The Easiest Ways to Screen Tenants #044

sci fi thing, which I'm super into. I love dystopian stuff. Yeah, you know, except that you don't like you don't like sci fi though you like you don't like SciFi, you don't like comic books. I'm not a huge car but I like dystopian though, like I love I love Brave New World. I'm all about dystopian future stuff. Dude. Okay, So if that's the case you need, you should probably check up Black Mirror. It's a little dark. I guess

it's aptly named. It's like dark Mirror. It's sort of like a reflection of society, but like a darker version of it, and specifically there is I was listening to The Indicator by NPR. Do you ever listen to that podcast? I don't. It's it's pretty cool. They take a number, break it down sort of how it affects our society, our economy, the markets, different things like that. But they're talking about how China the country, you know, China part

of it. They're rolling out this sort of social credit experiment, which I found incredibly fascinating. Basically, it's like an uber rating, but for yourself, like as a human being, and so whatever interactions you have, whether it be with a business or like other people, or whether you stop for people that are trying to cross the sidewalk, you get rated

like there's people on the lookout and it's super big brother. Yeah, it's based on a thousand points scale, and so like that's where you start out, like at the very beginning with a thousand points, and you get deducted for stuff and so like say you get a traffic ticket, boom, get like fifty, it's knocked off, and your social credit score affects your ability to take advantage of like luxury products.

So they've got like this high speed train and they're interviewing this guy and he had defaulted on some loans, some business loans. He's a big time business owner, millionaire, guy, but he defaulted on some loans and because of that, he couldn't take the high speed train. Isn't that crazy? That is crazy? Yeah. I read a little bit about this and it was fascinating and it was kind of interesting and cool but also kind of messed up terrible

at the same time. And I'd heard people talk about specifically that one Black Mirror episode where people were kind of being ranked right based on their interactions with other people. And so, you know, I could turn in a crappy podcast performance here and you could like deduct me. It would be terrible. It just it was. It seems awful, right, but it also it could be where we're headed in

some regards. Bizarrely fascinating is what it is. And it sounds like it is kind of turning into real life in China, and so it seems like a democratization of sorts of kind of who you are as a person in some ways, which, let's be honest, we've talked about this before on our Credit Score episode. Right now, it's in the hands of these major three bureaus that get to decide whether you're a good person, whether your credit worthy or not, even without you having signed up to

be a part of that system. And so in some ways this seems a touch better, even though it's like creepy and terrible, at the same time, it seems like a little bit better than just these three companies having all this power they say yes or no um and and in this there's a little more democratized element to it.

But it's still weird as can be. And I don't think I look forward to a day where we were all rating each other and saying, you know, whether you know, Matt held the door for the elderly lady behind him or just completely flicked me off in traffic, whatever it is, if I was like speeding or something like that. It made it sound like that almost anybody could rank or rate somebody that they had an interaction with, just as

casually as walking past the one in the street. And like I said, on one hand, that's crazy interesting and it's like something I would want to watch, But what I want to live that in my real life? You know, day to day do I want my kids sort of worried about what their scores are? And to an extent, that's what we do as adults when it comes to to social media. That's definitely one of the downsides of that,

you know, it's it's terrible from that standpoint. It's terrible how social media and technology is pulling us away from real human interactions and we're so worried about our scores again talking about things being turned into games. On one hand, that's amazing because it makes things interesting, and the natural byproduct of that is that things are better, whether that be oh, you get points for picking up litter or

something like that. But on the other hand, it's like, oh, man, that's a complete substitute for real life and the real human interactions that we have with you know, each other, our friends, and as well as with our families and our kids. Yeah, I think it's super interesting that, like we'll stay on top of kind of what's happening with

these social credit experiments. You know, Like I said, it's weird now kind of the way the way it is, and it's this seems even weirder, And I'm just not sure, you know where we should reside when it comes to determining other people's credit worthiness and rating each other based on our interactions. I mean, man, are you even allowed

to have a bad day in a scenario? Yeah, dude, yeah, exactly, or feel paid or anger or anything like that, and are you able to be real when it comes to real life or he's just so concerned with playing the game, playing the social credit game that you're just gonna do whatever it takes to make sure, you know, don't get points deducted. And it's it's crazy. It's worth mentioning there too that it was. It's called it's considered an experiment, like there's a few cities in China that are doing it.

Is not like it's something that they're rolling out and they say that, oh yeah, this is going to be the solution, but it is an incredibly fascinating approach. Well, onto our fascinating beer of the day, Matt. Today we are drinking a really interesting one by a brewery called Variant Brewing and they're just up the road from where we live in Atlanta, uh. And this is called Raspberry Johnny Kashmir and it's a New England style I p

a reform mented on three different kinds of fruits. And we will tell you what we think about this really fascinating beer at the end of the show, are Joel you wanna kick it off? Yeah, buddy, So the subject at hand for today's show is the easiest way to screen tenants, And Matt, you and I are all about

rental properties, right. We've talked about this in multiple episodes past, and we figured we should dedicate a whole show to how to screen tenants, because after you purchase a rental property, doing a good job screening tenants is the most important thing you can do to make sure that that is a success for you. And like most new things, it can be scarier, daunting, it might feel even intimidating until

you actually go through that screening process. But like most of those things, also it's easier than you think it is. That's right, and this is a great episode. Two. If you're not into real estate, this is great too if you have a primary residence and you're considering, oh, you know, maybe someday I could just run out this house. And this is a great sort of introduction to one of the biggest things that is Joel said, kind of daunting or foreign, but also too if you're a renter er man,

have a listen. Listen to this episode. You'll pick up some tips on what it is that your new potential landlord is looking for and you know, that will help you to snag that property that you got your eye on. Yeah, the as a renter, the way you go through this process could be the determining factor of whether or not you end up, you know, signing a lease on that house that you're interested in or condo or apartment, whatever it is, or whether you end up playing second fiddle

to someone that played the game better. And so, you know, as a potential tenant, I think, yeah, you can learn a lot from this episode two. All right, man. The problem is that it can be tempting to skip screen tenants or to do a crappy job. Some nice folks might show up to see the place to say they make a lot of money and they want to rent it, so you go ahead and sign the contract, right, wrong,

that's right. You do not send a contract. Most folks out there are probably great and they're telling the truth. They might make a ton of money, but that doesn't really matter if it's all going towards U. Yeah, and there are a lot of people that talk a good game, and it's easy to have a nice conversation with someone that is super friendly and assume that they are going to be a great tenant. But that doesn't always translate, right, Yeah.

I mean we try to operate from the standpoint of thinking that most folks out there are good, you know, and but unfortunately we can't operate from that standpoint living in a big city where we don't know someone's grandma. You know. If I do someone's grandma, i'd be okay. Yeah. And the problem is matter that terrible tenants can cause major problems for your house with your neighbors, and they can bring down not just your house but the entire street.

And that's why we think it's so important to screen potential tenants well. Because you've got a rental property right that you've put a lot of time and intention and money and effort into, and you want to make sure that you are getting someone that is going to care about that place and be a good tenant for a long time to ensure that viability of this thing that you've spent so much of your life and your effort on.

Kay man, it's incredibly important to screw and so doing a great job when it comes to screening your tenants can be the difference between the next twelve, eighteen or twenty four months being a dream, you know, where you're able to build wealth or it being a nightmare where you're constantly on call, you're trying to put out fires, hopefully not literal fires, but where it's just sort of this constant thing that's kind of hanging over your head. Yeah.

I was just talking to my friend Tim the other day, Matt and he has seven rental properties, and he was telling me about the beginning of his rental property career. He said that literally the first few tenants were terrible and he had to vict every single one of them, and it was because he didn't screen tenants well. Right, So Tim didn't learn his lesson the first time or

the second time. But I think the time yeah, I think they're time around, he got it and you got this to him, and since then, you know, Tim hasn't had any problem with tenants. And he explained to me that he thought, hey, this person is pretty nice, right, they seem good in person, they seem good on paper.

But it turns out that without this screening process that we're going to walk you through, it's really easy for people to kind of skip by and go from place to place, find a new landlord to kind of prey on and take advantage of their kindness, um, and then stop paying rent ruin your place. There are so many terrible options that could come from from not screening attendant well. And the thing is Matt too that it's pretty easy to screen a tenant well. And we're gonna get into

that as well. Yeah, So going back to eviction that he had to do a few times, they're like, that's the most expensive thing that you could possibly do when it comes to working with a tenant. An average eviction costs anywhere between twenty five to and that is a lot of money. Yeah, not to mention the headaches right of having to go through that process. And depending on the state that you live in, some states have laws that favor landlords and others have laws that favor tenants.

But no matter what state you're in, even if you're in a landlord friendly state, if anything, a tenant is not only a pain in the butt, it costs you time and money at the same time. And that is not a good recipe for succeeding in the investment property game. Yeah, I mean that's not why you got into it, right, It's not like you got into investment properties and Reynolds thinking I want to get some tenants in there and then after three months, I want to evict them because

I want them to be terrible. Yeah, now that's not at all. Why why you got into that? Uh, that as an investment, right, and so avoiding that altogether is certainly the number one priority when it comes to screening tenants. Just be sure. We'll go ahead and mention this at the beginning, but make sure you're following fair housing laws very closely. You cannot discriminate based on color, disability, family status. I'm gonna say them all, national origin, race, religion, or sex.

And this means, whether you do that intentionally or not, you can get in trouble if the you know, potential tenant that you have is able to sort of document how maybe you're screening or not running to them versus someone else, and the only difference between them and the person that you're looking at is one of those protected classes.

I remember, dude, early on families at US. That's one that surprised me because I remember thinking early on that like, oh, yeah, it might be nice to have a younger family in there, but like, you can't do that at all. She can't discriminate against the single people. Yeah, exactly. From an investors standpoint, you think, oh a family stability, You think, okay, they're

gonna be here for a while. But yeah, a friend of mine luckily mentioned to me early on that like, oh no, you you can't say this would be a great house for a young family, because you start getting to this sort of slippery slope, this this gray area where someone could point to that and then say, oh no, you're trying to market that towards families. It says right there, great for young families versus you know, like a single

person that might want to move in. So make sure that you are steering clear of those protected classes and

that you're making your property available to everyone. Yes. So, now that we've kind of seen how expensive in eviction can be for a landlord and how much headache it could be the months of dealing with law enforcement and a tenant that refuses to cooperate, let's cover the nitty gritty of how to go about screening screening well so that you can avoid those problem tenants right after the break, all right, Matt, So back to the break, we promise

we talked about the stages of screening, and my favorite stage of screening is allowing tenants to pre screen themselves effectively by putting the requirements that you have for potential tenants in the listing of your property. Yeah, and so it helps to put your minimum credit score and income amount required to rank your place inside the body of the listing because people that don't meet those requirements just oftentimes won't reach out in the first place when they

read that in your listing. Yeah, they just need not apply, right, You're just wasting everyone's time if you see, or it doesn't even have to be income based or a credit score based. It can even be a no pets allowed. And if you've got five dogs will shoot, just skip right over that list because you're just gonna waste your time, and you're gonna waste the manager or the landlord's time. It's just a way for everyone to save time and to keep moving on with life. And so on that note,

the next step is scheduling showings. And so I don't personally do open house showings, Joe, do you know I schedule each one individually? Awesome? Yeah, exactly, That's that's how

it rolled to. And so during the showings, you want to ask yourself, do they show up when they say they're going to you want to note that if they show up late or even are a no show and don't communicate that that's a bad start in one way to weed out the folks that are just kinda may like those aren't the kind of tendance that you want to have. It's also a great idea to do a pre interview here while they're they're looking at the place.

You can ask questions about their employments, whether or not they smoke, what their income might be, if they have any pets. Some folks allow dogs but not cats, or vice versa. You can do all these things even before they apply again, so save yourself time. There's no sense in reading through an application and starting to make the calls or sending out the emails when you know there's

certain requirements where that possible tenant doesn't meet. Yeah, and I can't stress enough this part of the phase where you're talking to a perspective tenant. You're emailing back and forth with them, You're setting up a time to come and view the house or the apartment or whatever it may be. You know, those email conversations will tell you a lot. You know, how they use language, how promptly they reply, what sort of tone they use in their emails?

And then in person, right when you finally meet that person, do they arrive on time? How do they present themselves in person as well? Those sorts of things will make a major impact on how you view this person and whether you want them living in the investment property that

you own or not. And then on top of that, Matt, like you mentioned, yeah, some of those pre interview questions, you'll get a different answer out of people, and oftentimes a much more truthful perspective if you ask those questions in person. Via email, it's really easy to present yourself in one light and make yourself seem better than you

actually are. But in person, when you ask those questions, just in a nonchalant way, sometimes right, not grilling people, not putting them under the coplight and asking them the tough questions, but just nonchalantly bringing some of these questions up. If you notice a lot of hemming and hawing or not even knowing some of the answers to some of these questions, that's a really good way to know that you are talking with someone who might not be a

great tenant. Yeah man, Or even something as silly as what kind of condition their car is when they pull up. You know, if they pull up in something that looks like it's in terrible shape. And now I'm not talking about a beater right where you're you've got a great, dependable car and it's just kind of old. But I'm talking like stuff is busted on it, Like there's a mirror hanging from the side, like on the car that

got taken out by like a telephone pole. Fast food rappers spilling out onto the sidewalks like they open the door. That's not a great sign of how they're going to take care of your property. So it's all these non verbal sort of cus of well that goes into this stage where you're scheduling showings and meeting folks in person.

So already we've talked about tenant screening, right, and we've said that there are two ways that you could have already screened really well, right just in your listing, your pre screening people by the requirements you list out, and then you're screening via email and in person as you're

getting to know these perspective tenants. That meant that first initial pre screening, the next step that you're going to want to enact when it comes to tenant screening is an initial application, and so that application is where potential tenants fill out their personal information, basic stuff, and what we're interested in here is their tenant history, right the previous five years of rental history with landlord names and

contact information. And I'll tell you what, Matt, I feel like this is probably the easiest way to be able to identify a poor tenant. If you can call and ask their previous landlord, you know, did they pay rent on time? Would you rent to them again? This is one of the most important indicators that will help you note whether or not this is a reliable tenant that you're gonna want to leash your property to. Yeah. Man.

In my book, this is pretty much the number one thing that I kind of go off of is if they have been great tenants in the past. I'm even willing to take applicants that have a worst credit score or that might have a lot of debt. But you know what, if their past several years of tenant history and I'm if I'm able to talk to their landlords and they always pay no matter what, man, that sets

an incredible track record for them. That tells me that you know what, even though they might not have their financial game in tip top shape when it comes to their credit score or man, they just spend a lot of money and they've got a lot of debt, that still tells me that, well, they still make rent payments a priority and there's just a lot to be learned from previous landlords that they have rented from in the past. Yeah.

Another important checkmark on the list of that initial application that you're gonna want a perspective tenant to fill out is their employment information. In particular, it's best to speak with their direct supervisor if at all possible, or if they work for a bigger company, you might need to settle for talking to someone in HR, but that conversation or email exchange with their supervisor can be really beneficial.

You can get little clues from how their supervisor talks about them or you know, whether they give a glowing review quickly or um, whether they're very brief in their responses. And I know that that's helped me make decisions. Um Us they work here, I believe they come in the door sometimes. That's all I can say. Yeah, so you

do get a lot from that email exchange. UM and It's worth noting that you should do all of these things because you might not get a great picture from just doing one, but all of these things combined, you know, our pieces of the puzzle that put together the entire picture of whether this person is going to be a good tenant or a bad one, and some other things that you can have on that initial application. Obviously, you

want to have their signature on there. That way you can verify that the thing that they say are true by you know, giving their previous landlords or their bosses a call. And other info on there as well could be helpful when it comes to make a decision, but doesn't carry as much weight, things like their current rent or while they're moving. Things like that, it's helpful to have that information on there. Uh, just kind of creates

a more robust picture of of who they are. It's also worth mentioning to that this initial application can be as simple as just a piece of paper, just a form that you created in a word document where the applicant just fills out the information. This isn't something that's super fancy. You can have a few printed out on hand there while you're showing the property, but that makes it super easy. But man, lately I've just been like texting it, Like when folks show up and just say,

all right, what's your number? And I just texted to them or email it to them, and folks were able to print it out either at work or at home or just fill it out digitally. It's just so easy now to to do that by a smartphone and just sign it with their finger and get their signature on there and boom like you're you're all set, You're gonna go. And so that's the initial application, which again can be easy as paper. The next thing you want to do

with that is to start making the calls. You start following up and figuring out if these folks are who they say they are. Yeah, Matt, So, I think there's a lot of flexibility and how exactly you want to handle that application. Like you said, you could just literally send an email with four questions and have them respond

to them. But I think there's something about an official form that feels a little more legitimate um and makes it feel like they are jumping through a hoop right in order to bring your property, and you want that right. You want someone to jump through a hoop or two in order to feel like they have done the work to be worthy of living in your house. Um, I don't know. I think there's something to be said for that. Yeah, you want to make sure you're approaching it from a

professional you know. Standpoint, When I when I mentioned texting or emailing, I meant like sending the actual PDF of the form, because I don't like printing out a bunch of paper and then just end up throwing it in the trash if nobody takes an application. Sure, but it is totally easy to email or text or send that PDF and then have them send it back on their own time. And again, timeliness, Right, how long does it take them to fill that out and get it back

to you? In a perfect world, it's a it's a few short hours for someone that is truly interested in running your place. But the timeliness in which they respond, how they respond, the level, the thoroughness to which the former is filled out, those are all kind of many indicators. And then the next indicator is making those phone calls, sending those emails, talking with the current, previous and previous

landlords as well as their boss. Right, And this is the easiest step to get sloppy with you see that they filled out that they are currently employed, and you just decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. Right, But you can gain the most insight into a potential applicant when you take action on this step and you choose to do the digging, do the hard work of

actually sending the emails, making those uncomfortable phone calls. I'm not gonna lie mat Like when I dial up the phone to talk to someone like a previous landlord or the boss, I feel a little weird, Like I feel like I'm digging into someone's private life, but like going through someone's drawers a little bit where it's like, oh man, I'm gonna have to like tread through this and figure out what's been going on exactly. It's super weird. It's

a little weird. It's like you're a counselor Yeah, like I feel like I know a little too much about this person, but yeah, exactly. But also I know that it is one of my biggest investments in life, right is are these homes that I've purchased in order to give people good places to live, and and that's the only way that I can make sure that I'm running out two good people, so I have to do it.

It feels really weird, But I would say I think that's probably the biggest reason people avoid taking the action on these steps because it does feel weird, it's awkward, but you have to do it in order to make sure that you're covering you know, your own backside. That's right, man,

you gotta do it. The step takes the most manual work, Like you said, making those calls or I would also totally recommend to make the calls and not just do the email because I feel like there's something else about hearing somebody talking on the other end of the line, Like if you're talking into a previous langlord and you asked them the question would you rent to this person again? And they if they without hesitation to say yes, absolutely,

they've been awesome. That's a lot different than someone that pauses for five seconds, well, I don't know, and then they say yes, yeah, I would rent to them again because if they hesitate, there, you know, that's uh, that's an indicator, that's a red flag, and you might want to make sure that you are doing the proper amount of vetting. When it comes to screening, that tenant, and so after the break we'll share how to run a

credit and background check on a tenant. The good news is that this just takes a few clicks on the computer and usually it's free to you. Yeah, all right, Joe, we're back. And before the break, we were just talking about how the initial application is the first and best way to make sure that you've got a great applicant on hand. And you're gonna do all all of that. You're gonna make those phone calls to their previous landlords

to verify their employment, talk to their bosses. You're gonna do all that before you do this next stage that we're going to talk about. And I feel like at this point, you know, not all the puzzle pieces are put together, but you've got a pretty good idea picture of what's formulating right of, like what's coming together. And so you know, Okay, this person seems like they're on the up and up, and I'm ready to jump to

this next step. But I think a lot of people in the screening process, they will skip all the stuff we just mentioned and they will jump directly to this step. And that's where a lot of people screw up ultimately, and and maybe they check out on this criminal and credit background check that we're about to talk about. But if they don't check out on those levels above, then you could still be in for a nightmare. So you

really really do want to piece all these things together. Yeah, man, we didn't mention this previously, But one of the reasons why I love taking care of the initial application first and making those calls is that it's free. It does require the most sort of manual labor where you're having to make the phone calls, but it doesn't cost you anything except for a little bit of time talking to someone on the phone, and it doesn't cost the applicant

any money either. That's something that some landlords choose to do where they take the application fee regardless of the order that they choose to process the applicant. And a lot of times what that means is the first thing that they do is they do the tenants screening, is that they do the credit report and the criminal background check, which does cost money. It costs somebody money, whether it's

the landlords or typically it's the applicants. But what's the sense and having an applicant jump through those hoops and pay money when you know that a quick phone call to a previous landlord would have easily told you, yeah, you don't need to rent to these people. Yeah. And I feel like, honestly that the fact that I'm not handling any money directly in regards to an application fee builds a lot of trust between that potential tenant and I.

So let's talk about the next step, Matt. It is getting a credit report and running a criminal background check on someone. Um, the great thing is, I'm not charging an application fee, like you said, right, I'm doing all this stuff. It is manual labor on my part, but I am not charging the potential tenant any sort of feat in order to do that. And there are a few services that can handle this for you and be

essentially that middleman between landlord and tenant. And the one that Matt and I are partial to we've been using for years is one called my smart move dot com and it's run by one of the three major credit bureaus, trans Union. As a landlord, it's super easy to create

an account. You enter your applicants email address, the site sends them a notification where they can securely enter their personal information, including their Social Security number as well as the payment information, so they pay for it directly, and that's kind of what I love about this. It's a

beautiful thing. I'm not handling any sensitive information of any of these people right already said it feels a little awkward that I'm calling to talk to their boss or their previous landlords, but at least I don't have to ask for their social Security number and credit card information.

I'd rather not handle that information as well, in addition to talk to their past So it's so nice that they're entering it into a third party website and then that third party website spits the results back out to me in email form. So that's kind of what I love about handling it this way. It feels so much less awkward, and at the same time, I'm getting all the information that I need to get. That's right, man. So my smart move dot com is that site. Another

one that's real similar to that is landlord Station. I haven't personally used that, but I did some research on there and it's set up a lot like my smart Move. There's some other sites out there as well, like Cozy dot co and that's uh c o z y dot c o and those sites are a little more robust. The service that they offer also includes free management software with with a portal for collecting rent. It makes it super easy, especially if you have a lot of properties.

It's a great way to automate a lot of your business if you are a full time landlord. So check out cozy dot co or even another side as well, Buildium, and they also offer similar services where it's dude. Essentially, it's like a one stop shop where if you don't want to interact with your tenants at all, use these sites which are great for a lot of reasons. And yeah, yeah, when you're running a business, you want things to be efficient, you want things to be standardized, and and that's how

you do it. Yeah, and that way, you know you're not dealing directly with tenants via text message at all hours of the night, right like they're sending something to this specific website in order to report their problem. But we digress, I guess because ultimately the thing that we're talking about in today's episode is the easiest way to screen a tenant. And so hopefully we're simplifying these steps, letting you know the exact stages of screening, and it's

actually much easier than it appears. Um, it takes a little more time than just typing an email into a website or just making one phone call, right, but doing your due diligence on the front end can save you hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars in eviction fees in dealing with a tenant that is just subpar, right that it's just

hard to deal with. And this my smart Move. The reason I love my smart Move site as kind of that last final step in tenant screening is because at the very end my smart Move really in their l that they send to the landlord pretty much gives you a green, yellow, or red light and they say, all right, this tenant is green. It's good to go. It's clear you should accept this person. And based on all the other screening steps that you've done, you say, boom, that

last green light. That's all I need. And if it's yellow, there are steps you can take to mitigate your risk. Let's say it's yellow because their credit score is a little bit lower than you can say, you know what, all these other steps that I've gone through make this tenant seem pretty trustworthy, and so I'm gonna go with them anyway. I'm just going to require a larger security deposit just to cover myself a little bit more. But I just kind of love that system, and man, that's great.

We're gonna at risk. Another way, too, is with students, right, Like, if you have a student that doesn't hardly make anything and they're trying to get a place, if you go through these steps, that can be really difficult for them to seem qualified, even though they might have a parent who's an attorney. It makes bank. Uh. And so there's certain situations right that might call for a less than traditional signing of the lease, whether that mean having the

parents sign instead for their student who's in school. Yeah, that kind of happened to me once. I had a college student wanting to rent from my house that I was like, there's no way she can afford. But her mom ended up coming with her to the showing and wanted her to live there with a roommate. And it ended up being this great scenario where it was essentially her mom that was the applicant. I ran the mom's credit, got this security deposit from the mom, and then also

the mom was paying the rent every month. And so when you're entering into something like that. That's completely fine, right, that's a way to mitigate risk. Yeah. Ultimately, as a landlord, like the worst thing you can do is to be signing a lease with someone that doesn't have the credit history, the current cash on hand, or the income that qualifies

them to ring your place. Yeah. Man, even though we're in Atlanta, we actually don't have a ton of students, and I think in some cities where it is like heavily college town, that's got to be something that that folks deal with more. It seems like could just be an extra headache, Yeah for sure. Yeah, So in the end, it comes down to how you want to spend your

time and your money. You know, we we've we've touched on this, But in the end, you can spend a little bit of your time and almost no money now while you're screening. Just make sure you're kind of making those calls and doing a little bit of that work now, or you can spend a ton of time and a lot lot more money later on when it's time to

evict somebody. I would choose the former every single time. Yeah, you might get lucky and you might find a good tenant without doing any of this work, right, but that's also kind of playing a game of Russian roulette, and at some point you're gonna get burned by having a bad tenant. I will say that this has pretty much been a foolproof plan for me in finding good tenants. And even when you're doing this right, you're gonna have

headaches as a landlord. Even when you're screening tenants well, even when you're getting people that are qualified that do pay rent on time, you're gonna have headaches. Sometimes that great tenant is going to pay late, and sometimes they're gonna be a thorn in your side asking for small ridiculous repairs, you know, on a way to consistent basis.

But following the uh stages of screening process that we've laid out here is going to prevent of the problems that you might encounter as a landlord with crumby tenants. And so we would say follow these to a t and things will go well for you as a landlord. Nice man, quick little episode on real estate and screening tenants. One of my favorite topics any any day of the week, Like I get super excited to talk about real estate. And the guy I mentioned earlier in the episode, Tim

I met him at the three year old birthday party. So, and he's got seven properties that kind of gets you fired up, right, dude. I love talking with him about it because every landlord kind of has their own personal experience, has their own parts of town that they love working in, has their own kind of story for how they got into it's just fun to kind of have those stories and to talk about it. And then also you hear from kind of the beats that other people will have

experienced in doing the landlord game. And you know what, no matter how long you've been a landlord for it, you're gonna have a beat or two right to share. And said the learning experiences that happen along the way.

I think it's just good for us to share with each other as landlords, and it's good for us to listen to the two people that are maybe a little bit further on down the path than we are, because man, there's always more that we can learn about being a good landlord, about investing in properties well to do well for our families, and wealth building over the long run. Yeah, man, that's true. And I love what you said too about learning from other other folks that are kind of further

down the path. All right, let's talk about the beer. We had Matt variants again. This was raspberry Johnny Kashmir. Is it supposed to be like Johnny Cash? So Kashmir is a type of hop Johnny Kashmir. It must be, It must be. But Kashmir it's like a thing. It's like a velvety, smooth Kashmir. True, right, yep. And it was honestly kind of a velvety beer. There were what three different kind of fruits involved. And the interesting thing is, uh,

it was what raspberry, raspberry, iguava and passion fruit. And the funny thing is what did you taste? What I tasted the most was great fruit and that's not even one of the listed fruits. I don't know why. It was a really really really good beer, but I tasted a lot of great fruit in it. You're not gonna lie. Maybe that's just the combo of those three fruits. They taste like great fruits. Their powers combined equals great fruit,

I guess. So the poored to I mean it poored a really pretty kind of ruby, great fruit color, a lot of fruit on the nose, so really heavy in the fruit. If you're not huge and I p a s. But you love fruit. I would say check this out. If you're local and in the Atlanta area, you can get these guys. Yeah, because Variant doesn't distribute their beers. And you went up to the brewery recently, you picked up this crowler of Johnny cash Mere th two ounces. You know, I each get a point and that was

like lovely man. I now I definitely want to make the trek up outside of town to check out Variant because kind ahead otp because it was a really good beer, and I want to try more other stuff. So you want to hear a funny story. Yeah, we swung by there after. A couple of weeks ago, I took a friday off in me and Kate and the girls. We went hiking and swung by the brewery afterwards, which is perfect, right, beautiful day. You want to go hiking and then you

want to go drink beer. Well, Kate was wrapping up with the girls and before we got back in the car, took him to the bathroom and she had her sunglasses clipped, you know, like you kind of fold them over and hook him on your shirt. And we've got young girls one, three and five. But she had the three in the five year old in the bathroom and she was bending over to kind of help them out get off the toilet glasses in the toilet glasses fell into the into

the toilet, and the girls were freaking out. They're like, nor glasses, mom, and the Kate was like staying calm and she's like, it's okay, I got this, I got this. And so she went and grabbed some toilet paper to kind of make a little glove sort of doesn't work in the water. Yeah, it doesn't really work, but she I don't know, it's just what she had in her mind.

And when she stepped away to grab toilet paper to be able to grab it, it had the automatic sensor flush and it flushed her sunglasses down the toilet, and our girls freaked out even more, and Evvy, our oldest, started screaming, but it's bad for the world, which is like the funniest thing ever. She just kept saying, it's bad for the world for those sunglasses that to go

down that toilet. So those glasses are gone. They're not man, Yeah, they're totally gone, and they're like New Zealand now or something. That's just how I assume the plumbing works here. I felt terrible, and so when I was buying the Crawler, I was like, Hey, by the way, I just want to let you know that my wife accidentally flushed her sunglasses down the toilet and there might be a problem with that last ball. I'm just giving your heads up. I'm out of here at piece, never to be seen again,

never to be seen. I did tell her after I got my Crawler, because I was just like, I want to make that quick getaway. That's awesome, and I love Eavy's reaction. That's so heavy. Yeah, alright, Joel, it's time for our final thoughts again. The reason that we're talking about screen tenants is that this can be very tempting step to skip when it comes to getting a new tenant in your place, and it can cost you a

ton of money if you have to evict your tenants. Yeah, man, in all likelihood, it's going to be a huge headache and it's also going to cost you thousands of dollars. And we can't promise that you're definitely going to avoid leasing your place to a subpar tenant, but we do think that if you will stick to the stages of screening, that we lay out, you're going to amplify the chances of finding someone that is going to treat your home well and pay rent on time. So the first stage

of screening pre screening. Make sure that you have specific requirements in your listing, things like your credit score or your income requirements. Those things allow your tenants to essentially pre screen themselves and they won't be wasting their time

or yours. And then schedule showings. You'll learn a lot by emailing back and forth to set up that appointment, and then you'll also learn a lot in person when they show up, or if they don't show up and they don't tell you anything exactly right, communication or lack thereof when it comes to that initial showing of the property will be a huge tip off whether you're dealing with someone who is responsible and will be a good tenant for the long haul in your place or not.

So the next step. If they like the place, the next thing you want to do is get them an initial application, and this is where they can fill out that personal information, just the basic stuff like tenant history, employment information. You want to make sure they have a signature on there as well. That way you can verify the information with their previous landlords or their place of employment. Yeah, and then make the phone calls, send the emails, do

your due diligence. It's really easy to skip those steps, but those are the most crucial parts of this whole process in order to make sure that you are gaining the most insight into that applicant. You know, verifying their employment and good standing with previous landlords is insanely important. Yeah, it cannot be overstated, man. And then the final step, and once all that checks out, is to run their

actual credit report and their criminal background check. My smart move dot com is a great site to run something like that. You don't have to deal with handling your applicants social Security number or accept payment. It all goes through that website, so be sure to check them out. Yeah. The nice thing is you're not handling any money in this exchange, and Mike smart Move is doing all the heavy lifting for you. But don't skip straight to that step.

You're gonna want to follow all of these stages of screening in order to find the best tenant. Yeah, man, that's right, So thank you folks for listening. Our home on the web is how to money dot com. We'll have our show notes up there for you, where we'll have a list of the sites where you can run

the credit report and criminal background checks on your applicants. Yeah, and if you like this episode, well there's a lot more out there for you to listen to, So check out our backlog of episodes wherever you listen to podcasts, and don't forget to hit the subscribe button until next time. Man, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,