Tenant Background Check: How to Effectively Investigate Rental Applicants

Interviewing your applicant is just one of many very important steps in conducting a thorough tenant background check.

We have found that many landlords fail to take advantage of the tremendous reporting capabilities that we offer in our proprietary tenant background check report.  Most Tenant Background Screening reports do not disclose anywhere near the kind of extensive background history and records that we provide for our clients.  Take for example the address history that we list with every report.   It is extremely important to pay close attention to past addresses and notice the other household members that your applicant has been living with.  In some cases, the past address list can divulge an unreported address by your applicant that may uncover a red flag to alert that your applicant is attempting to hide or conceal as a part of his or her past.  There are many cases in which a renter gets kicked out of their residence and moves out without the landlord pursuing any litigation or an unlawful detainer (eviction).  In fact, we know of cases where landlords have actually paid their undesirable tenants money to leave the premises voluntarily just to end the nightmare quickly.

Sometimes you have to play detective with the data that your receive in order to take full advantage of the tenant background screening process.  You cannot always just depend upon what seems to be the obvious.   Yes, there are plenty of bad rental applicants out there who’s past jump out at you like a sore thumb, such as the case with applicants with many judgments, evictions or criminal records.   However, sometimes the devil can be found in the details.   Investigating the last residence(s) and or calling the most recent previous landlord as a reference is a critical step.  And this address can normally be verified on the tenant background screening report that we provide.

A Quality Tenant Background Check will Significantly Reduce Undesirable Tenants

By taking the appropriate steps in the screening process, you will be able to leverage the information that we provide you in a tenant background check such a way that you can realistically eliminate well over 90% of those bad tenants that you are looking to avoid.