Teaching Landlords to Find Their Quality Tenant!

Real estate investors: The 5 simple steps of tenant screening

In my book "How to Find That Quality Tenant: The 5 simple steps of Tenant Selection" I explain that finding quality tenants is a 5 step process. Each process begins with the letter P. Here are those five steps along with a brief explanation on what each step does.

As you go through these steps in your tenant screening process be sure to use my free forms to keep you organized.

It doesn't matter if you are climbing Mount Everest, repainting a classic car, building your dream home, or planning your wedding or retirement; for many things in life, preparation is the key difference between a successful success and an acceptable success. At one time or another, probably all of us have taken on a project that we failed to properly prepare for and were gravely disappointed in the results. Good early preparation could have yielded a better outcome.

There are 5 steps in my tenant selection process. Step 1, (Prepare) is a very important step in attracting a quality tenant. It is the first of the 5 P's of tenant selection and sets the groundwork from which the other steps will follow.

In this step, you will first learn to prepare yourself to find quality tenants. At the same time you should make sure that the condition of your property will attract the quality tenants you desire. In order to do this you must learn how to prepare your rental property to attract quality tenants. Next, you will prepare your standards or qualifications which the tenant prospect must pass in order to be a candidate for your rental dwelling. Last but not least, you will prepare advertising to draw potential tenants into your selection pool.

Finding good quality tenants is an obtainable goal: you just need to prepare.

In Step 1 of the tenant search, you prepared yourself, your dwelling, your qualifications and your ad to begin that search. During Step 1, you never actually speak to any potential tenants. Step 2 changes all that: this is where you will learn how to pre-qualify all the calls you receive from any of the advertising you did in the previous step. It is at this point in the tenant selection process that you will begin to separate the "wheat from the chaff". To do this effectively, you need to know what questions to ask prospective tenants. You want to find the best of the best applicants who fit your preset qualifications which is based on the Tenant Qualification Form you filled out back in Step 1.

As you work through Step 2, your goal is to find the one or two tenant prospects who truly fit your tenant goals. Proper use of Step 2 (pre-qualify) keeps you from constantly running to the dwelling to show uninterested or unqualified people the rental. In order to do this, you need to make sure that you are getting as much information as possible during your phone interviews. To help you do this, check out my interviewing tips page. Step 2 (pre-qualify) will make you more efficient and more successful in your final tenant selection.

After completion of Step 1 and 2, the chances are you have a couple of good potential tenant prospects that are interested in you rental, and who you believe fit your tenant qualifications. When you get to this point, you are ready for Step 3, which is where you accumulate all of the tenant prospect's information on the required paperwork.

This paperwork will be used to double check and verify all the information we collected over the phone. Should the tenant prospect actually become your tenant, the paperwork will become a part of their file for future reference, or problem solving for the duration of the lease.

Usually, you will collect the paperwork from the tenant at a showing of the property. If you've done good phone screening in step two, you've likely got a strong tenant prospect on your hands. Before you go to the showing make sure that you're prepared so that it goes as smoothly as possible. The following articles will help you do just that.

What Tenants Need to Bring to the Showing
Tips for Showing Your Rental
Always Be Closing - Practice Your ABC's
During Rental Showings Are You Archie Bunker?

After you collect all the filled out paperwork from your tenant applicant, you need to go home where you can review and analyze all the information on that paperwork. We call this Step 4, or the "process" step. The process step is the third time you have thought about the tenant prospect as a potential tenant. First you spoke with them over the phone. Then you met them face to face. Now you want to talk to all their references, landlords past and present, verify income, credit and all pertinent information. This is an important step. Becuase of this, you need to take a day or two to properly complete the process step. It will be the final step in your decision to accept or deny a tenant applicant.

Step 5 is the final step in the tenant selection process. It is the icing on the cake or where you "reap your rewards", so to speak. The name of Step 5 is PAYOFF and it means just that. Here you sign your rental unit over to your new tenant and hopefully receive on time monthly rent with very few problems for years to come.

This step includes going over rules and regulations, introducing the new tenant to their dwelling and signing the lease. It also includes things like co-signers, pet addendums and anything else you need to successfully start your tenant/landlord relationship.

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If you would like further infomation on this topic, please purchase my book"How to Find That Quality Tenant". Ask your locale bookstore or see my website at:www.findthatqualitytenant.com

I am not a lawyer, therefore, if you have any legal concerns with anything in this article, please contact the appropriate legal counsel.

The above article may be reproduced without my permission under the following conditions: author name, website, and contact information must accompany article and be prominently displayed, and the article must be reproduced in it's entirety.

Thank You. Don Conrad

Copyright 2006 Blue Collar Publishers
www.findthatqualitytenant.com
e-mail: donconrad@findthatqualitytenant.com
phone: 1-888-452-0765