Tenant search is a grave task that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Finding the right tenant will help you in turning your property into a flourishing investment. To get a better idea about your tenant it is important to ask them valid questions. If you are still thinking about why you must add questions for your rental applications then we have listed a few reasons for you. Have a look and then decide.
Why Add Valid Questionnaire to Your Rental Application
Whether you are a first-time landlord or are trying to upgrade yourselves as a property owner, you must add questionnaires to your rental applications. Doing so will help in getting good information about the tenant and you will get a good idea about the person to who you are planning to give your property. There are a variety of reasons why one should ask appropriate questions before bringing someone into their property. Here, are a few of them that we bring to your notice. Check them out.
Personal information
First and foremost, you need to get personal information about the prospect. It is not just mandatory but also officially correct. It is the first part that normally people are expecting to fill. This basic information will provide you with the point of contact in the future. So, what are the questions that you should leave space for in your rental application?
- Full name
- Email address
- Phone number
- Gender
- Age
- Current address
When you are running the background check-up, it will become easy for you to get this information verified. It is crucial to get this information cross-checked as a landlord for filtering all the invalid or fraudulent cases from the list of prospects. This is only possible while reviewing the answers. You may doubt adding these questions to your list but having answers will help you in the long run.
Avoiding this would make your rental property business witness some of the disastrous consequences, such as:
- A lot of money and time wasted in looking for proper applicants
- Increase in eviction cases
- Damages your reputation, and others
Lease Start Date
The next important question to deal with is the date they will be moving in. It is the next question that you need to ask your prospect. It is a normal yet significant question to deal with. Rental property can become a great business which can be a loss or profitable depending upon the time of the year. Preparing a lease agreement should be done at the right time so that you don’t run into a loss.
You will notice that during the peak seasons during May to September, the rent would go up whereas it is the lowest during December and March. So, while preparing the agreement make sure you don’t forget this point. It is also seen that the difference between the lease and the rental agreement can leave a bad impact on your property business.
History of Eviction
Being a landlord is not an easy task and you may often find yourself surrounded by various concerns such as non-payment issues or eviction history. If you are depending upon the monthly rentals as the source of income then having a sub-par tenant with an eviction history can only bring you troubles.
You can ask them directly or add this question to the rental application. Still, don’t completely rely on their answer and get them cross-checked thoroughly through various sources. Those with past eviction history need to be scrutinized so that you can predict their behavior and decide accordingly. Most landlords find it difficult to go through the eviction process and consider it a waste of time and money.
You can take the help of trusted property management companies in determining their answers to this question and check the reasons for going through the eviction. Some of them can be listed as
- Unlawful detainers
- Failure to pay rents timely
- Tenant judgment for possessions and money
- Tenant judgments for rent
- Writs or warrants of eviction, etc.
Don’t believe everything that tenants write on the rental applications. checking it with the references will also make it valid and easy for you. If you don’t get valid information in the first place try to remove those contestants.
Conclusion
It is too difficult to come across a decent renter. And there is a lot of competition in the market due to the growing demand. Making inquiries, asking good questions will ensure that you don’t make wrong decisions and fall into any problem in the future. To get things right you can take help from property management companies in Baltimore to make it easy on yourself.
Comments
Post a Comment