Part 7 of our Landlord’s guide to Tenant Screening.
Our free rental application form is completely free for landlords like you to use and will provide you with the necessary information to make the best decision when it comes to whom you’re renting to.
Your Free Rental Application Includes…
Permission from the applicant for you to run a background check, gather credit information and call references.
You want to make sure you never run a background check on a tenant applicant without proper written consent.
This can be found on the 2nd page of our free rental application form.
Helpful Tip: When you hand out the free rental app we strongly advise that you institute a “No Blank Space Policy.”
This means that you don’t accept rental apps unless they have filled out every single blank space on the application.
We’ve run close to 100,000 background checks on tenant applicants and we require a signed rental application from every single tenant applicant.
What we’ve found is a direct correlation between rental applications with blank spots and background reports with plenty of reportable data.
If the applicant leaves the SSN or previous landlord information blank, it’s probably because they have something to hide.
It may feel uncomfortable but simply tell the applicant that you have a No Blank Space policy and do not accept the application until it is fully filled out.
This is one of the easiest screening techniques you can implement on your own that will make a big difference in the quality of the tenant applicants you receive.
Charge A Rental Application Fee
You do this for a few reasons. The number one reason is that if you want to run a background check on the applicant, it will be paid for by the application fee.
An ancillary benefit is that the application fee itself acts as a screening tool. It tells tenant applicants that you’re serious about running a background check. If the applicant knows something may pop up, they’re more likely to move on to the next available rental.
You will get fewer applications when charging an application fee but they’re typically higher-quality applicants. Hope these tips helped you and be sure to grab our free rental application above. If you have any questions feel free to ask in our Live Chat box and we’d be happy to help you run a background report on your applicants.
