How to Find Good Tenants for Rental Properties

As rental property owners, there is nothing more valuable than finding a quality tenant for your property. After all, your already never-ending list of responsibilities becomes even longer, more stressful, and more financially draining when you have to deal with bad tenants.

That’s why it’s essential to take the time initially to do everything in your power to find the best fit for you and your property. The ideal tenant should make your life easier, not more difficult while occupying your property.

While it can be time-consuming to sift through your applicants carefully, it is a crucial element of the rental process. So naturally, you might be wondering how to find good tenants for rental properties. That’s where we come in to help. We’ve put together an extensive list detailing what qualifies someone as a good tenant and how to find those people to rent your property.

What Qualifies as a Good Tenant

Before we explain how to find good tenants, you must understand what qualifies someone as a good tenant. The ideal tenant will likely have unique characteristics to your rental style, but generally speaking, they should also have the following qualities.

Timely Payments

First and foremost, one of the most critical characteristics all good tenants have is that they pay their rent on time. The landlord-tenant relationship depends on landlords providing a tenant with a property in exchange for the tenant providing the landlord with the agreed-upon rent following the agreed-upon timeline.

In most circumstances, you use your money from the rent for the mortgage payment, which follows a schedule of its own. Therefore, a tenant failing to pay you their rent on time can result in your inability to make your mortgage payment on time, causing a financial burden on you.

One way to help ensure you get your rent payments on time is by setting up an online payment system. Here you can usually set up a direct deposit billing and have an auto-pay function to help your tenants from ever forgetting a due date.

Excellent Communication

The best tenants will be excellent communicators, ensuring you are immediately aware of any concerns regarding the property. For example, minor issues around the house, such as a leaky faucet or a clogged drain, can quickly become a much larger issue for you if not addressed quickly. A good tenant will understand that and make sure you are aware of these things as soon as they notice them.

As a landlord, you want to ensure that your tenants know how and when to communicate their concerns with you. An excellent way to keep track of everything is by having an online portal for your tenants to submit their maintenance requests.

Steady Income

Another quality of a good tenant is having a steady form of income. This factor is something you want to check for through the application process. You may require proof of income, but looking for previous bank statements showing their income is another way to check for steady income.

You can also follow up with their current employer to see how long they have worked in their current position to ensure they have some longevity at their job. It may get tricky when it comes to finding someone new to a city or moving for a new job, but having that conversation with their employer can give you a better idea of the picture of who your prospective tenant is.

Good Neighbor

Not only do you want your tenant to show you respect, but it’s also essential they show respect to their neighbors. The last thing you want is to move someone into your property just to find out they are a nuisance to the community.

While this characteristic can be tough to vet for through the application process, it’s something to look out for during the apartment tour. Get an idea of what your prospective tenant is like as a neighbor by thinking of some creative questions to ask them when you get the opportunity to speak with them.

Treats Your Property Like Their Own

In a perfect world, you will be able to find a tenant that will treat your property as if it were their own. What does this mean, exactly? This means that your tenant will take pride in your property and take care of any routine maintenance or required services as needed promptly.

Having a responsible tenant is mutually beneficial. For your tenant, they can ensure they get their security deposit back in full when they move out and have you as an excellent landlord reference for future rentals. For you, you can rest easy knowing your property is being well taken care of.

How to Find Good Tenants

Now that you have a better idea of some of the qualities good tenants should encompass, it’s time to dive into the process of finding them. We touched on some of these approaches while going through the different characteristics of a good tenant, but now it’s time to get into everything in detail.

1. Advertise Your Property

Before you have the opportunity to vet through qualified applicants, you need to focus on your marketing efforts. The goal of advertising your property is to bring in qualified leads from good prospective tenants. Ultimately, having a larger pool of leads to work from is best, as it gives you multiple options to choose from.

So, how to ensure you have plenty of good options to choose from? Here are a few marketing tips to consider:

• Have high-quality images of units/complex/amenities
• Use social media to spread the word about your property
• List your property with a company you trust

When it comes time to list your property, you want to make sure you do so with a company you trust to get the job done quickly. List your apartment with Apartment List today and find the right tenants for your property; right now. Best of all, when you list with Apartment List, you can improve the way you market your property for free!

2. Consider Sight Unseen Applicants

In the age of the Internet, it’s becoming increasingly popular for renters to enter a rental agreement by signing a lease without ever visiting the property in person. Whether the individual is in a pinch and needs to move quickly or is moving from across the country, there are countless different reasons this rental method is popular and here to stay.

As such, it’s essential to consider accommodating those renting sight unseen as a landlord, or property manager, to avoid losing out on good tenants who might not be able to tour your property before physically signing a lease agreement. In addition, offering alternative solutions to the traditional apartment tour opens a broader range of applicants and could help you find the best tenants.

Here are a few different options you may want to offer in place of an apartment tour or open house:

• 3D tours
• Scheduled Facetime
• Video tours

3. Prepare Questions to Ask Prospective Renters

Remember that the rental application process is your opportunity as a landlord to get to know your prospective tenants better. Clarifying questions can help you find the perfect match for your property.

There are several different questions to ask potential tenants. Here is a handful of some of the most crucial questions you should always seek answers to from any prospective renter.

Why Are You Moving?

It’s a simple enough question to ask any applicant the reason as to why they are moving. This question will help open up the dialogue and may present any red flags right away. For example, if you’ve found an applicant who moves around frequently, you might want to make some phone calls to find out the reason behind all the moves.

Do You Have Any Pets?

Whether you have listed that your property allows pets or not, you still should have a verbal conversation with any prospective tenant. Make sure they understand your pet policy and go through any rules you may have about it.

If you allow pets, make sure you know the details of breed, age, weight, and color. Some areas may have breed restrictions, so you’ll want to go over any of these with applicants before getting too far into the application process.

Do You Have Rental History?

Formal rental history is a big piece of the renter puzzle. If an applicant does have rental history, you can ask them to provide you with references to speak with previous landlords to get an idea of what type of tenants they were.

4. Have a Thorough Tenant Screening Process

Finding responsible renters is a challenging task but not impossible to do on your own as a landlord. One of the most critical aspects of ensuring you have a thorough tenant screening process.

Here’s how:

• Set your standards
• Request a tenant application
• Run a credit check
• Run a background check
• Contact references
• Interview the tenant

Each landlord is likely to have their own individual set of requirements, but at minimum, you want to include each of these factors in your application process.

5. Focus on Keeping Great Tenants

Once you have found an excellent tenant to rent your property, you should do everything in your power to keep them. Focusing your efforts on minimizing turnover and keeping your best tenants will save time and headaches from finding new tenants.

There are several different techniques to keep your tenants happy, such as:

• Keeping communication open
• Responding to requests on time
• Addressing problems, they have quickly
• Regularly improving building/amenities
• Creating a referral program

Resident Referral Programs

You can build a strong resident referral program that will incentivize your current tenants to refer a family or friend to your property when the time comes for them to move out. More than likely, if you’ve found a suitable tenant, their referral will also be a suitable tenant for your property. Some of the benefits from a resident referral program include:

• Reducing unit turnover
• Lowering tenant acquisition costs
• Increasing chances of finding a suitable tenant
• Building a stronger apartment community

Final Thoughts

As you begin searching for the best tenant for your property, it’s important to remember that you must vet qualified applicants in a nondiscriminatory way, according to the Fair Housing Act. Mind the local laws surrounding rental applications as you begin looking through the applications.

Have a good idea of what it is you are looking for in a tenant and then move forward with the process of finding the best one for your property. Although you might think this is a time-consuming process, trust us when we tell you that it will save you time, money, and headaches in the long run!