross income, etc…
2. Once the tenant has found a property that they would like to rent, they submit an application. This is a custom application crafted by Empire West Property Management, which has specific questions designed to abide by all applicable state and federal laws, yet still allows us to obtain needed information to determine if the tenant is qualified.
3. After receiving the application, Empire West Property Management
goes through the following checklist:
- Pull credit report, including score.
- Verify income and assets
- Contact current landlord
- Contact previous landlord if possible.
- Check eviction history
- 4. At this point, we will have a good picture of the tenant’s qualifications.
Based on the above information,
Empire West Property Management will determine whether or not the application is approved. The following criteria must be met in order for us to accept an application:
1. Income – Applicants must be able to prove income that meets our criteria for each property. Applicants must make between 2 ½ – 3 times the rent amount in gross income, depending on the rent amount.
2. History – Applicants must all have at least 2 years rental history (which can include living with family or renting a room) and be reported by previous landlord(s) to have “taken good care of the property”.
3. Applicants must not have an outstanding balance with a previous landlord.
4. Applicants must not have a rental eviction on their record.