Essential Questions to Ask Yourself When Screening Tenants

Renting out your property can sometimes be intimidating. Some prospects are alright but there are others who may appear a little rowdy and ludicrous for your liking so when interviewing them; ask yourself some questions about what you see or not in these people to determine if you will let them move in.

Use your answers to evaluate whether or not they pass your standards.


How Honest Are They?

While revealing sensitive information can be a turn off; tenants who are not hiding anything will talk about themselves in an openly manner. Things like their credit score and the real reasons why they need to move to a different location matters. If for example they don't have a perfect credit score but tells you the real reason as to why; it shows that they are honest especially if you've done the necessary background checks beforehand and you already know the true story about their credit.


Honest tenants will also tell you about their true income, employment history and rental history. They also have notarized endorsements from former landlords.

How Capable Are They?

For a hassle free negotiation, ask yourself if there are enough evidences that show if they can pay rent regularly. If they ask to pay rent a week after they move in; it means that there may be instances where they won't be able to pay rent on time so you need to ask yourself if you would be willing to do some waiting and if you're not then you probably need to move on to your next candidate.

How Financially Responsible Are They?

The "general rule of thumb for credit scores" is:


    750 – 850: Excellent
    700 – 749: Good
    650 – 699: Fair
    600 – 649: Poor
    300 – 599: Bad

If your prospects fall on good or fair; you need to ask yourself if you're willing to overlook it and proceed with the negotiation. Ask yourself if the persons in question have the tendencies to over spend and will likely result to them not being able to pay the month’s rent on time.

Are You Going To Let Them Move In Now?

Your rental is already in the market so you need a tenant immediately so you may want to ask yourself who among these future tenants are willing to move as soon as possible.

Together with your answered questions, determining your tenants come down to who can move right away.