Wednesday, 19 March 2008

Being a Landlord and Using Effective Tenant Screening

By Simon M Skinner

I became a landlord when I inherited an apartment building from a family member. It proved itself to be a great way to earn income and it definitely keeps me busy. While I enjoy it, there are things that I have learned along the way that I had to learn the hard way.

When dealing with people you have to be careful as they are not always as trustworthy as they might first appear. As a landlord I have an obligation to protect my property, my family and the other people who rent from me.

By running a tenant background check you are certainly helping to protect both people and property. Before you rent to somebody it is definitely worth taking advantage of the many types of screening processes available online.

My personal choice is to run a tenant screening process as well as a criminal background and social security check. For all my screening processes I utiltize the services of MacDataAdvantage.com. They are a great online screening company that provide all of the screening tools and information that I need.

A tenant background check is an important process before a rental agreement is signed. Personally I would not want a sex offender living in an apartment next to a family with young children. I also wouldnt want someone who had a history of destroying property.

A social security background check is very useful to check that you are renting to a person who is in the country legally. You could get yourself into all sorts of trouble if you are renting to someone who is not in the country legally.

A couple of years ago I had a couple approach me to rent one of the apartments in my building They were nice and neat, well mannered and their application form looked fine. I was pleased that I was renting to them because I was sure that they would be no trouble and would rent for a long period.

As I normally do, I ran a tenant background check and all of a sudden my 'perfect couple' didnt look quite so wonderful. This couple had a history of leaving properties in a really bad way and for non payment of rent. Once again by running a background check through MacDataAdvantage.com I saved myelf a lot of potential headaches!

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