When asking tenants questions before deciding whether you'll rent out an apartment, room, business premises and so on to them, should try to verify if what you've been told is true? For example if you ask a tenant why they are moving, they could lie. Wold it be better instead to do a background check [even though it might cost you a little bit of money] to avoid complications that might ensue should your tenant turn out to be one of those bad ones?
Well, of course you should check out their background. A simple background check is going to cost you $20-$45 online. A small price to pay to cover a lot of anxiety and worry.
How would you protect yourself from potential losses [ the money you spend on background checks] should your prospective tenant decide not to move in? Do you ask them to fork out the $50 with a refund promise? Maybe only someone worried about what might be uncovered would be unwilling to hand over the money?
I always use an agent and they do all the background checks. It gives me another layer of comfort. They would know how to ask the right questions and check with the right sources. I would simply be acting on instinct and there's no guarantee that that would be any good!
When we rented an apartment in 1994, we just saw it in the classified ads of the newspaper. The landlord looked at us with a smile and said we looked to be a good couple with breeding. She didn't ask any more questions and handed us the key when we produced the downpayment. When we got to know the landlord, 60-year old widow, she said that for her 6 units of apartment, all the dwellers got in by way of gut feel. But she admitted that sometimes her gut feel is wrong.
While a background check does help when your trying to find our about a potential tenant, it isn't the be all and end all. Just because people might not have a great past, doesn't necessarily mean they're going to cause you problems in the future. People tend to put a lot of emphasis on background checks and credit checks, and sometimes if that's all you go off, you're going to end up cutting off a lot of potential people.
Sometimes you just have to give people the benefit of the doubt. Some times good people have bad landlords and things can show up that might not even be true. Just as all tenants aren't good, all landlords aren't either. I have rented rooms out to people in the past and never had a problem. My opinion was usually made on my first impression after talking to them for a while.
Would a background check give you the reason why they are moving though? It could be for a myriad of reasons but as a landlord, my main concern is that the rent will be paid. My actual preference is to rent to people who receive government assistance - this money is paid directly to the landlord making it a dead cert that you'll get your rent.
I don't think you can get a good reason from the potential tenant why they are going to rent. When we left the ancestral house of my husband, we just said that we want to be independent. We did not tell the landlord that we were moving because we had quarreled with my husband's sisters, hahahaaa. As with the rent, we have the capability to pay because I had a job with the bank and my husband has his business or retailing computer supplies.
It depends on how in depth you want to go. In my case, I wanted to find someone who was dependable with the rent...and I felt I could trust this person. He has not let me down in 5 years, however, his personal habits are fairly deplorable...However, I really didnt think I was going to find anyone better...since I live out in the middle of nowhere. It is always a gamble with a renter, I think you need to decide what is the most important and go from there.
