Hittrafficer.com

When a family member passed away a few years ago I inherited an apartment building and suddenly found myself with a new career as a landlord. It is a great job gives me a nice steady income but there are a few downsides and I had to learn them as and when they happened.

You can’t trust everybody, no matter how much you want to. As a landlord, you have to protect not only your property, but you have to protect yourself and your family. It’s also just as important for you protect all the families that rent from you.

One sure way to try and protect all people and property is to run some screenings on people before you rent to them. There are several types of screenings that you can run, to help you decide if you want to rent to someone.

Personally I run a background check, a social security check and a tenant screening. I use MacDataAdvantage.com, it is a great website that provides me with all of the screening tools that I need.

A background check is always an important step in the rental agreement process. It can give you a glimpse into what a person is capable of doing. I obviously wouldn’t want a child abuser living in an apartment next to a family with young children.

I know I wouldn’t want someone with a known history of destroying property to live in my building either. I have also found that running a social security background check is useful. If I have someone who constantly runs out on their rent, then I’m probably not going to take the risk of them running out on me.

A couple of years ago I had a couple approach me to rent one of the apartments in my building They were nice and neat, well mannered and their application form looked fine. I was pleased that I was renting to them because I was sure that they would be no trouble and would rent for a long period.

Then I run the screenings and all the warm fuzzies I had with those two went right out the window. Not only did they have a history of nonpayment of their rent, they had forfeited their security/cleaning deposit twice before for breaking things in the home and for leaving things very dirty.