Questions To Ask Tenants?

Discussion in 'Landlord & Rental Property Questions' started by Rainman, Aug 2, 2015.

  1. Corzhens

    Corzhens Senior Investor

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    You are right on that - it is a gamble in getting a tenant. That's what our landlord told us when she accepted us. But she was right on us because we were a good tenant, always paying rent on time and sometimes even advanced. I am now thinking what happens when I become a landlord myself. I have this plan of building my own apartment, maybe a 4-door apartment that I can rent out for my subsistence when I retire from work.
     
  2. crimsonghost747

    crimsonghost747 Senior Investor

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    Background checks are not a bad thing but to be honest the most important thing is them having a stable source of income. If they don't have the money then they won't pay no matter how reputable they are and as long as they value having a roof on their heads they will pay if they have enough income to cover their living expenses.
     
  3. gracer

    gracer Senior Investor

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    This is a timely topic as I just heard from my mother's friend ( a landlady) that her former tenant who just left her apartment turned out to be a person who was hiding from the police because she was wanted for swindling. The landlady never knew of her case because she didn't do a background check. She had no problem with the rent payments at first because the tenant seemed to had the resources to pay for her rent until a couple of months passed and she started paying her rent late. Now, she left the apartment without even paying her utility bills, which the landlady will now have to pay in her expense in order for the utility services to continue as the bills are in the landladies' name. This is one reason why my family has also stopped the business of renting out rooms from our house. Sometimes the headache of having delinquent tenants is so stressful.
     
  4. Corzhens

    Corzhens Senior Investor

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    @gracer, there were many cases here that tenants were discovered to be criminal elements. Unfortunately, the discovery came late because the culprits have already left for good. Several shabu labs were discovered using a rented house. A shabu lab is a laboratory to manufacture illegal drug called street cocaine. Worse for the landlord, they become part of the investigation and they had to prove their innocence. Another apartment was used by a kidnap-for-ransom gang. Again, it was discovered too late, the criminals have escaped already.
     
  5. gracer

    gracer Senior Investor

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    @Corzhens You brought out some good examples there. That's why I think it's very important to do at least a little background check before accepting tenants and not just think about whether the tenant could afford to pay the rent or not. Most often than not, delinquent or criminally liable tenants would put on a good show to the landlord at first just to gain his/her trust. The landlord only finds out about the negative things about the tenant once the tenant has been living on his/her property long enough or once the tenant has already left as what you mentioned. The sad thing is that the landlord then becomes a person of interest if he/she has had a tenant with criminal activities, given the fact that the landlord never knew anything about the tenants illegal activities. It's also a big risk to be doing a rental business.
     
  6. lstryhrn

    lstryhrn Active Member

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    YOu should check their background and credit check just to see if they have any foreclosure or invention. I feel like credit doesn't really mean anything when you are renting maybe buying a house. Most important income verification. If all of this is fine especially income they should be good to go.
     
  7. Sandra

    Sandra Active Member

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    I definitely agree that you should do some background check and try to verify the information that the prospective tenant(s) give(s). Sometimes tenants will of course lie; so if possible, contact the previous landlord/landlady or persons living in the vicinity of the previous address to verify and find out more. It might be technical and time-consuming but it's for your own good. It's better to be safe than sorry. You can also ask the prospective tenants other questions that may give you an idea of what their previous renting situation was like, if applicable.
     
  8. pwarbi

    pwarbi Senior Investor

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    The thing is though, while in an ideal world everybody would have a perfect credit history and a background check that portrayed them as a saint, that isn't always the case.

    If the checks came back not exactly great, I'd talk to the potential tenbant and maybe come up with some other agreement. A higher deposit or if its only a short term rent to start off with, full rent paid upfront could also be an option.

    At the end of the day, as long as I get my money, then I'm happy enough to negotiate around the rest, and I've rented out houses to a lot of people over the years, and I've never had a problem with any tenant.
     

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