Give prospective tenants standard Rental Application Form in my county. In the form there are many spaces to fill in. Below I included a link for standard “National Association of Independant Landlord” form for your reference. Since you are NOT a member of this association, you should follow this form as example and type a similar form for yourself using MSFT word. Please note that at the end of the form you should specify the application fee. In my case it’s $25 per applicant in the lease. You use that fee to check credit. Also, by signing this form, the applicants are giving you the right to check their credit. On the application form, you can type in your additional requirements, such as no pets, no smoking so they if they fall into one of these category, they won’t submit the application at all.

http://nail-usa.com/RENTAPP.pdf

sample link for credit check service:

http://www.youcheckcredit.com/landlord-credit-check.html

You can google for other sites.

I will check two record, credit report and eviction report for the state they stayed the longest.

Then, it will take you some time to study their credit report and ask them questions if any uncomfortable facts are found. You may reject a tenant based on undesirable credit scores or bad credit history, but you may NOT reject them based on race, sex, number of children and these sensitive areas.

How to select a tenant is sometimes an art, not a pure science. Since you are new in this, you rather be careful than sorry.

You will place high emphasis on the following red flags:

1) Evidence of non-payment of rent - reject

2) Evidence of being evicted - reject

3) Too many owned debt to others - possible reject

4) Too many collection record, public or private - possible reject

5) Evidence of bankruptcy filing - see how long ago it happened and if recent history still see have problems. If it happened long time ago and recent history shows good payment/rental history, maybe fine.

Finally, you make a decision. If you reject them, you should send them a letter listing the reasons for rejection. Low credit score is a good reason. Say that his score 500 is lower than your criterion: 550.

After you accept one tenant, please schedule a time to meet together and sign the lease, you can find standard lease form on the web for YOUR COUNTY and State. I hereby show you an example for Texas standard lease:

http://www.billevans.com/files/pdf/TAR2001.pdf

Standard lease is usually court tested so it may best protect you when trouble comes. You can add your additional requirement on the lease. Lease can be modified anyway you can as long as it abide by your county’s Landlord Tenant law.